While TikTok looks to offset a potential U.S. ban by expanding its ecommerce offering Shop to new markets, Amazon is reportedly giving up on its TikTok competitor Inspire, multiple sources report.
Amazon Abandons Inspire, but not Inspiration
Amazon’s Inspire short-form video and photo feed launched in late 2022 and was designed to give users a more engaging experience on the Amazon app while offering influencers another channel to connect with shoppers and make money.
A company spokesperson confirmed the shutdown of Inspire in an email to Retail TouchPoints, saying “we regularly evaluate various features to better align with what customers tell us matters most, and as part of that, Inspire is no longer available.” While specific details behind the decision to end Inspire were not given, the company spokesperson pointed to other, presumably more successful, inspiration efforts on Amazon, including interest-based product feeds, creator storefronts, curated collections and its AI shopping assistant Rufus.
The decision to shut down Inspire now, as a potential TikTok ban looms in the U.S., could seem counterintuitive, but as TechCrunch noted, in the years since Inspire launched, Amazon has made significant inroads into selling via established social media networks — efforts that have likely been more fruitful than asking influencers and customers to change their existing habits and seek out content in a new channel. Other live shopping efforts by Amazon have faced similar challenges, with influencers giving up after finding it was hard for them to build an audience for their content on the more mission-driven Amazon app.
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“Beyond Amazon, we know that customers look for inspiration and product recommendations in social feeds, and we’re innovating to make shopping for Amazon products more enjoyable through seamless social media integrations,” the Amazon spokesperson added.
TikTok Hedges its Bets, Expands Shop to 5 New Markets
TikTok plans to expand its Shop ecommerce offering to Italy, Germany, France, Japan and Brazil this year, according to the South China Morning Post, which cited three people familiar with the matter.
The expansion comes as TikTok’s fate in the U.S. remains in limbo. After the U.S. government’s ban was upheld by the Supreme Court in January, President Trump signed an executive order his first day in office to delay the enforcement of the law for an additional 75 days. At the time, Trump said that he planned to find a solution “that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans,” but nearly 30 days into the “stay of execution,” no viable deal appears to be in the works yet.
Earlier this month, Apple and Google reinstated TikTok in their app stores, and in the midst of the continuing uncertainty TikTok is maintaining a “business-as-usual” attitude in the U.S. On Valentine’s Day the company rolled out a new shopping featured called the “Most Loved” badge, aimed at bolstering shoppers’ confidence in their TikTok Shop purchases.
While the U.S. is certainly TikTok’s biggest market, with nearly 136 million users, the app is used by millions more around the world. Brazil, one of the countries reportedly slated to get Shop this year, is TikTok’s third-largest market in terms of audience with nearly 92 million users in that country, according to Statista. And the TikTok Shop offering already has proven popular in other countries where it’s been launched, including the UK and several Asian markets.
