Walmart partners with TikTok for new livestream shopping

Walmart brought a shoppable livestream experience to US TikTok users for the very first time in December 2020.

"The TikTok community enjoyed shopping while engaging with their favourite creators. During the event, we netted 7X more views than anticipated and grew our TikTok followers by 25 per cent," William White, Chief Marketing Officer, Walmart U.S., said in a statement.

The March 11 event will give the TikTok community the chance to shop live for items featured in creator content directly in the app, without having to leave the platform.

The "Spring Shop-Along: Beauty Edition" live stream shopping event will be an all-new experience featuring new creators and shoppable items, Walmart said.

The creators will reveal their favourite Walmart beauty picks and demo their skincare, makeup and hair routines using the items.

Viewers will get beauty tips, as well as tutorials on popular trends.

Beyond the entertainment and education, viewers will also find a shopping experience.

With the tap on any product pin, one can add items to their carts where they can check out during or after the event.

"We will continue to bring more shopping experiences to TikTok in the coming months by partnering with creators to highlight different products via different formats," White said.

Walmart had earlier showed interest to invest in ByteDance-owned TikTok when the Donald Trump administration issued an executive order threatening TikTok with a ban unless it divested its US operations.

The exit of Trump from the White House has reportedly led Beijing-based ByteDance to walk away from a deal to sell its popular short video-sharing platform TikTok's US operations.

ByteDance lost interest in the deal after Joe Biden defeated Trump in the US presidential election, the South China Morning Post reported last month, citing an unnamed source.