The TikTok ban might actually be happening, and while we’ve been talking about the potential impact on creators since the ban was first floated five years ago (yes, it’s really been that long), there’s another cohort of people who could be significantly impacted: small business owners.
According to the Associated Press, TikTok estimates that small business owners will lose out on more than $1 billion in revenue per month if the ban goes through.
The platform didn’t say exactly how that revenue is generated, but we can safely assume a significant chunk comes from its ever-growing ecommerce hub TikTok Shop. TikTok doesn’t often disclose sales numbers from the hub, but it did say that sellers there made over $100 million on Black Friday alone, with some independent brands (like creator-owned cosmetics company Canvas Beauty) seeing six figures’ worth of sales in the 24-hour period.
Subscribe to get the latest creator news
Outside of TikTok Shop, small businesses can also generate revenue by making content that drives sales, or just by running digital ads. If TikTok gets banned, that’s all gone.
We’ve spoken to dozens of small business owners over the years whose companies started to take off thanks to short-form videos. The AP spoke to a few more who are bracing to lose that reach.
Desiree Hill, for example, started as a mobile mechanic and, thanks to TikTok, was able to purchase a 9,000 square foot shop and hire five employees.
“Every day I get at least two to three customers that have seen me on TikTok, watched my videos and wanted to become a customer,” she told the AP. She added that she has accounts on other platforms like YouTube and Instagram, but doesn’t see the same traffic that TikTok brings.
“I am worried because there is no preparation for this,” she said. “It holds such a significant place in regards to my customer base and how I reach customers that if I lose TikTok, I will lose a large part of my business or I will lose my ability to grow anymore.”
Another entrepreneur, STEM educator Crystal Lister, said she’s similarly tried to expand off TikTok onto YouTube and Instagram, but struggles with their comparative lack of content creation tools. (Both platforms have video-making capabilities, but they pale next to ByteDance‘s CapCut, the same way their ecommerce offerings haven’t had the catching power of TikTok Shop.)
“It is going to be a challenge if TikTok is banned because we’re losing kind of all the functionality you want—the ability for a video creation, the ability to spread the word via social media,” Lister told the AP. “So we’ll have to use many other platforms to supplement what TikTok did in one.”
If TikTok is banned, it’s possible that both creators and viewers will influx to other platforms and small business owners will be able to find more reach. But as both these entrepreneurs pointed out, TikTok has things other platforms don’t, including an astronomical audience growth rate in the wake of viral videos. People who’ve been able to capitalize on their TikTok virality have become full-time creators and/or owners of burgeoning businesses. We’re not saying that’s never happened on YouTube, but if TikTok goes away, can YouTube Shorts in its current state fill those shoes and restore that $1 billion in lost income?
As of right now, we don’t think so—which means all that TikTok creators (whether they’re small business owners or otherwise) can do is be smart with the money currently coming in. They can also try building connections with their TikTok viewers off-platform by doing things like collecting email addresses for newsletters or special shop offers, and starting communities like Discord servers.
TikTok’s ban is due to come down Jan. 19.
