On the Chinese version of TikTok, a new ecommerce initiative is emerging. Beijing-based parent company ByteDance is letting Douyin users in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu order food delivery through the app.
According to CNBC, ByteDance has been testing the new service since December. Rather than ordering delivery from a list of restaurants, Douyin users can receive coupons from vendors who show off their dishes on the app. Once a discount is selected, the purchasing user can schedule to have the associated food item delivered over the next two days.
Douyin’s incoming feature could compete with several local options for food delivery, including Meituan and the Alibaba-owned Ele.me. “We would consider expanding the feature to more cities in the future depending on the testing results,” a Douyin spokesperson told CNBC. “There is no detailed timeline yet.”
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ByteDance has not said whether it plans to bring food delivery to TikTok, though that would be a logical next step if the Douyin version of the feature drives sales. There is evidence to suggest that TikTok viewers (sometimes) order dishes after seeing them on the For You Page. Last year, the ByteDance-owned app partnered with Instacart to add ingredients from viral recipes into shopping carts.
On the whole, ByteDance has had more success with ecommerce in Asia than in the West. The company’s plan to bring its TikTok Shop platform to the U.K. hit speed bumps and struggled to gain traction. Not to be denied, ByteDance started testing TikTok Shop in the U.S. toward the end of 2022.
If TikTok is going to deepen its involvement in ecommerce, the $167.5 billion food delivery market is a good place to start. Recent job postings have suggested that TikTok wants to open Amazon-style fulfillment centers the United States. Perhaps those facilities will one day pack up foodstuffs alongside household wares — but that depends how hungry you are.
