EcommerceIndustry ContextThursday, March 26, 20265 min read

Sales from major brands on TikTok Shop nearly doubled in 2025, drawing Ulta and Sally Beauty

Modern Retail13d agoamazonwalmarttarget
Sales from major brands on TikTok Shop nearly doubled in 2025, drawing Ulta and Sally Beauty
Executive Summary

TikTok Shop's big-brand sales rose 97% YoY in 2025, with Ulta Beauty and Sally Beauty launching storefronts as 103B+ e-commerce searches hit the platform. Transaction volume climbed nearly 80% YoY, signaling TikTok Shop is now a primary retail channel, not an experiment.

Our Take

As major retailers flood TikTok Shop, they'll absorb the best-performing creators into exclusive or preferred affiliate deals, driving up commission rates and squeezing smaller brands out of the top creator tier. Brands not already building a TikTok Shop affiliate roster now are setting themselves up to compete for creator attention against Ulta's budget.

What This Means

This accelerates platform consolidation in social commerce -- TikTok Shop is following Amazon's playbook where brand name recognition and creator networks become moats, compressing margins for smaller sellers who can't match affiliate rates or marketing budgets.

Key Takeaways

Audit your TikTok Shop affiliate commission rate today -- if you're below 15-20%, top creators will prioritize Ulta/Sally Beauty over your products as big-brand competition for creator attention intensifies.

In the next 30 days, identify and onboard 10-20 mid-tier creators (100K-500K followers) before major brands lock up the highest-converting ones with exclusivity or higher payouts.

Bottom Line

Big brands on TikTok Shop means creator competition and higher affiliate costs for everyone.

Source Lens

Industry Context

Useful background context, but lower-priority than direct platform, community, or operator intelligence.

Impact Level

medium

Big brands on TikTok Shop means creator competition and higher affiliate costs for everyone.

Key Stat / Trigger

Big-brand sales on TikTok Shop rose 97% year-over-year in 2025

Focus on the operational implication, not just the headline.

Relevant For
Brand SellersAgencies

Full Coverage

Shoptalk // March 26, 2026 Sales from major brands on TikTok Shop nearly doubled in 2025, drawing Ulta and Sally Beauty By Allison Smith Ivy Liu TikTok Shop is no longer just for small brands. Now, big retailers are joining — and they’re cashing in.

Sales from big-name brands — those with at least $30 million in annual revenue — increased 97% year-over-year on TikTok Shop, the company told Modern Retail. The platform is also seeing more shopping activity overall; TikTok Shop logged more than 103 billion U. S.

searches with e-commerce intent in 2025, while total transaction volume rose nearly 80% year over year. Major retailers want a slice of the action. Ulta Beauty told analysts on an earnings call earlier this month it was launching a storefront on TikTok Shop.

Shortly after, Sally Beauty also announced that it would soon sell its wares on the fast-growing live shopping platform. While many brands and creators sell directly on TikTok Shop, big-name brands and retailers that carry multiple brands have been slower to join. The range of brands selling on TikTok Shop is growing.

In February, PepsiCo launched its first product on the platform: a creator-led line called Flavor Swaps. The launch comes as TikTok Shop pushes further into food and beverage. All told, the data underscores how TikTok Shop has become a full-fledged retail destination, not just a video-sharing app with a shopping tab on the side.

Part of the appeal for larger brands is the size and sophistication of TikTok Shop’s creator network, which has become a key sales engine for companies on the platform.

The number of creators earning commissions through TikTok Shop rose 146% year over year, according to the company, highlighting how the platform’s affiliate network is helping attract larger brands looking for new ways to reach customers.

“We have over 16,000 creators who are generating over six figures in sales, which really shows how far the ecosystem and the community have come since first launching TikTok Shop in the U. S. about two and a half years ago,” said Patrick Nommensen, head of strategic initiatives at TikTok Shop.

“This has been a big driver of more and more big brands coming to the platform, because now there’s this community of creators for them to be able to work with.” Big brands are also starting to test more creative ways to reach different corners of TikTok.

Nommensen pointed to a recent Hershey’s campaign tied to the Winter Olympics, in which the chocolate maker launched a gold medal-themed bar and promoted it through creators across very different communities. One video featured a cyclist rewarding herself with the chocolate after a grueling workout.

Another showed a mom blogger handing it out as a prize during a backyard competition. A third came from a baker who melted the bar into a dessert. “The growth has been very strong and continues to be strong, and we see more and more big brands come onto the platform and activate in really unique ways,” Nommensen said.

Another sign TikTok Shop is growing up: brands are hiring full-time managers dedicated solely to the platform, similar to how Amazon marketplace teams emerged a decade ago. SharkNinja was paying as much as $154,000 a year to hire a full-time “TikTok Shop manager” to grow sales on the platform.

Kenvue, which manages a portfolio of consumer brands including Neutrogena, Aveeno and Listerine, was also hiring a “social commerce manager” to launch “new branded storefronts” on TikTok Shop. TikTok Shop says bringing on larger retailers does not necessarily require a different onboarding strategy than what it offers smaller sellers.

Instead, Nommensen said the company is focused on ensuring a strong customer experience as more large brands join the marketplace. Bringing more established brands and retailers onto the platform ultimately helps improve the breadth of products available to shoppers, according to Nommensen.

“We are all focused on offering the best user experience to our buyers, and that means product depth in terms of selection, in terms of inventory,” he said. He added that things like returns and customer service are also critical as the platform grows its roster of larger sellers. TikTok Shop’s rise in the U. S. hasn’t been without challenges.

When the platform first launched in 2023, some major brands took a wait-and-see approach, wary of regulatory uncertainty and unsure whether American consumers would embrace buying products directly through a social video app. Previous concerns about a potential U. S. ban also made some larger companies hesitant to invest heavily in the channel.

But those concerns have begun to fade as TikTok Shop’s sales growth has continued and the threat of a U. S. ban has faded. At the same time, U. S. consumers appear to be growing more comfortable shopping through TikTok, as the company builds out its marketplace and adds more recognizable brands. Ti

Original Source

This briefing is based on reporting from Modern Retail. Use the original post for full primary-source context.

View original
LinkedIn Post Generator

Style

Audience