From Douyin Shop to TikTok Shop: the platformized supply chain, spatialized business model, and regional partnership in cross‐border e‐eommerce

Shuaishuai Wang, Jing Meng and Yitong Li

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This article investigates how TikTok Shop reproduces the e‐commerce model of Douyin Shop against a backdrop of divergent regulatory challenges and geopolitical distrust. One of the strategic changes we observe in TikTok Shop is the shift of consumer goods suppliers from local merchants to China‐based sellers. The Chinese supply chain is thereby platformized into TikTok's global e‐commerce ecosystem through partnerships with local shipping, warehousing, and international settlements providers. Building on the paradigm shift from location analysis to spatial analysis, as proposed in existing scholarship, we argue that an analytical approach centered on the national origin of platforms obscures the corporate‐led, cross‐border deployment of resources, which scopes value spatially. Although transnational platforms may appear subordinate to state power under which they operate, there is a generative interplay between border‐bound components and borderless intangible assets such as data‐based digital intelligence. This interplay extends digital platforms both geographically and spatially by incorporating territory‐bound business actors into a reconfigured transnational space in pursuit of global profit.

Keywords: digital globalization; livestream shopping; TikTok Shop; spatial analysis; e‐commerce; e-commerce (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 11 pages
Date: 2026-03-31
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Published in Policy and Internet, 31, March, 2026, 18(1). ISSN: 1944-2866

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