That’s according to a report Friday (July 24) from Business Insider, citing screenshots of the offering seen by its journalists.
According to the report, the program is called TikTok Shop Plus, built into the social media company’s eCommerce platform. It offers perks such as free shipping, discounts and coupons for members, similar to Amazon Prime, Business Insider added.
The report gives an example of the program in action: a hair product that usually sells for $57 was marked down by $10 for Plus members, who also received free three-day shipping. TikTok is testing the program at a range of price points: $6, $10 or $15 a month, the screenshots seen by Business Insider showed.
A former TikTok Shop employee told Business Insider that the launch of a membership program could help the company keep users from leaving the app to make purchases.
“TikTok, for a long time, watched a lot of their bottom-funnel buyers go over to Amazon,” they said. “I think TikTok is really trying to squash that and capture as much of those final conversions as they can.”
PYMNTS has contacted TikTok for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.
Business Insider noted that other major players in the eCommerce space — Walmart and Target among them — have similar membership programs aimed at boosting customer loyalty through offerings like free shipping and special discounts.
The report also pointed out that TikTok Shop Plus is the latest in a series of product releases and strategy shifts at the company that are in line with Amazon’s services, including full-service shipping and fulfillment for merchants, and speedy delivery windows for customers.
In other eCommerce news, PYMNTS wrote last week about the way Amazon and Walmart are now “competing to control a longer, more fragmented cycle of consumer attention.”
According to PYMNTS Intelligence research, an estimated 244 million U.S. consumers, or 93% of adults, shopped at least one of the two company’s recent shopping events, up from 135 million the prior year. Meanwhile, the share of consumers who took part in neither promotion plunged from 48% to 7%.
However, PYMNTS added, the bigger crowd came with a catch, as shoppers cut their spending. The research found average spending at Amazon dropped from $360 in 2025 to $308, while Walmart’s average fell from $484 to $326.
“That trade-off offers a preview of the next phase of promotional retail,” the report added. “The biggest shopping events may attract more people than ever, but they are also becoming less capable of concentrating consumer spending in one place.”
