Early last month, ByteDance-owned TikTok was recruiting e-commerce industry and business operators in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.

Today, the short video platform app has launched its e-commerce platform, TikTok Shop, in Malaysia.

TikTok Shop mainly targets small and medium enterprises (SME) that have yet to set up a physical store due to high investment costs, the company said in a statement.

The company also added that TikTok Shop plans to cater to local businesses in a platform that brings together online sellers, buyers and creators.

Besides that, businesses can now sign up to become a seller using their TikTok accounts and to incentivise sellers, TikTok Shop is currently only charging merchants a 1% payment service fee.

Darren Quek, strategy operations manager of TikTok Malaysia, mentioned that in the third quarter of 2021, Malaysia recorded a jump of 17.1% in e-commerce income from the same quarter the year before.

“This shows that more Malaysians are shopping online, and we want to tap into this market to make it more convenient for our creators to reach their buyers, and vice versa,” Quek added.

TikTok Shop has been rolling out sales campaigns following its Malaysia launch and reported an increase of 335% in gross merchandise value.

Meanwhile, TikTok outgrown both Snapchat and Twitter in 2020 and grew even larger in 2021, placing itself comfortably as the 3rd largest social platform behind Facebook and Instagram, according to sources.