Tech
TikTok Shop Is Now the Size of eBay
Despite the never-ending drama over whether to ban the app, President Donald Trump’s volatile tariff regime, and executive shake-ups, TikTok’s ecommerce division is still seeing massive growth.
TikTok doesn’t disclose aggregate sales figures, but the price and sales volume of individual products are visible on the app. Based on that data, the analytics firm EchoTik estimates TikTok Shop sold $19 billion worth of products globally from July through September of this year. The United States, its largest market, accounted for $4 billion to $4.5 billion in sales, an increase of about 125 percent compared to the second quarter of 2025.
To put those numbers into perspective, consider that TikTok Shop is now on the same scale as eBay, which saw $20.1 billion in total sales in the last quarter. TikTok Shop only launched in the US in September 2023, while eBay has been around for over 30 years. That speed of growth is remarkable.
“We have mostly focused on TikTok from this point of view of the TikTok ban, and we have almost forgotten that TikTok Shop’s share in US ecommerce just continues to grow slowly,” says Juozas Kaziukėnas, an independent ecommerce analyst.
What You See Is What You Get
TikTok Shop broke into the extremely saturated ecommerce landscape in the US by excelling at an age-old platitude: show, don’t tell. Creators post short videos on TikTok trying on clothes or using home gadgets and include links to buy the products on the same platform. It creates a much more straightforward experience for consumers, who can see real people testing products instead of needing to wade through written reviews on traditional ecommerce sites.
Ivy Yang, the founder of Wavelet Strategy, a strategic public relations consultancy, says she recently bought a dust-mite-removing vacuum on Amazon shortly before she scrolled past a TikTok Shop video featuring a similar product. She quickly realized the TikTok Shop version had more features, so she ordered it, tried it out, and returned the one from Amazon. To her, that’s the appeal of shopping on TikTok. “I need to see how it works in action,” Yang explains.
In theory, that’s what makes livestream shopping even more popular, at least in China, because now influencers can tout products on camera in real time, and there’s little editing involved that might mask any potential product defects. In recent years, livestream shopping has completely reshaped how people buy things in China and has become one of ByteDance’s main revenue pillars. But despite how hard TikTok has tried, it simply hasn’t been able to replicate that success in the US. Kaziukėnas says that TikTok Shop’s performance likely still falls short of ByteDance’s expectations, especially when it comes to livestream shopping.
Tech
The Best Memorial Day Tech Deals Worth Checking Out
When you think of Memorial Day sales, you probably think of mattresses and other home goods. And while those items are definitely discounted, now is also a good time to purchase tech. Personally, I’m not buying anything right now unless it’s discounted—and fortunately many of our top picks are. Whether you’re shopping for a power bank, a new pair of headphones, or some other gadget, I’ve rounded up the best Memorial Day deals for your perusal. We’ll update this article again over the weekend.
Check out our buying guides for more recommendations, including the best headphones, the best laptops, and the best cheap phones.
Updated May 22: We’ve checked prices, removed expired deals, added ten new deals, and ensured accuracy throughout.
WIRED Featured Deals:
Sony WH-1000XM5 for $248 ($152 off)
The Sony WH-1000XM5 have a very frustrating name, but they’re the predecessor to our favorite wireless headphones, and they’re still an excellent pick if you don’t want to shell out for the new WH-1000XM6. They go on sale frequently, but rarely drop this low in price, which comes within $5 of their all-time low. If you’re in the market for over-ear headphones, they’re hard to beat. They’re comfortable, portable, lightweight, and stylish, and they’ll make your music sound great no matter what you like to listen to.
Tech
Shein Buying Everlane Actually Makes Perfect Sense
On Friday, the ultrafast-fashion giant Shein finalized its acquisition of Everlane, a US clothing retailer that made its name by promising “radical transparency” into how its clothes were made. Neither company disclosed the price of the deal, but Puck reported last weekend that it clocked in at $100 million.
Founded in 2010, Everlane became synonymous with a certain strain of millennial consumerism that was supposed to be the exact opposite of Shein. It mainly sold elevated basics, and told a generation of anxious and high-minded shoppers that they could feel morally good about buying yet another pair of plain ballet flats or black high-waisted skinny jeans. Shein, by contrast, became notorious by flooding the internet with astonishingly cheap, trendy clothing produced at enormous scale. It has been criticized for years for alleged poor labor practices.
Given how differently Shein and Everlane positioned themselves, many people online felt the acquisition fell somewhere between darkly ironic and outright dystopian. The fashion writer Derek Guy, better known online as the “menswear guy,” articulated the vibe in a post on X: “Under Shein,” he wrote, “Everlane’s ‘radical transparency’ means you get to read about the small child making your boring gray crewneck sweater.”
Really, though, the deal makes perfect sense. In the long run, it may end up looking like a preview of where Chinese consumer companies are heading next.
Chinese ecommerce giants conquered the global market largely by selling cheap stuff at eye-watering scale. Companies like Shein and Temu thrived in part because of the “de minimis” loophole, a US trade rule that allowed packages worth under $800 to enter the country tariff-free and with relatively little customs scrutiny. That system became the backbone of a new era of cross-border ecommerce, enabling Chinese companies to ship cheap stuff directly to American consumers faster and more efficiently than many traditional retailers could manage.
But after US president Donald Trump imposed sweeping new tariffs on Chinese imports and ended the de minimis exemption, the economics underpinning that model began to falter. Chinese companies quickly realized they could no longer rely solely on flooding Western markets with bargain-priced products. If they wanted to keep growing internationally, they needed something more durable: a good old-fashioned brand.
Shein buying Everlane, however culturally cursed it may appear, is part of a broader trend already unfolding across Chinese commerce and manufacturing. Increasingly, Chinese companies are trying to move beyond anonymous low-cost production and toward owning recognizable global brands associated with quality, lifestyle, and status.
One of the clearest examples comes from Temu’s parent company, Pinduoduo. In March, the company announced a major new initiative called New PinMu, a multibillion-dollar effort designed to help Chinese manufacturers build premium international brands. The project is part of a larger strategic vision outlined by Pinduoduo co-CEO Jiazhen Zhao, who has been hyping up the company’s ambitions to elevate manufacturing standards and create pathways for Chinese factories to move up the value chain.
Meanwhile, Luckin Coffee, a Chinese coffee chain that has become one of Starbucks’ biggest rivals, recently acquired Blue Bottle, the cultish specialty coffee brand that helped define American third-wave coffee culture. Anta Sports, a Chinese sportswear giant that began largely as a domestic sneaker company, has spent years buying into premium global sportswear brands, including controlling stakes in Arc’teryx and Salomon.
The trend also reflects broader political pressures inside China. The government has become increasingly critical of the brutal price wars and hypercompetition that dominate industries like ecommerce and electric cars, a phenomenon often referred to as “involution.” Beijing now wants companies to focus more on sustainable growth, higher-end manufacturing, and global competitiveness rather than an endless race to the bottom.
Tech
This Monitor-on-Wheels Concept Is Kind of Genius
I’m torn on the price of the Movestyle, though. I love how affordable it is at $580, putting it within a more mainstream budget than I would have assumed. On the other hand, this is a very unique product, and I think higher-end specs might have been a better choice. This is a VA panel rather than IPS, and that means the color accuracy and saturation are OK, but not the best. Although it’s only rated for up to 250 nits of brightness, it topped out at 310 nits when measured against my colorimeter. But it’s not terribly bright, which could be a problem in a brightly-lit room. The display quality isn’t horrible, and this monitor isn’t made for professional video work.
And yet, in terms of the viewing experience, it doesn’t feel all that high-quality, either. For a similar price, you can get a more capable OLED monitor that’s brighter, faster, more colorful, and capable of HDR. But that doesn’t come with the adjustable, rolling stand. An even higher-end monitor would increase the price by at least a few hundred dollars. The lack of a touchscreen feels like a missed opportunity, too, especially since this could easily be used next to a desk or in a kitchen. There are just some cases where using your fingers is easier than using a remote.
Photograph: Luke Larsen
Interestingly, Samsung does sell a more premium Movingstyle monitor that’s even touchscreen-enabled and has a higher refresh rate of 120 Hz for gaming. But it’s a smaller 27-inch panel, comes with a lower-resolution 1440p display, and costs significantly more at $1,200. Whew. Another handy feature of the pricier model is a built-in battery. That means when the cord is unplugged, it doesn’t just immediately die. Speaking of the length of the cord, that does end up being one of the limitations of this design as a whole.
In a lot of ways, that more expensive model feels like what a Movingstyle monitor should be. For my purposes, the larger 32-inch 4K panel matches my needs better.
LG has its own version of this that moves in that direction, the LG Smart Monitor Swing. It comes with a 4K panel, measures 32 inches, and has a screen that can handle touch inputs. At $1,000, it’s priced in between the two Movingstyle monitors. For Samsung, perhaps the solution would be to sell the adjustable stand separately, which would give you the ability to pair it with whatever monitor you want.
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