TikTok Shop sheds bargain-bin reputation as average prices climb across categories

While TikTok doesn’t publish aggregate marketplace metrics, product-level prices and sales counts are visible in the app. An analysis of that data by e-commerce intelligence firm Charm shows average prices climbing across more than a dozen key categories. The average unit price between April 2024 and October 2024 in the footwear category, for instance, was $14.06. By comparison, the average unit price in this category over the same period in 2025 surged 103% to $28.64.

Other categories have seen similar increases. Sports and outdoor goods, luggage and bags, and fashion accessories climbed 54%, 43% and 42%, respectively. Other categories seeing higher prices in the double digits include toys, women’s apparel, and computers and office equipment.

When TikTok Shop launched in the U.S. in September 2023, the e-commerce company offered strikingly low prices compared to other web stores. That’s because TikTok Shop initially relied on heavy subsidies to woo sellers and shoppers with deeply discounted bits and bobs. In time, those subsidies went away with the introduction of new seller fees.

Today, TikTok Shop has grown beyond its bargain-bin reputation to attract established brands. Recent entrants include household names like Samsung, Disney and QVC, all of which now sell their wares on the platform. That growth is likely helping push prices higher, Charm’s CEO Alex Nisenzon told Modern Retail in an interview.

“When you have a lot of emerging brands, you also have a lot of inherently cheaper products on the marketplace,” he said. “As you have more established brands entering, you’re going to see prices rise across all the categories those brands are playing in.”

But that may not be the only reason why prices on TikTok Shop are on the rise. TikTok Shop, like other e-commerce companies, has also had to contend with President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, which have forced many brands to raise their prices.

Charm’s data reflects the intensity of Trump’s trade war. Average unit prices for fashion accessories, for instance, climbed 70% year over year in May, just after the Trump administration implemented a staggering 145% duty on most Chinese imports. A 10% universal tariff had also been imposed at the time. Other categories saw similar price hikes following the White House’s tariff announcements. For example, the average unit prices for bags and luggage on TikTok Shop also jumped 70% year over year in May. Prices for women’s apparel rose more than 60% over the same period, on average.

“The impact of tariffs and the growth of TikTok Shop make it difficult to isolate the exact causes of price changes,” Nisenzon said, noting that he considered those to be “the two main drivers” behind TikTok Shop’s higher average unit prices.

TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

Hiking prices

Many brands in the U.S. are struggling with tariffs, which could explain why prices are higher on TikTok Shop if companies are passing along costs to consumers, Nisenzon said.

Many brands are eating the cost of tariffs, according to Max Benator, CEO of the social-commerce platform Orca, which works with brands like Estée Lauder’s Aveda and Bumble & Bumble, Unilever’s Liquid IV and Nestle’s Blue Bottle Coffee. But not all brands can afford to do that for all products.

One such brand includes one of Benator’s clients, KimChi Chic Beauty, which manufactures its cosmetics products in Korea and Taiwan. For the most part, the brand has been able to absorb the increased cost of tariffs. But KimChi Chic has also raised prices “in the single digits” on 10% of its total product catalog, Stacey Tank, CEO of KimChi Chic’s parent Bespoke Beauty Brands, told Modern Retail. Skincare brand Pure Daily Care also raised the price of its best-selling NuDerma Wand by 30% in the spring, but let the rest of its product portfolio untouched, the company Chief Marketing Officer Jon Cohen previously told Modern Retail.

Major brands that sell their wares on TikTok Shop have announced plans to raise prices, too. Crocs, one of the biggest footwear brands on the platform, implemented “very targeted price increases” its CEO Andrew Rees told investors during an earnings call in May. Beijing-based Pop Mart, maker of the TikTok-viral Labubu toys, also increased prices earlier this year, according to a Jefferies report cited by South China Morning Post.

Too big to ignore

The number of larger brands — those with at least $30 million in annual revenue — joining TikTok Shop grew 95% year over year in the first half of 2025, the company told Modern Retail in September. Wired recently reported that TikTok Shop is now the size of eBay.

When TikTok Shop first launched in the U.S., big-name brands viewed the nascent platform as the “equivalent to Temu” and considered it “super brand-tarnishing,” said Orca’s Benator. Because of these perceptions, enterprise brands were reluctant to join, at first. Instead, they kept their eyes on the platform but waited until it proved itself before adopting it more widely.

“TikTok Shop is one of the biggest e-commerce platforms on the planet,” Benator said. “You would be missing out on a big sales channel by not joining.”

Getting legacy brands to participate hasn’t been straightforward. For some, the specter of a potential ban created too much risk. Enterprise companies were also reluctant to experiment with live shopping, especially on an emerging platform, Modern Retail previously reported.

While small merchants still generate over a third of TikTok Shop’s revenue, sales from big brands rose 84% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, according to the company. With the threat of a TikTok ban mostly in the rear-view mirror, the once-nascent e-commerce platform has become too big for brands to ignore, especially heading into the peak holiday shopping period.

TikTok Shop hasn’t shared details about its 2025 holiday sales performance, but last year, the company drove more than $100 million in U.S. sales on Black Friday. Patrick Nommensen, head of strategic initiatives at TikTok Shop, previously told Modern Retail that the e-commerce company was “expecting this holiday season to be even bigger.”