TikTok usage is starting to slow down – is TikTok Shop to blame?

TikTok may have been the world’s most popular app by downloads and consumer spending in 2023, but it wasn’t the leader in actual usage. Last year, Facebook again retained its No. 1 position in terms of monthly active users, followed by fellow Meta-owned apps WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger – all overtaking TikTok in 5th place. New data shows that TikTok’s growth has begun to slow, raising the question of whether the app’s move to e-commerce via TikTok Shop is to blame.

TikTok’s growth remains positive but is slowing, according to new data from market research firm Sensor Tower. In 2022, TikTok’s monthly active users grew by an average of 12% year-over-year per quarter, but in 2023 that number declined to 3% year-over-year per quarter.

The change comes after the launch of TikTok Shop in the US

The video app began testing Shop in the US in November 2022, and that testing expanded early last year as more brands joined the app, including PacSun, Revolve, Willow Boutique and beauty brand KimChi Chic, among others. While the store didn’t “officially” launch in the U.S. until September 2023, it was just one of several attempts to translate the impact of TikTok videos – essentially the entire “TikTok told me to buy this” meme – into real-world sales.

Last summer in the UK, for example, TikTok experimented with an in-app shopping section called “Trendy Beat” that offered products sold by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. TikTok also offers an affiliate program that allows creators to earn commissions on products, AP and others have reported.

But seller interest in the shopping platform has begun to lead to complaints, as Business Insider noted in November, with some lamenting that TikTok Shop is turning the app into an “ad-filled wasteland” and a “dystopian” space. Elsewhere online, Reddit users are debating whether TikTok Shop has “ruined” the app, which is now filled with “dropshippers/low-cost people,” as one Reddit user put it.

“Personally, what’s really starting to annoy me is that in almost every other video on my site (For You), someone is exaggerating a product from the Shop feature in an attempt to go viral and earn a lot of commission,” Redditor u/megg-salad-sammich wrote in September . “It’s great that this is a new way for creators to make money, but I’m browsing less and less because I know that almost every video is designed to get me to buy some random thing,” they said.

A search of Reddit turns up many more threads complaining about the same situation throughout the past year – finding that TikTok is now “annoying” because of TikTok Shop and showing ads every few videos is a frustrating experience.

As TikTok users adjust to their favorite social network turning into an online shopping mall, TikTok’s Shop Seller app, which supports its e-commerce initiative, has grown.

Sensor Tower data shows Shop Seller’s growth has been “robust” since Q4 2022, reaching 230% year-over-year since Q4 2023. However, the app only has a fraction of TikTok’s active user base – – currently 1.4 billion as of for the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, Shop Seller only has about 6 million monthly active users.

Instagram could ultimately benefit from user frustration around TikTok Shop, considering the Meta-owned app removed its own Shop tab last January and ended live shopping in March. This could potentially make it more acceptable for those who want to avoid more direct calls to action to make in-app purchases.

Meta’s move was driven by broader industry trends that don’t seem to bode well for the future of TikTok Shop. Live shopping has boomed during the pandemic, and e-commerce sales have skyrocketed. But when things returned to normal, it turned out that social commerce (including live shopping) only accounted for about 5% of total U.S. e-commerce sales in 2022. This seemed to indicate that American consumers may not have been as prepared for shopping directly from videos, although of course they are still influenced by online trends.

However, users are not yet so worried about TikTok Shop that they will abandon the app in favor of Instagram Reels.

Sensor Tower found that Instagram’s monthly active user growth has remained relatively steady in the “mid-single digits” and has not had a significant negative or positive impact since the launch of the TikTok Shop Seller app.

Data from another company, Appfigures, also supports this conclusion, but adds that while TikTok’s revenues are growing, downloads are stagnating or falling rather than rising – a trend that has been ongoing for over a year now, both globally , as well as in the United States

Image credits: Apps

Image credits: Apps