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• From The Information:
"TikTok has hired two retail veterans who worked at Amazon and Meta Platforms to help oversee its ambitious push to build a giant U.S. ecommerce business. At the same time, TikTok’s U.S. ecommerce general manager, Sandie Hawkins, is leaving the company, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.
"The shakeup comes as TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew is trying to build a big TikTok ecommerce business, including through the launch of a service called Shop, which lets people buy things in the TikTok app. The company has been building out its own supply chain and fulfillment operations with logistics partners and gearing up to sell its own products, as well as recruiting brands to sell through the app … The two new ecommerce executives are Nicolas Le Bourgeois, who earlier in his career worked at Amazon, and Marni Levine, a former eBay executive most recently with Meta Platforms. They will now oversee U.S. ecommerce between them."
The Information writes that "TikTok has been offering subsidies to entice U.S. merchants to sell through the app, including covering some of the costs of returned items and subsidizing shipping costs for TikTok Shop sellers. So far, however, TikTok has struggled to sign American merchants up for the nascent service, in part over merchant concerns that the app could be banned. The new leadership could help supercharge TikTok’s efforts to court merchants."
