TikTok’s coming for Amazon’s search traffic

AMAZON.COM has long been the dominant platform where people start their shopping searches for everything from earbuds to summer dresses. But its grip over that first step in a shopper’s journey is loosening as ByteDance’s TikTok aggressively draws traffic and becomes a more popular place for people to shop. TikTok’s growing influence has exposed Amazon’s big weakness: for all its success in retail logistics, it’s not really a fun place to browse or discover new trends.

Many giants have fallen in the cut-throat world of retail, and Amazon’s frumpy, catalogue-style platform risks pushing it into irrelevancy among those in their teens and early 20s – the shoppers of tomorrow – who demand entertainment, engagement and a dash of the unexpected from the brands and platforms they spend time on. Take, for example, the last festive quarter when 67 per cent of consumers quizzed by search and marketing analytics firm Jungle Scout about social media and gifting said TikTok was the most influential platform for gift ideas.

Last month, Amazon announced steps to catch up with a new feed called Inspire, billed as helping it break into what retail experts call social commerce. Over the next few months, shoppers will see a lightbulb in the navigation bar of the Amazon app that will take them to curated reviews and ads for different products on the site. Think Instagram, but on Amazon. The idea is for shoppers to discover new things and feel influenced to buy the product with Amazon.