TikTok Shop's annual sales are set to exceed 100 billion U.S. dollars, and this achievement is not driven by live-streaming product sales.

In the narrative of cross-border e-commerce, TikTok Shop has always been a highly enigmatic, almost surreal presence.

In the early days, overseas media and brands mostly perceived it as "the Asian live streaming sales model transplanted to Europe and the United States". They imagined thousands of young Americans frantically tapping the "buy" button on their screens, paying for those streamers who promote goods with all their might.

However, the actual market trend has thoroughly disproven this stereotype.

According to the latest forecast released by Momentum Works, the total global merchandise transaction value (GMV) of TikTok Shop is expected to exceed 100 billion U.S. dollars for the first time in the full year of 2026, reaching approximately 123.5 billion U.S. dollars. Compared with 16.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2023 and 64.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, if the forecast comes true, it means that its merchandise sales will increase by about 6.5 times in roughly three years, far exceeding the general market expectations previously.

At a time when the e-commerce dividend has peaked and global consumption is sluggish, how on earth did TikTok Shop achieve this? Breaking down this report, we will find a highly counter-intuitive truth: the real killer feature of TikTok Shop is not live streaming at all.

The "Atypical" Victory in the U.S. Market

To understand the explosive growth of TikTok Shop, we must look at its largest market — the United States.

Data shows that in the first half of 2026, the cumulative GMV of the U.S. market reached 11.8 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year surge of 103%, surpassing Indonesia to become the world's largest single market for TikTok Shop for the first time. In the same period, Indonesia recorded around 10.8 billion U.S. dollars, Thailand around 9.2 billion U.S. dollars, and Vietnam around 5.5 billion U.S. dollars. The outbreak of the U.S. market benefits from its huge consumption capacity and highly mature credit card and logistics infrastructure. Local European and American brands have also shifted from the initial "posting videos for a trial" to directly opening Shop stores, regarding it as a core channel for clearing inventory and launching new products.

But what is more interesting is the composition of American consumers' spending habits.

In China and Southeast Asia, live streaming sales often account for a considerable proportion of e-commerce GMV. However, the report reveals a completely different picture in the U.S. market: in the recent GMV composition of TikTok Shop U.S. site, live streaming only accounts for 8.2%.

What is the real main driver? Short videos and shelf e-commerce. Videos (where users discover products through short videos) contribute 40.4% of the GMV; transactions completed directly through online stores (shelf e-commerce) account for 51.4%.

This set of data largely breaks the industry illusion that "TikTok Shop = live streaming sales". In the United States, consumers are not used to waiting in front of the screen for hours, listening to streamers counting down "3, 2, 1, go live with the link". They are more accustomed to being attracted by content while scrolling through funny videos or beauty tutorials, then naturally clicking the shopping cart icon in the lower left corner, or completing the purchase in the store later.

"Many strategies that can effectively improve user duration and conversion in China and Southeast Asia do not work in the United States," the researcher of Momentum Works concluded.

This is precisely the most formidable strength of ByteDance: instead of rigidly educating the U.S. market, it iterates rapidly, and based on the local American consumption habits, has blazed a new path of "short video content-driven product discovery + shelf e-commerce fulfillment".

Globalized Replication of the Creator Ecosystem and the "Wealth Creation Myth"

Apart from the differences in front-end consumption habits, the reason why TikTok Shop can achieve such rapid growth also lies in its successful replication of the domestic Douyin "creator-led sales" ecosystem overseas, and its deep integration with Southeast Asia as a "strategic rear base".

In traditional cross-border e-commerce (such as Amazon), the connection between merchants and consumers is cold search terms; while the connection on TikTok Shop is "real, living people". In Indonesia, Vietnam and even the United States, TikTok Shop continues to subsidize and support local mid-tier creators. These creators do not need millions of fans — as long as they have a few thousand fans, their video content is sufficiently niche and vertical, and their sales conversion rate is high enough, they can obtain massive traffic tilt from the platform. Especially in Southeast Asia, relying on its mature supply chain advantages and high internet penetration rate, TikTok Shop quickly completed its initial capital accumulation, providing cash flow and operational experience for the expansion of the European and American markets.

Through this mechanism, the platform distributes its huge traffic pool to countless small individual entrepreneurs. This "wealth creation myth" has produced a huge siphon effect in overseas markets, attracting a large number of merchants who previously struggled with high traffic costs on Amazon or independent sites to move their business here. To seize this wave of dividends, merchants are even willing to lose money to drive traffic, which further pushes up the GMV growth rate of the platform.

Global Folding of Interest-based E-commerce

After understanding the above logic, you will realize that the explosive growth of TikTok Shop is essentially the successful replication and localized adaptation of China's "Douyin model" overseas.

Over the past few years, Douyin has completed its transformation from a "pure content platform" to a "full-domain interest-based e-commerce" ecosystem in China. It uses short videos and live streaming to stimulate users' potential demands (interests), and then uses search and malls to meet users' explicit, determined demands (shelf e-commerce). Now, TikTok is replicating this flywheel overseas — but not simply copying it.

The core logic of traditional shelf e-commerce (such as Amazon) is "people search for products". While the core logic of TikTok Shop is "products find people". Through powerful recommendation algorithms, products are accurately pushed to people who may be interested in them. This model, to a certain extent, reduces the traffic acquisition cost for merchants, and also taps into unplanned consumption.

When the mindset of "discovering desirable products" through short videos is strong enough, users will naturally generate the demand to "browse the online store". The proportion of over 50% of transactions completed in online stores indicates that TikTok Shop has evolved from a mere "traffic pipeline" to a platform that has built its own solid e-commerce ecosystem.

Amazon and Temu Caught in a Pincer Attack

The 100-billion-dollar explosive growth of TikTok Shop has pushed the global e-commerce landscape into a more complex competitive state.

The first to bear the brunt is Amazon. Although Amazon has the world's top logistics and supply chain network, TikTok Shop is intercepting traffic at the source. As the younger generation of consumers are getting more and more accustomed to "consuming while being entertained", Amazon's traditional search-based shopping is losing its appeal to some young people. To defend its market share, Amazon has also tried to place ads on TikTok, trying to divert traffic back to its own closed ecosystem.

Another rival is Temu, which also originates from China. Relying on its extremely low price and "fully managed" model, Temu has carved out a unique competitive edge in North America and Europe. But TikTok Shop and Temu follow completely different routes: Temu sells "low-cost daily necessities", while TikTok Shop sells "emotional value and impulse consumption".

However, TikTok Shop is not entirely free from worries. Its biggest weakness lies in its logistics infrastructure and fulfillment capabilities. Compared with Amazon's "next-day delivery" and Temu's gradually established local warehouses, the logistics network of TikTok Shop in some overseas markets still relies on third parties to a certain extent. When GMV rushes to hundreds of billions of dollars, the resilience of the fulfillment chain and delivery timeliness will become its biggest constraint. To this end, TikTok is accelerating to make up for this shortcoming, launching the "Fulfilled by TikTok (FBT)" local warehousing and logistics service similar to Amazon FBA, trying to improve the fulfillment experience.

In addition, the "Sword of Damocles" hanging over TikTok — the regulatory risk from the U.S. government — remains the biggest uncertainty. Once this risk is triggered, it will directly affect the valuation of TikTok Shop and merchant confidence.

Conclusion: The Boundary Between Content and Commerce Is Dissolving

In roughly three years, GMV has surged from the 10-billion-dollar level to the 100-billion-dollar level.

The rise of TikTok Shop is not only a commercial phenomenon, but also a reconstruction of the traditional e-commerce logic. It proves that with the support of algorithms and content ecosystems, the boundary between content and commerce is accelerating to dissolve. The e-commerce of the future may no longer be a "supermarket" that requires users to actively open an App and search for products, but a "boundless marketplace" that is seamlessly embedded in every swipe, every laugh, and every moment of resonance.

Those onlookers who are still waiting for a "Li Jiaqi-style" overseas live streaming hit may miss this wave of dividends. Because the real incremental growth has long been quietly captured in the 40.4% of short videos and 51.4% of online store transactions. The 100-billion-dollar GMV is just the opening ceremony of a new era.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Tech Business", written by Tech Business, and published with authorization from 36Kr.