2025 was a successful year for small businesses that sold goods on TikTok Shop, and a fresh raft of data shows us just how big those gains have been. According to research spearheaded by GlobalData and commissioned by TikTok Shop, 67% of consumers turn to TikTok’s ecommerce hub as their go-to discovery engine for products and brands.
That data point positions TikTok Shop as a more popular product discovery engine than Amazon, physical stores, and YouTube. Two-thirds of TikTok Shop users succeeded in their discovery journeys by finding out about a new brand at some point in the past year.
Small businesses benefited the most from that widespread curiosity. GlobalData found that, over the past year, 72% of the brands discovered by TikTok Shop users were small businesses that pull in less than $15 million of annual revenue. TikTok told Modern Retail that small businesses increased their Shop sales by 66% year-over-year in 2025. The number of small businesses selling on the platform also increased, going up 25% year-over-year to reach 215,000.
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Discovery-related behaviors regularly convert to sales on TikTok Shop. About 58% of respondents who discovered a small business on TikTok Shop later bought from that company on the platform.
The power of creator recommendations has been a major boon for those small businesses. 70% of TikTok Shop consumers have purchased a creator-recommended product, per GlobalData, while 73% of that group used the platform to find inspiration related to creator-backed products.
TikTok is already harnessing creator recs to turn itself into a travel booker. Based on GlobalData’s findings, creator-backed products can also serve as a complement to the growing number of luxury goods available on TikTok Shop.
“Through the video and live streaming and community elements, there’s really a lot for brands of any size to be able to connect with the target audience,” TikTok Shop Head of Strategic Initiatives Patrick Nommensen told Modern Retail. “We really see it as an ecosystem and a platform where brands of all sizes can be successful.”
The broadness of TikTok Shop’s approach has lifted its bottom line. Between January and April of this year, TikTok Shop’s U.S. sales reached $6.75 billion, according to Charm.io. That was nearly twice as big of a number as the equivalent figure from 2025.
The continued expansion of TikTok’s ad suite will push sales numbers even higher. The platform’s Newfronts pitch included details about five new ad formats, and the TikTok World event offered another chance to keep the product announcements coming. TikTok’s business-facing activity isn’t slowing down, and its brand partners don’t have to, either.
