Indonesian live-streamer Christine Febriyanti did her job of selling pretty well by hawking parti-coloured clothes to hundreds of viewers on a TikTok live stream for a local fashion brand. “For the Vitamin C kind of girls, you’ll fulfil all of your nutrient requirements with these orange pants,” the 25-year-old shared during the sales session. Her pitch is a slice of a clamour for TikTok shopping in Indonesia, where users of tik tok have been seen splashing out more money on the app than users anywhere else in South-east Asia did over the last year. The area is a bright spot for TikTok – owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance – following months of intense scrutiny in the United States and other countries over user’s personal information safety and privacy and the company’s alleged bonds to Beijing.
TikTok chief executive Chew Shou Zi declared their plans last week to invest billions of dollars in South-east Asia, where it counts 325 million users, of whom 125 million are in Indonesia. As TikTok Shop speeds up in getting famous with Indonesians buying more than a third of goods sold in South-east Asia over the last year, people who are willing to do their business are reaching this platform to promote a range of products, fashion related and homemade products. Tik-Tok is proving to be extremely helpful for entrepreneurs. It is not just an entertainment platform now, but it is used for selling products and doing business.