THE numbers speak clearly: TikTok Shop is no longer an experimentbut a consolidated reality on the Italian scene. Today the platform counts beyond 21 thousand active sellers and almost one in five online shoppers (20%) have already used the app’s internal shop for their purchases.
Who buys on TikTok Shop? The revenge of the over 40s
If you think that purchases are only made by Gen Z, you are wrong. The data reveals a much more transversal and mature buyer profile:
● Female audience over 40: generates as much as 41% of the total value of purchases on the platform, a significantly higher share than the 32% of the traditional e-commerce average.
● Heavy Shoppers: TikTok Shop users are serial shoppers. They make an average of 32 online orders per year, compared to 22.5 for the average Italian e-commerce buyer.
What do Italians buy?
“Discovery e-commerce” rewards above all the more visual and sensorial sectors. The main categories are:
● Beauty: it is the leading sector. In the last month, a third of users have purchased make-up products.
● Fashion: 53% of users have purchased clothing or accessories.
● Home & Living: even the home becomes social. 70% of users purchase cleaning products and interest in small household appliances is growing (18%).
QVC Italia on TikTok Shop
Shoppable video and LIVE shopping: the formats that convince most
These are not just advertisements, but entertainment that sells. Two formats are the real driver of purchases from the beginning of 2025:
1. Shoppable Video: The product is integrated into the video content and can be purchased with a few clicks without leaving the app.
2. LIVE Shopping: a sort of teleshopping 4.0 where real-time interaction with the community creates an immediate sense of urgency and trust.
Why do we like this formula?
The success of this model lies in the fusion between community and e-commerce. The protagonists of the sector confirm this:
“You need a community to sell. The platform shortens the time, they make the purchase directly on the platform. This year we recorded 50 thousand orders through TikTok Shop. The key to success was creating the products together with the community: from the formulation to the colors to the packaging. They feel on board the project.”
— Alessia Rossini, AllyCore
Even for those coming from the world of traditional television sales, TikTok represents a natural evolution:
“TikTok Shop is the natural evolution of video shopping. The 45+ women target has allowed us to reach a new audience that we would not have intercepted via TV.”
— Carlotta Pontremoli, QVC Italia
In conclusion, the first year of TikTok Shop in Italy gives us a certainty: the boundary between entertainment and purchase has definitively collapsed. It’s no longer just about scrolling through a feed to pass the time, but about an ecosystem where the trust of the community and the power of the video story transform the viewer into a buyer in a few seconds. With a mature audience increasingly protagonist and a constant growth of sellers, ‘discovery e-commerce’ is no longer the future, but the present of a market that has learned to sell emotionally.