The key idea of the new "£1 Million Club" is to help UK retailers reach £1 million ($US1.28m) in revenue through the app. In exchange, TikTok will offer these businesses "special incentives" and support offerings designed specifically to assist UK retailers in building out their TikTok shopping presence.
"The current reality for many UK retailers is such that they may be able to attract shoppers from around the world onto their TikTok pages, but struggle to turn those pageviews into pounds, data shows," the company said.

The £1Million Club plan provides five core benefits: up to 90 days 0% commission free sales, free storage and fulfillment through "Fulfilled by TikTok", and seller support priority service. Meanwhile, TikTok Shop will also give dedicated promotion support to merchants, ensuring the brands and products of merchants gain more exposure and attention through campaigns, creator, content and traffic support.

To put it simply, here are the five most important advantages of the program:

Commission-free sales up to 90 days
Free fulfillment via TikTok Shop
Support via TikTok experts
Training via TikTok experts (TikTok's "Seller Academy")
Some marketing tips and help
The campaign really does seem to be something of an attempt at offering more comprehensive support to get a block of UK sellers in the app, as part of TikTok's bigger push to shape itself into an eCommerce leader.

That hasn't quite played out so far.

Fact: TikTok did rather push hard on its UK shopping plans last year, going back as far as 2022, before scaling it all back owing to lack of interest on the consumer end-and internal conflicts.

The initial reports then indicated that poor conditions of working that TikTok was adopting from its Chinese operations had not found many takers across UK staff, and led to the replacement of the local management. That reportedly derailed its eCommerce push, though it's the lack of consumer interest part that still poses bigger challenges.

Though that may be improving.

In-app spending on TikTok is growing (even if much of it goes to creator donations), and TikTok is optimistic that it can translate that activity into more overall shopping behavior.

It's just not going to happen as fast as it does in China, where in-app shopping has now become the lead revenue driver for the localized app.

In following the same roadmap to eCommerce success, that's always been TikTok's guiding light. And yet, for reasons unknown, in-stream shopping in the app hasn't quite had the same allure for Western consumers.at least, not yet.

Maybe we're at the next threshold in that regard, and TikTok can leverage this experience to build a bigger shopping presence in the UK, and subsequently elsewhere. Only time will tell, but perhaps, considering the effective rise of Chinese retailers such as Temu and AliExpress, we are on the brink of TikTok becoming a much bigger retailer, thus revealing previously untapped streams of revenue for the app.

Perhaps, therefore, the £1Million Club is another step forward to fulfilling the ambition of the app.