Analysis: Will Gen Z be filling their fridges from TikTok?

Ordering groceries on our phones has become second nature to many of us thanks to the likes of Tesco’s Whoosh, Deliveroo and Uber Eats.

That said, it may come as some surprise that more and more consumers are also using platforms such as TikTok Shop to stock their fridges and pantries.

At least one product that you could also buy in a supermarket is now sold every minute on the platform, with TikTok reporting its grocery sales are up 180% year-on-year.

It is also now one of the UK’s biggest sellers of toilet rolls, notes TikTok’s head of FMCG Matt Beane.

TikTok has already made its mark on the grocery sector, influencing product development and viral videos on the platform sending sales soaring.

“[The platform] has become the new product discovery engine — and it’s changing what ends up in people’s baskets,” notes online retail consultant Martin Newman.

“Viral recipes like baked feta pasta or Emily Mariko’s salmon rice bowl didn’t just generate likes, they moved product fast. Retailers saw surges in sales of specific ingredients almost overnight,” he adds.

Looking to capitalise on this trend, Lidl became the UK’s first mainstream supermarket to jump on the TikTok Shop bandwagon and sold out its first drop in less than 20 minutes.

The German discounter’s involvement on TikTok Shop raises the question of whether the shopping channel could become a new route to market for the industry – can the content platform move from viral recipes to a full grocery basket, and should more grocers jump on the bandwagon?

A closer look: Lidl’s TikTok Shop debut

Lidl released a limited drop of protein pack bundles at the end of February and followed it up last month with its take on the viral Dubai pistachio bars, selling 72 bars a second.

The German discounter tapped into the long running trend of protein supplements on the platform and launched a bundle of products “at a really competitive price”, which sold out within 18 minutes, explains Beane.

A couple of weeks later and Lidl followed it up with its own version of the Dubai chocolate trend, running out of stock within 90 minutes.

“They launched on [Tik Tok] – no promotion, no price discount, just the everyday price, but they sold it with us first, and then the next day, they launched it in store,” says Beane.

Lidl is not the only retailer that is using Tik Tok to build up hype aorund new product launches – M&S teased a pistachio version of its ‘Big Daddy’ chocolate bar on the platform this month before it launched in stores.

Newman observes that Lidl’s TikTok Shop debut “wasn’t just a PR stunt” but a signal of what’s to come. 

“They were first to market, but they won’t be the last. As TikTok leans harder into ecommerce, supermarkets have a huge opportunity to own this space early,” he says, adding that Lidl has shown the platform’s shopping channel “can absolutely work for grocery too”.

Lidl’s involvement with TikTok’s shopping channel has already caught the attention of its competitors, with Beane sharing that he’s in discussions with several major grocers about potential new activations.

Kantar Insights UK and Ireland senior client director Daniel Fanshawe explains: “We can see from our data that there’s real appetite from brands and consumers to explore shopping on TikTok Shop – 46% of marketers are expecting to accelerate spend in the commerce space this year,” he says, adding that Lidl “has been smart to make the most of its first-mover advantage”.

What groceries are people buying on TikTok Shop?

Chocolate bars and loo rolls aside, Beane, who previously worked at Amazon Fresh and Tesco, predicts that fresh food is the future of TikTok Shop’s grocery offer.

“An ‘always on’ grocery proposition is something that we are working towards. We’re already selling more fresh food and have had some great successes testing this over the last six months,” he says.

Beane says the early performance of the butchers and farmers its working with “is demonstrating to us very clearly that the opportunity for full fresh food grocery proposition is a big part of our future”.

Chris Pearce, managing director of digital content agency Greenpark, says that “demand for buying fresh food from TikTok shop is latent amongst the general population but significantly growing, particularly amongst younger consumers”.

He notes that in some cases, certain “butchers, bakers and dairy farms all claim not just success but cite TikTok shop as the key to survival in many cases”.

TikTok Shop has certainly levelled the playing field when it comes to businesses selling products to customers, but Beane explains that big name brands such as Hotel Chocolat and Holland & Barrett are also having some early wins on the platform too.

But why are so many consumers buying on TikTok Shop?

Users can purchase one of two ways on TikTok Shop: the first, through affiliated products linked to content creator videos and the second, through navigating its shop interface.

While the former allows brands to experiment with discovery commerce, the latter is harder to navigate with thousands of products categorised into health and beauty, home and garden, food and drink, as well as sports, travel and outdoors.

Ordering groceries on TikTok Shop is a pretty seamless experience, and delivery comes within days. The trickiest thing to navigate is choosing the product you want from one of the thousands of sellers on the platform.

So, will we all be filling our fridges from TikTok Shop?

The last 12 months has proven that consumers are ordering more and more off the platform, whether that be toilet rolls and fresh cuts of beef to Adidas Sambas and clothes from Asos.

FMCG brands such as Trip and Love Corn are already selling thousands through TikTok Shop and Lidl’s debut on the platform’s channel proves that UK supermarkets are also starting to take notes.

Fanshawe argues that TikTok Shop is not the right choice for every product, arguing “a considered approach is the key here”.

“TikTok is all about community, so there is an opportunity to reach new shoppers or tap into groups of people that already love the brand or the category a grocer is trying to break into,” he says, spotlighting Lidl’s “tightly curated range”.

“It’s clear, strategic considered activations versus trying to roll out entire product ranges,” Fanshawe concludes.

Similarly, Pearce explains that supermarkets are uniquely positioned to capitalised on the viral trends for certain grocery items.

“Most supermarkets have far greater distribution and purchasing power than the typical, smaller TikTok shop retailer. Therefore it’s an opportunity for them to supply similar items in higher volumes,” Pearce says.

“Plus, it is a great opportunity for supermarkets to engage with different audiences that may well be social commerce first and grow their penetration from there.”

TikTok Shop might not be a new route to market for some of the UK’s biggest supermarkets, but it is proving a valuable tool in engaging with customers and driving in-store sales.

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