After its US launch in September, TikTok Shop faces its first holiday season, heating up competition in the social commerce space.

Retailers invest in shoppable TV ads after seeing early results: Walmart, Amazon, and Home Depot are banking on the format’s interactivity and ability to grab viewers’ attention to drive holiday sales.

Best Buy, TikTok take diverging approaches to live commerce: But getting viewers to tune in remains a serious challenge, regardless of whether retailers focus on education or entertainment.

Half of shoppers worldwide have used social media to discover products, per Salesforce, but even more (59%) have used it to purchase something.

Retailers hold firm on live shopping despite sluggish US adoption: TikTok Shop made the format a cornerstone of its ecommerce strategy, while Macy’s and Poshmark see early progress.

Social commerce and livestream shopping are playing a larger role on TikTok as the platform builds out its ecommerce business, though influencers still have a lot of sway in purchase decisions, especially among Gen Z. To be successful on TikTok, marketers need to lean into discovery and put content at the heart of their strategy.

Our first-ever marketing and retail media survey explores the latest trends unfolding in Latin America, how the regional landscape will evolve, and the broader implications for ad buyers’ and retailers’ go-to-market strategies.

Gen Z shoppers diverge from the general population in terms of where they find and buy products, consumers are still into influencer-driven ads, and live shopping hasn’t taken off yet. Here are five charts to help elevate your social commerce strategy.

TikTok doggedly pursues ecommerce expansion: The platform inked several deals to help grow its merchant base, but it faces significant obstacles in its path to growth.

TikTok sister app Douyin is a livestream behemoth in China, where nearly 40% of internet users also engage in livestream shopping, according to our forecast. But in the US, the format hasn’t caught on in the same way.

Latin America sees livestream ecommerce explode: We unpack the opportunity in the region as outlined in our recent deep dive.

Social commerce sales will reach $107.17 billion by 2025: While Facebook and Instagram will still attract the most buyers, it’s TikTok that’s making the most aggressive moves.

Walmart, TalkShopLive, Qurate expand livestream commerce options to bring in holiday shoppers: But celebrity guests may not be enough to overcome limited consumer adoption and awareness.

TikTok tests in-app ecommerce in the US: The platform hopes its shopping initiatives will offset lower-than-expected ad revenues, and help it gain ground against Meta.

Popularity with Gen Z isn’t enough to stop a US reorg at TikTok: With ad sales slowdown looming, the company is shuffling leadership and hoping social commerce moves pay off.

Insider Intelligence spoke with Liyia Wu, founder and CEO of ShopShops, about why livestream shopping will take off in the US.

The explosion in vertical video is creating both opportunities and challenges for the Story format. Stories are evolving quickly on Instagram and remain a top venue for influencer activations. But Twitter’s decision to kill off Fleets shows they aren’t popular on all platforms.