TikTok is testing a rival to Amazon Prime as it looks to create a US e-commerce giant

• TikTok is testing a membership program for shoppers called TikTok Shop Plus.
• Like Amazon Prime, the offering includes discounts, coupons, and free shipping on some items.
• Shop Plus may help the company build stronger customer loyalty and avoid losing sales to Amazon.

TikTok is ripping a page from Amazon’s playbook.

The social-video app is testing a Prime-style membership program for some US shoppers, according to screenshots of the offering viewed by Business Insider.

The program, called TikTok Shop Plus, is built into Shop, its e-commerce platform. Like Amazon Prime, it offers members a mix of perks like free shipping, product discounts, and coupons.

In one example of the service in action, a hair product normally sold on TikTok for around $57 was discounted to $47 for Plus members, along with free three-day shipping. In another, Plus members were offered a $5 discount on a beauty product that normally costs close to $50.

TikTok is testing the Plus service at various price points, including $6, $10, or $15 a month, according to screenshots viewed by Business Insider.

TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

The introduction of a membership program could help TikTok keep its shoppers from leaving its app to make purchases, a former Shop staffer said.

“TikTok, for a long time, watched a lot of their bottom-funnel buyers go over to Amazon,” the ex-staffer said. People would see an item on TikTok and “run over to Amazon to make a purchase,” they added.

“I think TikTok is really trying to squash that and capture as much of those final conversions as they can,” they continued.

Other large US e-commerce players like Walmart and Target have offered similar membership programs designed to engender customer loyalty, offering free shipping and special discounts for a fee.

TikTok Shop Plus is the latest in a string of product releases and strategy shifts at the ByteDance-founded company that have mirrored offerings popularized by Amazon. Like Amazon, TikTok offers its own full-service shipping and fulfillment service to merchants. It has also leaned into buyer-friendly offerings, such as fast delivery windows.

The overlap in ideas isn’t surprising. TikTok hired dozens of Amazon staffers to join its team when it prepared to launch in the US in 2023. Current and former TikTok employees previously told Business Insider that its early staff meetings sometimes felt like Amazon alumni reunions, and that the company adopted similar internal practices, such as using narrative memos to share ideas and encouraging single-person ownership of projects from start to finish.

TikTok’s US e-commerce business, which EMARKETER — a Business Insider sister company — forecasts could cross $23 billion in sales this year, is still a small player compared to Amazon, which EMARKETER expects will make more than $500 billion in US sales in 2026.

TikTok is thinking long-term about how it can further crack the US market and build a shopping marketplace that comes closer to the hundreds of billions of dollars its Chinese sister app, Douyin, drives in annual sales.

“There are brands now that are TikTok-Shop first and do their new launches exclusively on TikTok,” said Kierra Butcher, a TikTok agency partner who works with Shop creators. “TikTok has proven itself as a marketplace, and the opportunities have continued to grow with time.”

Read the original article on Business Insider