Inspiration
The problem statement I chose was: Enhancing Tailored Discovery, to improve and hyperpersonalise the shopping experience for users. For me, I chose to innovate the method of collecting data, and using this data. I was inspired by a problem which I often face when using Tiktok.
When scrolling, many influencers share their expert tips on which are the best products to get for makeup, cameras, equipment or just clothes. I love "saving" these videos but I know I'll never come to them again. There is thus a big gap between these influencers who recommend products and users who want to buy these products, due to the high friction to purchase and hindrance for impulse buyers to buy almost immediately after watching the review.
What it does
Through Shopping Lists and custom Product Links, creators can link products (whether in Tiktok shop or not) to their videos. This means that users can easily access the items mentioned in the video, save them, share them etc.
From this, Tiktok can gather data on the product preferences of each user. There are 4 examples of a For You Page card that could be easily created for users and encourage them to click into the Tiktok Page.
- This or That: a simple "This or That" page created by users to share with friends and appear on their friends' For You Pages when they open the app. They can comment and make a choice, which will notify their friends.
- Birthday Gift Ideas: nearing a friend's birthday, their public shopping lists can be shared to users to suggest items to get! It would suggest items which their friend has been "eyeing" recently, (this data comes from their saving of the product), and other products similar to the ones they've saved!
- Flash Sales: When users have saved certain products, they can then be shown a "Flash Sale" For You Page card when any of these items are on sale. This could encourage users to take the final step to buy the product.
- New Similar Items: as mentioned, there might be products not from Tiktok Shop that users can save or click into to the original website. When a new product comes onto Tiktok Shop, users can be updated through a For You Page card when they enter. With Tiktok Shop gaining credibility for its cheap products, users could be drawn to purchase from Tiktok over the original merchant's website.
You might now be wondering: what makes this so different from the current Tiktok Shop?
The difference, though slight, change the purpose of using this feature. Currently, Tiktok Shop allows users to add only what is available on Tiktok Shop. This means that most videos linked to a Tiktok Shop product are advertisements. This is not a bad thing, but it does not leverage on Tiktok's upperhand: which is its community of users (mostly experts in their own fields) who recommend products. There is hence potential for Tiktok to bridge that gap and make it more accessible for users to save and purchase products through Tiktok (rather than searching online and buying outside of Tiktok).
Adding new products (that are not available) on Tiktok Shop benefits both Tiktok and users. Firstly, this allows Tiktok to gather data on what are the items that Tiktok Shop is lacking. Tiktok can then leverage on this data to encourage relevant merchants to join the platform and sell these products on Tiktok Shop, considering there is a demand for their products.
Secondly, users are able to easily access items recommended in the videos, reducing the friction to purchase as they are immediately able to access the products mentioned. Note: currently this prototype does not have a "add to cart" button, or an outbound button to the original merchant's website, but it would be more ideal to reduce friction to purchase.
With data of what product keywords are trending, which demographic of people are sharing and exchanging reviews on which products, Tiktok can leverage on this data to do so much more! I provided some ideas, including:
- a "This or That (or None)" page to share options with friends and decide what is nicer / which they should buy,
- sharing what your friends have been loving nearing their birthdays ("It's Chloe's birthday soon! here are some things she might like.. / she's been eyeing..."),
- flash sales for any product you've been eyeing ,
- or (for products not yet available on Tiktok Shop) new items that have been added to Tiktok Shop, similar to the ones saved.
How we built it
- NextJS
- DrizzleORM
- React
- Zod
- ShadCN
- MaterialUI
- Lorem Picsum (lorem ipsum for photos)
Challenges we ran into
Personally for me the hardest part was pushing myself to consistently do my best. In the beginning my desire to build this burnt very bright, I was thinking of many new features and ideas and using some new technologies. But after the 3rd day of working on the project, I looked back again at everything I did, and felt like the effort I put in did not match the quality of the product at the time. I was disappointed and felt quite demoralised. After the 3rd day, I tried and I pushed myself to create a more responsive website, where the demo handled more real data, making it a more complete final product. It was a technical challenge, definitely, but I believe it challenged me more mentally.
I see so much more potential with this project, and it could truly be a game changer for Tiktok Shop. I am happy with my progress and my takeaways from this! And I hope to improve my technical skills much further in the future.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I'm proud of how I managed to complete the project <3 happy with my small wins
What's next for less fretting, more shopping
This or That
A proper page to send a "This or That" to friends, as well as save their choices in their group chat. They can thus see at a glance their friends' responses to their "This or That"
Product links
Products linked in a video could have multiple other videos linked to it, such that when users enter the product page they can see all the different video reviews of the product. (Something like the current music /sound page.
Built With
- css
- drizzle
- html
- materialui
- nextjs
- react
- shadcn
- sql
- supabase
- tailwind
- typescript
- vercel
- zod
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