This is an episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the beauty and wellness industries. More from the series →
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With the new year, changes are afoot at TikTok. On January 22, the U.S. version of the app sold for approximately $14 billion to an investor group that includes Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake and investment firm MGX. It’s yet to be seen how these changes will impact TikTok Shop, which has become an e-commerce behemoth. In December 2025, Wired reported that the social commerce platform had grown to rival eBay in scale, estimating that it sold $19 billion worth of products globally between July and September of last year.
Even before these most recent changes, as TikTok Shop has matured, brands have been rethinking how they work with creators. In this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, hosted by Pop editor Sara Spruch-Feiner, Glossy reporter Zofia Zwieglinska unpacks her recent story exploring what’s currently driving sales on TikTok Shop — from replicable video formats to product bundles to AI — and how those shifts are redefining influencer marketing. Highlights from the episode, below, have been lightly edited for clarity.
Replicable formats are a key success driver
Zwieglinska: “[One trend is that] viral moments, in general, are kind of out among TikTok Shop creators, and repeatable systems with reusable formats — ones that creators can test again and again — are the ones that are staying in. Also, bundles, where products are grouped together in videos, are working well for creators. … And then third is the fact that there are these new AI-powered tools, especially around video editing, that are changing the timelines for video creation on TikTok. Creators are now able to work faster, and brands are expecting more from them for less. [This] is linked to the amount of money they’re offering for these product partnerships, as well.”
Creators as decentralized media networks
Zwieglinska: “If you see an advertisement on an e-commerce site for a fashion brand, that is essentially a retail media network slot. It works in a similar way here, where a lot of these creators now have structured systems around their content. The brands can basically plug in whenever they want, and the content is going to perform well for them. And content creators are also able to communicate that to brands, [like], ‘This is the type of slot that’s working for me.’ … They’re able to almost plan for how that content is going to perform. And obviously, these are decentralized [retail media networks], because we’re talking about creators, versus an official system.”
Trust > Virality
Zwieglinska: “If a creator only talks about a product for one video, unless [it’s a] first reaction to something and they’re very hyped up about it because they just found it in Sephora, chances are [viewers will] think, ‘OK, this is a sponsored post. It’s not something they’re using consistently.’ If you have a longer-term partnership, that works better [to build] trust because you have creators who are using the products over a couple of weeks or sometimes a couple of months. That can improve how a customer or user sees that on TikTok, and as a result, that will improve TikTok Shop sales, as well.”
