In the fierce competition of global e-commerce today, TikTok Shop is like a dark horse, running wildly and showing amazing development momentum. According to data from Momentum Works, TikTok Shop's global GMV will double in the first half of 2025, with a total transaction volume soaring to $26.2 billion. This achievement undoubtedly caught the attention of the entire e-commerce industry.

US market: rapid growth, structural changes

The US market has always been an important driving force for TikTok Shop's performance growth. In the first half of 2025, the GMV of TikTok Shop's US site reached $5.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 91%. Such a high growth rate is particularly impressive in the mature US e-commerce market.

Image source: Momentum Works

By delving deeper into its income structure, we will discover interesting changes. The main sources of revenue for TikTok Shop are direct store transactions, short video chain sales, and live streaming sales. In the past six months, although short video e-commerce has remained strong, accounting for 50% of GMV in the US region, it has declined compared to 58% in the same period last year. The proportion of GMV directly sold by the store has steadily increased from 32% to 36%, serving as a stable basic transaction scenario and supporting overall sales. The performance of live streaming e-commerce should not be underestimated, although it currently only contributes 14% of GMV, compared to 10% in the same period last year, the growth is significant, which clearly indicates that the penetration rate and specialization of live streaming e-commerce in the US market are gradually increasing.

Image source: Momentum Work

With the continuous adjustment of TikTok algorithm on the weight of e-commerce content, the GMV proportion of videos and live broadcasts is highly likely to exceed 75% in the future, and traditional store entrances may gradually become auxiliary tools. However, a noteworthy phenomenon is that in the first half of 2025, TikTok's US region only held one live event with a GMV of one million US dollars, which is a significant decrease compared to the four events in 2024. The weakening of the head effect may have a certain impact on the growth of high order value categories within the platform.

Indonesian market: catching up from behind and surpassing the United States

In addition to the United States, the Southeast Asian market, especially Indonesia, can be considered a key strategic location for TikTok's e-commerce business. Since TikTok invested heavily in acquiring a controlling stake in Indonesian e-commerce platform Tokopedia in 2023, completing its local regulatory layout, TikTok Shop's development in Indonesia has accelerated. In the first half of 2025, the GMV of TikTok Shop Indonesia reached 6 billion US dollars, successfully surpassing the US market and becoming the largest single market for TikTok's global e-commerce.

Image source: Momentum Works

This achievement is not only due to TikTok's precise layout of the Indonesian market, but also closely related to Indonesia's huge Internet user group and the rising demand for e-commerce consumption. The success of the Indonesian market has also provided valuable experience for TikTok Shop's expansion in other Southeast Asian countries and even global markets.

Restructuring of Growth Logic: From Traffic Dividend to Scenario Innovation

The outbreak of TikTok Shop is not accidental, but has built a growth logic that is different from traditional e-commerce. Unlike traditional models that rely on search traffic, its core competitiveness lies in accurately matching content and consumer demand through algorithms, naturally transforming entertainment scenes into transaction scenes. This' content is the shelf 'model is reshaping the decision-making path of global consumers.

From the data performance, the potential of this model is continuously being unleashed. Despite facing external policy pressure and competition from giants, TikTok Shop has achieved a significant increase in scale thanks to its unique advantage in content scenes. But behind the rapid growth, there are also hidden concerns: the balance between content commercialization and user experience is becoming increasingly prominent, and the continuous rise in traffic costs is testing the operational efficiency of the platform.

Future Challenge: How to Balance Scale and Sustainability

TikTok Shop is currently at a critical stage of development. The success of the Indonesian market proves the effectiveness of localized operations, but how to replicate this experience to more regions still needs to be explored.

In addition, in the external environment, the policy pressure of the US "ban if you don't sell" bill continues to exist, bringing uncertainty to market operations; At the same time, giants such as Meta and Amazon are accelerating their layout in social e-commerce, and competition is becoming increasingly fierce. At the internal operational level, the balance between content commercialization and user experience is becoming increasingly prominent. Its advertising CTR (click through rate) has decreased from 1.8% in 2023 to 1.2% in 2025, and the average annual increase in traffic costs has reached 35%. How to solve the contradiction between growth and experience has become a key issue. The strong rise of TikTok Shop is like lighting a guiding light for the social e-commerce field, clearly demonstrating the infinite possibilities hidden in this market. It cleverly combines the entertainment charm of short videos with the commercial value of e-commerce, not only opening up new territories in the commercial landscape, but also fundamentally changing the shopping patterns of global consumers. Looking ahead to the future, whether it can continue to lead in the long competition of global e-commerce depends on whether it can successfully resolve various challenges from both internal and external sources while maintaining growth vitality.