TikTok is cooking up a feature that would let users zap money to one another via direct messages, according to an August 18 Bloomberg report.
Leveraging TikTok Pay
Should this actually see the light of day, the feature would tap into the platform’s existing TikTok Pay infrastructure. This tool is already powering TikTok Shop purchases across Southeast Asia.
Baking payments into direct messages fits perfectly into ByteDance’s broader retail ambitions. It helps fuel TikTok Shop's aggressive e-commerce expansion in Southeast Asia as it battles established giants like Sea's Shopee and Alibaba's Lazada.
The company views the Asia-Pacific "shoppertainment" sector—where celebrities and influencers promote brands through livestreams and short-form videos—as a massive opportunity, estimating its worth at roughly $1 trillion.
Research firm Cube Asia predicts that net merchandise value on formal e-commerce channels in Southeast Asia will more than double, jumping from about $149 billion in 2024 to over $300 billion by 2029. Back in April, TikTok boasted over 325 million monthly users in the region.
Nailing down the Southeast Asian market is crucial right now. The app is already banned in India and faces mounting regulatory heat in the U.S., including Montana becoming the first state to ban the platform.
To strengthen its regional e-commerce operation, the company has integrated extensive partner networks. TikTok offers integration with e-commerce partners such as WooCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, BigCommerce, and Magento. It also supports customer service through Zendesk, Gorgias, and 1440; print-on-demand via Printful, Printify, and NovaTomato; reviews via Yotpo; and shipping services with WeeBee, Flowspace, and Easyship.
Additionally, TikTok recently partnered with Atome for buy-now, pay-later options. Atome is the BNPL arm of Singapore-based Advance Intelligence Group, which is backed by heavyweights like SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Warburg Pincus.
Global Scale Rivals eBay
The viral video app’s retail arm is quietly morphing into a global e-commerce juggernaut. Based on data from analytics firm EchoTik, TikTok Shop sold $19 billion worth of products globally from July through September of this year.
The United States, its largest market boasting more than 150 million users, accounted for $4 billion to $4.5 billion in those sales. That represents an increase of about 125 percent compared to the second quarter of 2025.
TikTok Shop is now operating on the exact same scale as eBay, which posted $20.1 billion in total sales during the last quarter. What makes this trajectory staggering is that TikTok Shop only launched in the U.S. market in September 2023, while eBay has spent 30 years building its empire.
Facing significant headwinds stateside, ByteDance is increasingly hunting for growth in outside markets. Latin America looks particularly lucrative. Payments and Commerce Market Intelligence projects the region's e-commerce marketplace will double its 2023 figures to exceed $1 trillion by 2027.
TikTok boasts more than 111 million users in Brazil and 81 million in Mexico, giving it a massive advantage over established rivals Shein and Temu. Digging into specific countries, a recent report from Banco Santander predicted that TikTok Shop could corner nearly 10 percent of Brazil's e-commerce market by 2028. In Brazil, the platform will square off directly with MercadoLibre and Temu, currently the two most popular marketplaces.
However, the company will have to navigate regional protectionism. In December, the Mexican government announced a 19 percent tax on items from countries with which it does not have a free trade agreement, including China, to protect local industry from cheap Asian imports.