US TikTok ban pushes SEA merchants to Amazon, Etsy

Jofie Yordan contributed to this story.

Bui Manh Linh has been selling made-in-Vietnam handicrafts on TikTok Shop US for nearly a year. But that could soon change with the country’s looming TikTok ban.

Southeast Asian sellers have hoped to replicate the success of their Chinese counterparts and sell to the world’s largest consumer market. But having built TikTok Shop operations to anchor their US presence, they are now scrambling to adjust.

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On top of building his own website, Linh is diversifying to other platforms such as Amazon and Etsy. However, this brings its own set of challenges.

Such platforms “can’t hold a candle to TikTok Shop. There are fewer opportunities for new sellers to compete with established ones on those traditional ecommerce platforms,” says Linh, who is also CEO of Tikhub, a multichannel network that incubates and supports brand affiliates on TikTok.

Linh isn’t the only one. Before the brief TikTok disruption on January 19, Vietnam-based wooden product manufacturer Crosify was planning to launch its US store on TikTok Shop and set up a separate operations team dedicated to the platform.

“Now we can’t help but slip back to our old ways,” says Crosify co-founder Dong Duc Thanh, referring to his company’s existing presence on Amazon and Etsy.

Incentives, incentives, incentives

Crosify had targeted just 10% of its US sales to come from TikTok, so Linh didn’t anticipate an immediate impact from the ban. In fact, he expected the risk of the app’s total shutdown in the country to be low.

However, he now admits that TikTok’s potential closure in the US could impact sales and growth in the long run.

This is due to TikTok’s user base. With Gen Zs and millennials accounting for more than 85% of the platform’s active adult users globally, TikTok’s audience aligns perfectly with Crosify’s target customers: young parents purchasing toys under its Kalotoys brand.

Thanks to the app’s global popularity, sellers have become used to video commerce as a way of promoting their products online, according to experts. For Thanh, TikTok helps his company communicate product messages to consumers more efficiently. The platform contributes about 60% of Crosify’s revenue in Vietnam.

With ecommerce features that link products to videos and facilitate live shopping, TikTok’s model pushes demand and stimulates impulse buying, as well as enhances brand engagement with customers.

“We often do not need to invest much, but we can still obtain good results via TikTok Shop, which is offering a lot of incentives to support sellers,” says Linh. He is referring to the app’s generous discount vouchers for buyers and shipping fee subsidies, which helps merchants offer more attractive pricing.

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