Zombie Shops: Why 50% Of TikTok Merchants Have 0 Sales

On TikTok Shop, if your content doesn’t convert, you don’t exist.

TikTok Shop in the U.S. jumped from $9 billion in GMV in 2024 to $15.1 billion in 2025. But this growth didn’t come from charismatic live hosts or viral "Shoppertainment." It was powered by the static, boring "Shop Tab", good old search-based shopping.

Teng Ian Wong, Insights Manager at Momentum Works, joins BFM to dive into why American consumers are favouring traditional search over live streams, and compares this to Southeast Asia’s $45.6 billion mature ecosystem.

We discuss:

• The Shop Tab Takeover: Why the static marketplace now outpaces live shopping (only 14% of US GMV) and why Americans prefer to "search and compare."

• The "Zombie Store" Plague: Why over 50% of the 800,000+ U.S. TikTok Shops recorded zero sales, and the high barrier to algorithmic success.

• Southeast Asia vs. The US: A look at Thailand’s outsized performance ($11.5B) compared to Malaysia ($6.2B), and the structural differences in labour costs that make US live streaming expensive.

• The "Horse Racing" Strategy: How smart brands are surviving high influencer churn by betting on multiple accounts rather than a single "mega-influencer."

• Logistics & Pricing: The move toward a "Fulfilled by TikTok" model to rival Amazon, and why prices dropped in 15 out of 27 categories.

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