After leading the social media landscape, TikTok seems interested in challenging Google's dominance in search. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that it is testing the ability for users to take or upload a photo to find similar products on the TikTok shop.
The feature, which was first detected by x.com/jonah_manzano/status/1795493773604167968″ target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>User x Jonás Manzano, is available to all users in the United States and Southeast Asia. Users who have access to the new feature will see it in the form of a camera icon in the TikTok shop search bar.
Let's say you are in a restaurant and you really like the dish they serve you on. You can open the TikTok app and take a photo of it to find similar items available for purchase on the TikTok shop. Or let's say you're shopping online and you find a top you like and it's too expensive. You can save the image and then upload it to find something similar at a cheaper price.
While you've always been able to search for specific items on TikTok shop, you no longer have to rely on textual descriptions. The ability to use image search to shop is something that Google has offered for years with Google Lens, its visual search tool. amazon, another tech giant that TikTok is looking to compete with, also offers image search.
TikTok has already made progress in reducing Google's search dominance, as executives at the tech giant said in 2022 that TikTok and instagram are eating into its core search product. With this new feature, TikTok is not only trying to get people to use its app when searching for new products, but it is also hoping that people will make the purchase through TikTok shop.
The company is not just coming for Google or amazon with this new feature; It also seeks to compete with other companies that offer image search tools for shopping, such as Klarna or even startups like Cherry.
Tik Tok shop-safety-2023-2/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>recently revealed That TikTok shop now has more than 15 million sellers worldwide, including more than 500,000 in the U.S. It spent more than $400 million on platform security and built a team of more than 7,500 people to help maintain TikTok shop safe.
TikTok has been betting big on e-commerce as it sees TikTok shop as its next big potential revenue stream. The company's e-commerce efforts are also a way to keep users on its app unlike others. By developing and expanding TikTok shop's capabilities, TikTok hopes people will spend more time and money on its e-commerce product.
The company is expanding its e-commerce efforts despite facing a possible ban in the US. In April, President Biden signed a bill that will ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, fails to sell it within the deadline. one year.
