Social commerce 2025 year in review: TikTok Shop growth & marketing trends

The social commerce revolution hit its inflection point in 2025. Global shoppers spent nearly $1 trillion through social platforms this year, with TikTok Shop emerging as the breakout force that redefined how brands connect with consumers (Capital One Shopping, 2025).

For marketing executives evaluating 2026 budgets, the data tells a clear story: social commerce isn’t supplementary – it’s central to digital strategy.

TikTok Shop’s explosive growth reshapes platform priorities

TikTok Shop doubled its global GMV in six months, reaching $26.2 billion in H1 2025 – a 100% year-over-year increase (Momentum Works & Tabcut, 2025). The platform’s Black Friday Cyber Monday performance generated over $500 million in U.S. sales across four days, representing a 5x increase over 2024 (TikTok Newsroom, 2025).

This fundamentally changed how consumers discover and purchase products. Nearly half of platform users made purchases after seeing content – the “TikTok Made Me Buy It” phenomenon became a measurable business driver.

Small creators deliver outsized ROI

Micro-influencers with under 50,000 followers generated 30.1% engagement rates on TikTok affiliate links – 1,570% higher than comparable Instagram campaigns (Capital One Shopping, 2025). This performance gap explains why 61.2% of marketers integrated TikTok influencers into their strategies.

Brands that embraced tiered influencer strategies – paying top talent while nurturing communities of smaller creators – saw 10.7x higher ROI than last-click attribution models suggested (Precis, 2025).

Enterprise brands commit to always-on strategies

2025 marked the year legacy brands stopped testing social commerce and started committing resources. Gap, Samsung, Disney, and Glossier all launched TikTok Shop storefronts.

Successful brands adopted always-on presence rather than campaign-based approaches. QVC’s 24/7 livestreams made it a top-10 TikTok Shop store during Cyber Week (WWD, 2025). Beauty brands led performance, generating $109 million during Black Friday weekend – a 55% year-over-year increase. K-Beauty brands Medicube, Dr. Melaxin, and Skin1004 leveraged TikTok virality so effectively that Ulta Beauty acquired all three (WWD, 2025).

Execution differentiates market leaders

With 15 million merchants selling on TikTok Shop globally and 58% of users shopping directly in-app, infrastructure has matured (Resourcera, 2025). Barriers to entry are lower – but strategic execution matters more.

Successful brands shared common approaches: 3-4 videos weekly, content under 30 seconds, platform-native formats, and multiple weekly livestreams. Brands that treated social commerce as content strategy rather than sales channel consistently outperformed competitors.

What 2025 means for 2026 budgets

The $1.66 trillion global social commerce market is projected to reach $19.81 trillion by 2034 at 31.7% CAGR (Precedence Research, 2025). This isn’t speculative growth – it’s happening at scale.

The strategic question isn’t whether to invest in social commerce, but whether your organization has platform-native expertise to execute effectively. The brands that thrived in 2025 understood that success requires specialist knowledge, authentic creator partnerships, and always-on content production.

The product may exist, but as 2025 proved, the story must be good and told where audiences are – increasingly inside social commerce experiences rather than traditional ecommerce sites.