How the Tikok shop could tempt you to buy the impulse

Now there are only a few clicks between the product that the influencer holds in the camera on Tiktok, and the purchase. On March 31, the TikTok shop was activated in Germany, since then you can also shop directly in the app in this country. Entertainment, community and discovery – according to Tiktok, all of this should combine a unique shopping experience. Among the first dealers are the fashion platform About You, the cosmetic brand Essence, the costume shop Deiters and the Nivea care brand.

You can imagine the shopping experience like this: If you see the “hair ripe with bees” in a video of Deiter, you can get a yellow shop symbol on the bottom of the screen directly to the shop, you can put your hair ready in the shopping cart and order. Tikkok takes over the complete logistics from storage to picking to packaging and for shipping. Compared to other countries, Germany is “late to the party”. In 2021 the Tikok shop was introduced in Indonesia, followed by four other countries in Southeast Asia. At the end of 2022 Great Britain, the United States, in 2023, Spain and Ireland last year. So now Germany as well as France and Italy.

The concept of the “Discovery E-Commerce” has great potential. Tikkok reaches more than 1.5 billion people worldwide. According to the federal representative, 20.9 million people actively use the platform in Germany, according to the federal representative for data protection and freedom of information (BFDI). According to Tikok, there are even 24.2 million users – and they spend around 100 minutes on the platform every day. This time is worth a lot of money in our attention economy. According to the “textile industry”, the TikTok shop 2024 achieved a gross volume of more than $ 30 billion ($ 27 billion). At the end of last year, bytedance announced that the Chinese group, which behind Tiktok is that the number of dealers in Great Britain have doubled to more than 200,000 within a year. According to the “New York Times”, the Tikok shop is said to have identified around 20 percent of the e-commerce market in Malaysia in 2023. The principle of comfortable digital shopping seems to work.

But there are also a few hooks. Peter Lassek advises Hessian consumer protection to be careful when shopping via Tikk-Shop: “The users have to deal with some well-known influencers who have called themselves 'content creator' and have been selling everything for many years. Simply because they serve one of the oldest human needs: trust. Possibly tempted to fast, unplanned purchases by an appealing and funny product presentation. ” In order to avoid impulse purchases, Lassek recommends taking a look at who is behind the recommendation and what the product costs elsewhere. According to Lukas Neuerburg, speaker of the Federal Center for Child and Youth Media Protection, children and young people are particularly at risk of making impulse purchases. In this phase, if you are looking for role models beyond your parents' house, you are very receptive to buying recommendations from Internet stars. Tikok is intended for the fact that under eighteen -year -olds cannot access the shop – but how this should be controlled is unclear, said Neuerburg. Andrea Rungg from Tiktok Germany says: “If we find that someone is not in the right, age -appropriate experience, we limit access to the functions, including the shop.”

According to Neuerburg, the brain development of children and adolescents, which has not yet been fully completed, is added. Your ability to take long -term consequences of decisions tend to be reduced. With regard to buying behavior, this means: a reduced impulse control and a higher sensitivity to reward stimuli. This is exactly what the TikTok shop uses. Due to the low -threshold shopping, there is no moment of pausing. It is all the more important that parents have an eye on their children and make sure that a real age is stored in the profile. Once incorrectly set, be it a bit difficult at Tikkok to change the age, but this can be solved via a support request. Neuerburg also recommends being interested in being honest: “This means that you should not go into the conversation with a negative attitude, but, for example, inform about the economic interests of influencers, analyze consumer behavior and enable the child to reflect a moment.” It is also important to enable the child to make independent purchase decisions so that it becomes independent.

And what about data protection in relation to the new shop function? Peter Lassek appeased: “Of course, here and there are concerned that Tikkok could collect a lot of information about the users and that you become a glass customer. But this will also be used when using many other apps if you do not take certain precautions or without us. Tikok promises to adhere to German and European data protection laws.” Nevertheless, he recommends staying vigilant and questioning what happens to the personal data.