TikTok Shop is not just becoming a place where big brands test another storefront. It is also turning into a serious growth channel for smaller sellers. According to Digiday, U.S. small businesses on TikTok Shop increased sales by 66% in 2025 compared with the previous year.
TikTok Shop now says more than 215,000 small businesses are actively selling on the platform in the U.S., up 25% year over year. The company defines small businesses as sellers with less than $15 million in annual revenue. That matters because TikTok Shop is trying to prove it can scale beyond viral beauty products and major brand storefronts without losing the seller energy that made the marketplace feel different in the first place.
Discovery is becoming the demand engine
The strongest number in TikTok Shop’s new report is not only the sales growth. It is the discovery behavior around smaller brands. The GlobalData report commissioned by TikTok Shop found that 67% of consumers go to TikTok Shop when they want to discover new products and brands, ahead of Amazon at 57%.
It also found that 72% of brands discovered by TikTok Shop users over the past year were businesses with less than $15 million in annual revenue. In other words, the small-business story is not just about merchants uploading inventory. It is about the platform turning attention into new customer acquisition at a pace traditional marketplaces rarely create for unknown brands.
Creators make commerce feel less like commerce
Creator recommendations continue to sit at the center of that behavior. TikTok Shop’s report says 70% of TikTok Shop consumers have bought a product recommended by a creator, while 88% of shoppers who buy through creator recommendations made those purchases within the past year.
That is the real platform advantage. A small brand does not need to look like a polished retailer from day one. It can look like a founder, a livestream, a chaotic demonstration, a haul, a review, or a community joke that suddenly becomes a checkout moment. The feed makes the sales pitch feel native because the sales pitch arrives as entertainment first.
Scale creates the next problem
TikTok Shop is also growing into a more serious marketplace. Major retailers and brands have been moving in, including Ulta Beauty, Sally Beauty, and Disney. At the same time, TikTok is adding more seller tools, from shoppable photos to countdown bidding for livestream auctions.
That creates the next challenge. The more TikTok Shop looks like a mainstream retail channel, the harder it becomes to preserve the messy, founder-led, creator-driven texture that made smaller sellers stand out. If every product starts to feel optimized, subsidized, and professionally merchandised, TikTok risks becoming just another marketplace with better video.
For now, though, the small-business numbers show why TikTok Shop is dangerous to traditional commerce. It does not wait for intent. It manufactures it in public, lets creators carry the trust layer, and puts the checkout button close enough that discovery can become revenue before the shopper has time to leave the feed.