To grow sales on Amazon, brands are turning to TikTok Shop - Modern Retail

Ivy Liu This is the latest installment of the Brands Briefing, a weekly Modern Retail+ column about the growth strategies of modern brands. More from the series → Dave Dama, the co-founder and CEO of electric toothbrush brand AquaSonic, woke up one day in February to a surprise. The company’s Electric Pink Vibe Series had sold thousands of units on Amazon, depleting all inventory. It was a huge step up from weeks prior, when people were buying a couple dozen units a day. Dama went onto TikTok and found that a video highlighting the colorway had gone viral. The post, from creator @stacymariekay, had racked up thousands of likes, with comments such as, “You had me at pink.” The video linked to AquaSonic’s TikTok Shop store, which the brand set up in 2025. “There’s definitely a lot of crossover happening from TikTok onto Amazon,” Dama told Modern Retail. “You know there’s a halo effect, just from what you’re seeing.” He’s not the only one observing this. While TikTok Shop is still fairly young — it launched in the U.S . in 2023 — it’s also proving crucial to brands’ sales across other channels, particularly Amazon, retail executives told Modern Retail. That’s because shoppers may discover a product on TikTok Shop but complete the purchase on Amazon, where they can get expedited shipping, read reviews, nab a discount or take advantage of their existing Prime membership. Data indicates that shoppers are still overwhelmingly buying from Amazon. A recent study by the marketing agency Envision Horizons found that only 9.5% of consumers named TikTok Shop as their preferred place to buy, following social discovery. Amazon won out handily, at 48.8%. When people abandoned a purchase from TikTok Shop, it was because they “wanted to compare prices elsewhere” (36.7%) or “found a better deal” (35%). “Consumers aren’t scared of the platform — [but] they’re shopping it against your Amazon listing,” said Laura Meyer, the founder and CEO of Envision Horizons. “Price parity is now a TikTok strategy.” Online sellers are making note of this. Eugene Khayman is the co-founder of Million Dollar Sellers , a private community of about 800 e-commerce entrepreneurs, many of whom generate at least $1 million in annual revenue. About 250 sellers are actively pursuing TikTok Shop today. For them, “The biggest benefit is often what happens outside TikTok,” Khayman told Modern Retail. “TikTok Shop is only about 3% of member revenue in aggregate, but it can drive branded search on Amazon, traffic to your own site [and] retail interest,” he said. This halo effect varies by category, but it “can be substantial, oftentimes 1.5-3x the TikTok volume, spilling over,” Khayman said. This is important, he explained, because when brands grow TikTok Shop sales and then see a rise on Amazon, they can potentially pull back on expensive Amazon marketing . “That lets them rely less on Amazon ads, because customers are already looking for them by name,” Khayman explained. Brands in multiple categories are finding that their Amazon sales go up after investing in TikTok Shop. Jool Baby, a baby-products company, joined TikTok Shop in 2024 and was having trouble selling its On My Own Potty Ladder on Amazon that same year. The brand was selling about five to 10 units a day on Amazon — until parents started posting about it , en masse, on TikTok. Now, Jool Baby is doing about 200 units a day on Amazon, said president and founder Judah Bergman. “Not everybody’s comfortable with buying things on TikTok, and also, not everyone necessarily buys [something] the minute they see it,” Bergman told Modern Retail. “They saw it on TikTok, and now they’re thinking about it, and then they go on Amazon to buy it a week later.” All of this is changing how brands view the relationship between TikTok Shop and Amazon. Dama, who also oversees the skin-care brand Pure Daily Care (which joined TikTok Shop in 2023), sees TikTok as a “discovery platform,” while Amazon is “more predictable.” People come to Amazon searching for something specific, he shared. “That’s why we’re treating TikTok as less of a revenue and profit driver, and more as a brand awareness and growth driver.” Similarly, Khayman said that TikTok is good at “creating demand,” while Amazon is good at “capturing demand.” He added, “The strongest brands are increasingly using TikTok to create awareness, Amazon to capture high-intent shoppers and their own site to build the customer relationship.” However, it’s not just Amazon that’s benefiting from TikTok Shop. Bergman said he sees Jool Baby’s sales rise on Babylist, Walmart and Target after a product goes viral on TikTok. Similarly, eyeglasses brand Quay, which got on TikTok Shop in 2025, sees a ripple effect across various channels. “We’re seeing more of an ecosystem impact,” CEO Katherine Cousins told Modern Retail. “You might discover us on TikTok Shop. You might go into a Nordstrom and try us on, or into one of our stores, and then you might buy online. It’s this really interesting consumer journey that we just have to be optimized [for] in every point of distribution or point of contact.” There are some limitations to this halo effect, however. What takes off on TikTok Shop may not be the same as what takes off on Amazon. Quay, for instance, finds that bolder styles tend to do well on TikTok Shop, versus Amazon. “We talk about Amazon a lot as the milk and the eggs, [as] things that people already know you for,” Cousins explained. “Whereas, on TikTok Shop, [customers] also want to see the newness.” Meanwhile, Dama said AquaSonic toothbrushes have sold out so many times on TikTok Shop and Amazon that the brand has struggled to secure the proper amount of inventory. When a product takes off on TikTok, it “creates a challenge with supply chains” across the board, he said. He’s seen three months’ worth of inventory sell out in 48 hours. It’s a good case for why it’s important to diversify, Dama said. “It’s a no-brainer that if something does well on TikTok, you’re going to put it on the marketplace and try to grow a predictable sales pipeline on Amazon,” he said. “On TikTok, the sales could be there one day, and then the virality goes away. So, you’re going to take advantage of that, when you can, to build outside of TikTok.” Anna Hensel contributed reporting. What we’re reading Marquee Brands has agreed to acquire Roots , taking the apparel brand private. (Business of Fashion) Smart ring giant Oura is looking to raise up to $3 billion in a U.S. IPO. (Bloomberg) California Pizza Kitchen is deploying 1,000 pizza “ATMs” over the next three years. (Chain Store Age) What we’ve covered Hershey is using AI to strategize for s’mores season. With a record $2.7B in sales , U.S. Polo Assn. is scoring points with younger audiences. Dorm decor is proving to be big business for Urban Outfitters. Copy link