Amazon is taking over social media by partnering with TikTok and Pinterest. Users will be able to buy its products directly from the apps, without going through the e-retailer’s website.
It is not new that social networks take advantage of their popularity and the engagement of communities to push their users to buy products – it is not for nothing that we speak of influencers. They have even ended up becoming real e-commerce platforms. According to Adyen’s study30% of French people have already used social networks to make purchases during 2023, a rate which rises to 50% for the famous Generation Z.
Suffice to say that Amazon has its eye firmly set on this new market of billions of consumers! specialist magazine The Information And Bloomberg news agency revealed on August 8 that Jeff Bezos’ firm had formed new partnerships with TikTok and Pinterest. While clicking on an Amazon ad from these platforms usually redirects users to the company’s website, these agreements will allow them to purchase products from the e-commerce giant directly from these two social networks, without leaving the applications. A function currently reserved for the United States.
Amazon Partnerships: Buy Directly from TikTok and Pinterest
TikTok gave more details about this in a blog post. This way, users will see Amazon product recommendations appear as ads integrated into their “For You” feed, carefully selected by the algorithm based on their interests. They will then be able to make their purchases directly from the social network, provided they link their account with that of the e-commerce platform. They will then be able to finalize a payment with Amazon in the product ad, without leaving the TikTok application. ByteDance specifies that “Users who choose to link their accounts to the United States will see real-time pricing, Prime eligibility, delivery estimates, and product details on select Amazon product ads on TikTok as part of the experience.”. It is not known, however, whether this new feature will be rolled out outside the United States.
These agreements allow Amazon to diversify its points of sale and to profit from the billions of users of the platforms, by betting on the growing practice of shopping on social networks – this is what is called social shopping or community shopping. This is not the first time that the e-commerce giant has carried out such collaborations, since it had already established similar partnerships with Meta and Snapchat.
On the other hand, this approach is more surprising coming from TikTok. Indeed, the social network has been multiplying initiatives for some time to develop its own online shopping platform. It had thus deployed TikTok Shop in the United Kingdom and the United States, allowing brands to sell their products directly in the application. It had also tested the Trendy Beats function in order to be able to sell its own products there. However, selling products via Amazon could potentially cannibalize its sales…