Western social apps on the cusp of mobile commerce explosion

Mobile commerce - Shopping - Western World

The trend has already taken off at full force in China, and the West is primed for the same.

Social media mobile commerce trends have already taken off in China, and apps like TikTok are pushing to take this boom into the Western world as well.

These applications have seen the opportunity and are now seeking to build a massive new market.

Consumers in China spent a massive $208 billion on the Douyin app alone – a mobile commerce application owned by the same company as TikTok, ByteDance. That app, like other shopping applications, has experienced a tremendous amount of growth. That said, social media platforms have seen that trend and expect that it is hardly isolated to China alone. Instead, they expect that this trend should soon be taking off in the Western world, such as in the United States.

Mobile commerce - United States - Map and Flag

Of course, this is not expected at the same rate and pace as was witnessed in Southeast Asia, due to differences in population and culture, but there is still a considerable opportunity for growth expected in the Western world, where the trend is still in its early days. For instance, while people are making purchases through their apps, social shopping is just in its infancy.

In-app mobile commerce is growing in the West, but livestream purchases are only just hinted at.

Livestream shopping has become very popular in Southeast Asia, but many consumers in the United States haven’t even heard of this trend. In-app shopping might be taking of, but as huge as social shopping is in Southeast Asia, it has yet to reach that point to the west.

Among the drivers for social shopping in the US and other Western countries is TikTok, an app owned by a company in China. It’s so tremendously popular that it has the potential to take online purchasing in a fresh direction.

Even though social mobile commerce growth has been slow and steady in the US market, it is reaching the point that many experts are expecting that it is soon to reach the explosive point. Of course, even if it takes off first through TikTok, it doesn’t mean that the trend will necessarily be limited to that platform. Meta’s Facebook and Instagram are sure to claw into the trend as heavily as possible, as will others including image-based Pinterest.

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