TikTok Shop has announced Shop Local, an initiative that will provide £150,000 in sales and marketing support to five UK small and medium businesses.
It will help founders sell through TikTok’s “discovery commerce” model, which involves shoppers finding and buying products organically through videos, live streams and creators without leaving the app.
The social media giant cited research showing that 83% of people say they would be more likely to buy British goods if they were more widely available, and 75% prefer locally sourced products over imports.
But despite this consumer appetite, the survey found that 52% of founders believe running a business is harder today than a year ago, with 29% citing attracting new customers as their biggest challenge.
TikTok Shop claims that around 200,000 small firms sell through the platform, with over 6,000 daily live streams by sellers.
The competition is fronted by farmer and conservationist Jimmy Doherty. His business, Jimmy’s Farm, uses TikTok Shop.
Doherty will help select five winners who will receive mentoring and training on how to grow sales on the website, subsidised marketing support, introductions to TikTok influencers and PR help.
The competition is open to small and medium sized businesses that aren’t currently trading on TikTok Shop and have less than 250 employees.
To enter, you need to create and share a TikTok video demonstrating your offering to the local community, which includes the #ShopLocalComp hashtag and tags @TikTokShop_UK, between 14 October and 13 November. Winners will be selected and contacted by 12 December.