News

With $19 billion in quarterly sales, TikTok Shop now rivals eBay

How big is TikTok Shop? Just two years after its U.S. launch, its sales already rival those of a 30-year-old ecommerce platform.

So claims analytics firm EchoTik, which compared TikTok Shop’s gross merchandise value (GMV) to that of eBay. When the two social shopping hubs are paired against one another, eBay still comes out on top — but only barely. The place to go to bid on used items generated $20.1 billion of quarterly sales between July and September of this year. TikTok Shop’s GMV over the same period reached $19 billion.

Almost-kinda-sorta equalling eBay may seem like an inconsequential achievement on the surface, but the astonishing part of this comparison isn’t the relative sales figures — it’s the rapid pace at which TikTok Shop has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar social shopping empire. eBay had a multi-decade head start before its ByteDance-owned rival even existed, and the publicly traded company established its ecommerce presence long before anyone conceived of the term “creator economy.”

Subscribe to get the latest creator news

Subscribe

Thanks to a strong consumer base in Asia, an aggressive overseas expansion plan, and some regulatory victories in the United States, TikTok Shop has rapidly gained on eBay in the arena of sales. In 2024, Shop’s GMV for the entire year topped out at $33.2 billion

, and that figure was itself a massive increase over the previous year.

Even though the threat of a federal ban has loomed over TikTok’s U.S. operations for all of 2025, Americans still provided the biggest chunk of TikTok Shop’s quarterly sales. U.S. consumers accounted for between $4 billion and $4.5 billion in quarterly sales, a number that more than doubled year-over-year. “We have mostly focused on TikTok from this point of view of the TikTok ban, and we have almost forgotten that TikTok Shop’s share in US ecommerce just continues to grow slowly,” independent ecommerce analyst Juozas Kaziukėnas told WIRED.

The most astonishing part of this comapirson is that TikTok Shop might only be getting started. The platform’s significant sales figures in the U.S. have come even as many Americans remain skeptical about social shopping. If the app can convince more of its users to buy into its virtual storefronts, surpassing eBay may only be the beginning. I’m not much of a bidder — hence my lack of experience with eBay — but if I was, I’d bet on TikTok’s continued ecommerce success.

Share
Published by
Sam Gutelle

Recent Posts

Have you heard? Maya Higa’s TED Talk, Smosh’s first content chief, and MatPat’s NFL reveal.

Each week, we handpick a selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends,…

13 hours ago

StreamElements seeks acquisition as shutdown looms

A decade after its initial launch, StreamElements is in dire straits. The streamer platform is…

15 hours ago

Volt Factor, with partners like Alan Chikin Chow and TheBurntPeanut, puts a charge into creator IP

The increasing scale of creator businesses will be a prominent theme at next month's VidCon…

16 hours ago

Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Manga energy pink sauce

'Tis the season for festive holiday beverages, and some of YouTube's biggest channels are raising…

1 day ago

Roblox just hired its first Chief Growth Officer

Roblox just hired its first ever Chief Growth Officer. The platform is, as the kids…

2 days ago

‘CoComelon’ big-screen adaptation gets voice cast, February 2027 release date

On February 19, 2027, we will learn if the biggest family-friendly phenomenon on the internet…

2 days ago