As TikTok continues to hunt new methods to maximise its income potential, particularly round in-stream purchasing, the corporate has filed some new trademark requests within the U.S., which might level to expanded choices coming to the app.
As reported by Semafor, TikTok lately filed two new U.S. logos.
“One seems to be an app, TikTok Go, to advertise “eating places, retail companies, the journey business, and different on-line and offline companies.” It guarantees to assist create advertising and marketing and promoting supplies, develop monetary projections to judge advertising and marketing investments, and supply advertising and marketing advisory and technical consulting, amongst different capabilities.”
The trademark submitting does certainly determine this as a separate app, although I think that it might even be associated to the mini-app choices which have turn into a key ingredient of the Chinese language model of TikTok.
On Douyin, the Chinese language model of TikTok, third-party builders are capable of combine “Mini Applications”, that are basically smaller, extra light-weight variations of their very own apps inside the broader Douyin ecosystem.
Douyin’s mini packages are accessible through the left facet operate menu within the app, offering entry to a spread of mini-apps for meals ordering, ride-hailing, ticket purchases, and so on., all inside Douyin itself. That permits Douyin customers to conduct much more of their each day transactions in a single platform, which has supplied extra alternative for Douyin to broaden person behaviors.
TikTok could also be trying to do the identical, with this new TikTok Go program probably offering a platform that might allow third-party companions to construct their mini-apps through a separate platform, which might then be displayed inside TikTok.
The broader thought, then, can be to get individuals doing extra issues inside the app, which might then assist it broaden its broader in-stream purchasing ambitions. Which is the place the true cash is. For comparability, Douyin generated over $500 billion from in-app gross sales in 2023, which dwarfs TikTok’s consumption.
The highway map for Douyin’s success is what TikTok’s trying to, and as such, I anticipate that this shall be one other solution to incorporate extra purchasing and buy exercise in-stream.
TikTok’s different trademark submitting pertains to a buy-now-pay-later service referred to as TikTok PayLater.
“TikTok references a PayLater service on its Philippine web site, enabling clients utilizing the app’s e-commerce platform TikTok Store to separate their funds into month-to-month installments.”
Semafor says that the trademark submitting suggests the U.S. model of the identical might fulfill extra capabilities, however conceptually, it’s a funds program, designed to supply extra methods to facilitate transactions in-stream.
It stays to be seen whether or not TikTok will be capable to make in-app purchasing a factor, as a result of whereas expanded purchasing, and live-stream purchasing specifically, have resonated in Asian markets, Western shoppers nonetheless stay lukewarm on such choices.
That’s altering over time, and the developments recommend that youthful audiences, specifically, are extra open to in-app spending. However Western consumers additionally appear much less enamored by shopping for choices inside social apps, or built-in fee and ordering functionalities, preferring as a substitute to maintain totally different apps separate, for various capabilities.
Which will change, however it might additionally take time. Both approach, anticipate to see TikTok persevering with to push this effort, within the hopes of boosting its income consumption.
