Best Buy Joins TikTok Shop as Platform Chases Mainstream Status

Best Buy started selling its products on TikTok Shop this week, the latest established retailer to join a platform now projected to reach $23.41 billion in US retail e-commerce sales in 2026, according to eMarketer.

The electronics chain framed the move as a response to how consumers now find products. "Social media isn't just influencing what people buy anymore," Jonathan Greer, VP of e-commerce at Best Buy, said in a statement. "It's shaping how they discover products, with creators playing an increasingly important role in what people notice, consider, and want to try."

Best Buy's debut follows a rapid run of brand signings. Sephora joined TikTok Shop earlier this month. Ulta began selling on the platform in March. Behind the recruitment push sits Project Horizon, an initiative The Information reported on in January, under which TikTok offers e-commerce agencies incentives to court established brands with at least $10 million in annual sales on rival platforms.

The strategy marks a pivot. TikTok Shop, which opened in September 2023, built its early business on heavy discounts. Now the platform wants to look less like Temu and more like Amazon, said Katya Constantine, CEO of agency Digishopgirl Media.

"They're trying to position themselves more toward a mainstream channel like an Amazon versus how people consider Temu," Constantine told Retail Brew.

A Prime rival takes shape

In July, TikTok Shop rolled out TikTok Shop Plus, a paid membership program priced between $6 and $15 a month. Members get free shipping, member discounts and other coupons. Sky Canaves, eMarketer retail and e-commerce analyst, said the program could give TikTok a way to match Amazon's shipping perks and layer on additional benefits over time — a playbook Amazon Prime has already run, expanding from free shipping into Prime Video and other value-adds.

The usage numbers back the ambitions. Some 70% of US social commerce shoppers made a purchase on TikTok in the past year, the highest share of any social platform, according to an April survey from Bazaarvoice and eMarketer.

Brands are noticing the compounding effect of selling where they advertise. "They've been pretty convincing in showing that having a TikTok Shop presence in addition to advertising on TikTok on its own provides a bigger lift than just the advertising on TikTok," Canaves said. "We've been seeing over the last year or so—I mean, it's been gradual but steady—the willingness of larger brands to join TikTok Shop."

For Constantine's clients, TikTok now functions as a marketplace channel that in some scenarios is almost "as big as" the brand's own dot-com business, she said.

Creators and social proof drive conversion

Large brands come to TikTok for shoppers and for influencers who can pitch products to their followers. Shoppers trust TikTok creators with big audiences more than polished ads, according to Andy Szanger, director of strategy at CDW, a company that manages tech stacks for retailers. The authenticity resonates differently than traditional advertising, he said.

TikTok also supplies real-time social proof. Viewers can read what other people are saying in the comments right in the feed — validation that Szanger called powerful and immediate in a way traditional shopping cannot achieve.

That discovery-first dynamic is what separates TikTok Shop from incumbent marketplaces, Canaves said. "It relies so much more on word of mouth and discovery rather than a traditional marketplace like an Amazon or eBay," she said, "where people tend to go when they have an idea of what they want, and they search it and they buy it and they leave."

With Best Buy, Sephora and Ulta now on board and a Prime-style membership live, TikTok Shop enters 2026 positioned to compete for established retail budgets that once went exclusively to Amazon and eBay.