Black Friday Countdown: Less Than 30 Days to Go! TikTok Shop Merchants: Don't Just Wait for the Wind—This Year, We Create It

By He Yang

[Ebrun Original] The most critical battle of the year for cross-border e-commerce is approaching.

As America's nationwide shopping spree, this year's Black Friday season has sparked excitement earlier than ever. On TikTok, views of #holidayshopping content surged 263% month-over-month in September.

Cross-border merchants are also ramping up their preparations. In the realm of interest-based e-commerce, top players say they started earlier this year and have a clearer vision of what they need to accomplish. Actions like pre-stocking inventory, intensifying influencer collaborations, and boosting livestream investments have already set the stage alight.

Last year, TikTok Shop US Black Friday-Cyber Monday peak sales exceeded $500 million, and cross-border POP business doubled compared to mid-year—a feat still fresh in memory. This year's Black Friday comes with three clear directives: richer content increments, a longer shopping festival, and explosive brand growth, all aimed at scaling GMV and shattering previous records.

TikTok Shop US cross-border POP has announced its Black Friday sales period will run from November 12 to December 1, with registration for various activities now open. Merchants who complete product registration before October 31 at a lower price can qualify for higher platform-funded discount incentives. How to seize the initiative? The answer is already clear.

01

The Black Friday Battle Is About to Begin—What's This Year's Big Growth Driver?

According to Adobe's latest forecast, US online sales during the holiday season (November-December) will rise 6.7% year-over-year to $275.1 billion. Against this backdrop of steady market growth, the dynamic ecosystem of interest-based e-commerce is showcasing even greater consumer vitality—shoppers are seeking holiday inspiration on TikTok nearly two months earlier, and more people have developed the habit of shopping while watching short videos or livestreams. CivicScience data reveals that over one-third of holiday shoppers say they might buy gifts from TikTok Shop, with 58% planning to spend more this year.

"You can't wait for the wind to come; you have to create it ahead of time," says Lucas, Brand Director of home & living brand GARVEE. "TikTok Shop's surge is too fast and comes earlier, often spilling over into other channels. Last Black Friday, we understocked several core products and watched nearly half of our potential exposure slip away." This year, they are better prepared and more agile, with product selection, testing, stocking, and content reserves all arranged beforehand.

"The Black Friday battle has already begun! It doesn't start on that day in November," echoes Louis, Head of TikTok Shop Operations for optical skincare brand Ulike in the US. Ulike locked down inventory and production capacity around August, and their promotional content isn't crafted at the last minute—they use large-scale testing in advance to identify the most effective content before unleashing it during the sales event.

Merchants' earlier and more comprehensive preparations underscore both their confidence in interest-based e-commerce's explosive potential and their clear grasp of this year's new growth opportunities.

Unlike traditional e-commerce, TikTok Shop's unique advantage lies in content—spotting trends from content, and stimulating and amplifying demand through it. During a promotion-heavy season like Black Friday, merchants have more material and opportunities to reach broader audiences and engage with consumers, making business surges natural.

This year's big growth driver for TikTok Shop's Black Friday also stems from new content increments. Short videos remain the foundation, but the strategy has shifted from early reliance on influencers to merchants scaling their own self-produced videos; in livestreaming, both merchant self-broadcasts and influencer streams keep breaking records, with the introduction of auction mechanics propelling the entire livestream business into high gear; newly added image-text formats expand consumption scenarios, offering a light yet efficient medium for merchant self-made content.

Take the new growth in livestreaming. eMarketer projects that by 2026, average spending per livestream shopper will grow 23.2% to $339.27. In the first half of this year, TikTok Shop US livestream shopping sales more than doubled year-over-year. Major brands and celebrities are flocking to livestream, with Rihanna recently joining Fenty Beauty's TikTok Shop livestream. These trends highlight the growing maturity of US livestream shopping. During major sales events, livestreaming heats up even more: during TikTok Shop's mid-year sale, cross-border POP merchants saw livestream revenue grow 4.2 times year-over-year, influencer livestream revenue surged 183%, and auction livestreams boasted an explosion coefficient 2.4 times that of regular streams. In recent fall promotions, many merchants reported livestream revenue repeatedly setting new records.

For merchants, leveraging richer content formats and boosting content quantity and quality can unlock even greater opportunities this Black Friday.

At the same time, continuously harnessing the strengths of TikTok Shop's three core arenas is key to multiplying results this Black Friday. Influencer content drives rapid audience expansion and amplifies hits, merchant content sustains operations and accumulates assets, while Shop and Search capture proactive purchase intent. When these three arenas work in tandem, growth goes beyond single-point breakthroughs.

As Thea, Brand Operations Head of fashion accessories label Tewiky, puts it: "Only when every arena is truly aligned does growth become a sustainably scalable capability."

Additionally, this year's TikTok Shop US Black Friday is not just a single sales spike. Strategically deploying around Black Friday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other consumer nodes builds a continuous peak season. Many merchants had already completed influencer outreach, sample sending, and content reserves by September; October is for testing, scaling, and locking in sales slots; November marks the concentrated surge, followed by fulfilling Christmas demand.

02

Three Merchant Types, Three Paths—Methods to Crush Black Friday

This year, TikTok Shop US has upgraded its interest-based e-commerce playbook into the ACE methodology—"Great Products, Great Content, Great Marketing"—continuously driving the three arenas: Influencer Content Hub, Merchant Content Hub, and Shop & Search. Merchants at different starting points can find their own growth ladder. Black Friday preparation is a concentrated application of this approach. Across three merchants, we see three distinct paths leading to the same goal.

GARVEE is a mature cross-border merchant with a wide product range, including large items. The key challenge: selecting the right products from a vast SKU pool and managing the surge when a product goes viral. Their solution: quick, small-scale tests to gauge product potential, ramping up influencer sample sending and content supply once a hit emerges, and aligning backend supply chain actions to handle traffic.

In the first half of this year, GARVEE's GMV achieved leapfrog growth. To prepare for Black Friday's bigger surge, they've front-loaded every step across product and content. With long lead times for large items, they locked core product lines 6–8 months ahead, secured factory capacity early, and implemented phased stocking and allocation, doubling down on proven hits while reviewing inventory turnover weekly. During the sales period, dedicated staff monitor supply chain anomalies. On content, they've also secured long-term influencer partnerships in advance, amassed a wealth of materials, and ramped up self-produced content for a "two-track approach."

For GARVEE, influencer content remains a vital growth engine during the Black Friday surge, with previous collaborators being re-engaged to concentrate content momentum. But the most exciting and transformative element this year is self-produced content—both short videos and livestreams. "Short videos handle product seeding, while livestreams foster deeper customer engagement and close sales," explains Jiang Zhuoqi, Head of GARVEE's First Business Unit.

Unlike GARVEE's wide-range strategy, Ulike, with its single-hero-product approach, dominates the high-ticket tech segment (over $200) on TikTok Shop. They build user trust and attract potential customers through authentic influencer content; livestreams further clarify product details and answer questions, lowering purchase barriers; Search and Product Cards capture those actively seeking; simultaneously, they integrate Black Friday promotions with broader North American brand marketing.

Initially, Ulike invested in polished brand TVCs but discovered that authentic voices from local influencers resonate better. So, they handed products to local influencers, letting them showcase usage in their own style. Brand and conversion content are demarcated: refined TVCs communicate brand prestige, expertise, and tech prowess; local influencers deliver real experiences, reviews, and usage scenarios; high-performing influencer content is amplified via ads; merchant self-made content remixes influencer-licensed assets, AI, and real-person footage to supplement supply.

For Black Friday, Ulike scales influencer collaborations 2–3 times over normal levels, prepares at least 10 scripts for pre-testing, and stocks over 2,000 native content pieces with product tags for the month. On the merchant content hub, livestreams run continuously while optimizing Search and Product Cards. Additionally, beyond platform's S-tier promotions, they align their own online-offline brand actions to combine sales peaks with brand communication.

Tewiky is a new brand born on TikTok Shop, climbing from zero to become the top cross-border POP accessory category player in the US. This Black Friday, they've made auction livestreaming their biggest growth lever.

For Tewiky, auction livestreams drive high-density transactions while continuously capturing real-time consumer feedback on products, pricing, and usage scenarios. Quickly feeding these insights back to product development, they incorporate winning elements into subsequent livestreams and short videos, creating a replicable growth loop. Thea emphasizes: "Livestreaming must ensure what you see is what you get. Product quality is paramount. Only when customers receive their orders satisfied and trust us do we secure repeat purchases." Since integrating auction livestreams, Tewiky's business has accelerated, with auctions at times contributing nearly 50% of store GMV and averaging about twice the category's hourly GMV.

Preparing for Black Friday, Tewiky started product groundwork four months ahead: 40% evergreen items stabilize the baseline, 40% proven hits drive concentrated promotion, and 20% new products for Christmas and gifting capture the season's three wave peaks—overall inventory investment 2–3 times usual.

On influencers, they lock top-tier creators for traffic, mid-tier ones for stable conversions, and re-engage long-tail influencers from previous campaigns with new products and selling points. The merchant content hub doubles down on livestreams, ramping up host schedules, session lengths, product depth, and frequency—investing 3–5 times daily resources. For Shop & Search, they apply mature SEO experience to TikTok, optimizing keywords, main images, pricing, and bundles. With all three arenas firing in sync, Black Friday growth multiplies.

03

Racing Toward the Year-End Peak: Scaling Business, Strengthening Brands

Success in interest-based e-commerce is never accidental. Systematically applying the ACE methodology makes growth traceable. From daily operations to major promotions, from scaling business size to building brand influence, the right methods ensure victories at every turn.

With less than a month until Black Friday, merchants' confidence in hitting record annual performance on TikTok Shop is already ignited: multi-arena expansion broadens the promotion's reach; consecutive peaks across three holidays lengthen the surge; brand activities and ads deepen the impact—amplifying brand influence beyond transactions.

Crucially, interest-based e-commerce's Black Friday extends far beyond the event itself.

GARVEE says this Black Friday is "100% about hitting targets," but it's also a testing ground for next year's business—identifying promising products and providing data for the future. Moreover, when a product goes viral on TikTok Shop, people remember the brand, return to the Shop, search, and reorder, and the accumulated brand buzz naturally benefits other channels.

Ulike's Black Friday goal is to achieve 2–3 times its regular sales volume. Strategic Management Director Ashbur notes that Ulike will treat TikTok Shop as a strategic channel for sustained growth. This Black Friday, they'll integrate platform resources for long-term operations, aiming not just for GMV growth but also to validate new products, expand audiences, and build fresh content and customer assets for a continuous brand campaign.

Tewiky's GMV has already grown 2–3 times this year. For Black Friday, they aim to push GMV to new heights while transforming their proven playbook into a foundation for the next growth phase. "Beyond more orders, we want to win consumers' next choice," says founder Cassie. "From a single product in a Yiwu factory to building a brand on TikTok Shop, we want Chinese design and Chinese brands to truly step into the world's spotlight."

These three leading merchants are not alone—maximizing business and strengthening brand on the interest-based e-commerce battlefield is becoming a shared consensus among more merchants as the industry's biggest moment approaches.

We've now entered the final sprint of Black Friday preparations. October 31 marks the optimal deadline for product registration. The operational playbooks validated by first movers are lighting the path for the rest.

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This article was first published on Ebrun's official website.