TikTok is currently hiring for positions related to building out fulfillment capabilities in the US, aimed at providing warehousing and supply chain systems to support ecommerce efforts. As many have noted, this may put the short form vertical video giant in direct competition with ecommerce titans like Amazon in the near future.

In order to compete with Amazon, however, TikTok will have to build trust with consumers, as it’s currently held in far lower regard than the leading ecommerce platform in the US. Still, there are reasons to believe it might be able to overcome this to establish itself as a major shopping channel for US consumers.

 

US Consumers Four Times as Likely to Trust Facebook as TikTok

 

This year, Tinuiti surveyed 1,000 US internet users to better understand how they felt about key issues regarding online privacy. One of the questions asked which social media platform respondents thought best protected online consumer privacy.

The biggest takeaway from the responses was that consumers don’t know which social platform to trust, with 43% saying all social media platforms were the same and 23% saying they weren’t sure, such that two-thirds of respondents couldn’t identify a platform they felt protected their privacy better than others.

Only 3% chose TikTok as the platform they most trusted to protect their privacy. Compare that to Facebook, long criticized as failing to build trust with the public, drawing 12% of all respondents. Further, Meta-owned Instagram drew 7% of respondents. Simply put, TikTok is far down on