TikTok Shop Philippines Fashion Category Lead Jonah Ople speaks at the E-Commerxe Expo at  Singapore Tech Week on how their platform can help sellers grow their businesses. Handout

SINGAPORE -- The online marketplace of short video platform TikTok is already "among the top players" in the Philippine e-commerce space, a company official said Thursday as it pushed its concept of "shoppertainment." 

"So in total, number of sellers is 2 million sellers," TikTok Shop Philippines Fashion Category Lead Jonah Michael Ople said when asked how many sellers there are on their platform.

"In terms of our market within the Philippines, you know, we're up there in the top players already. So we're very proud of the growth that we've had so far," he added.

Speaking at the E-Commerce Expo at Tech Week Singapore, Ople said there was a 37 percent growth in livestream sales in Southeast Asia between the second and third quarters of the year.

He also said there has been an 18 percent increase in the number of businesses doing live selling on their platform. The company executive said he expects these numbers to climb further during the Christmas season.

"During the shopping season, we do follow the same uplifts that people are getting out of anywhere they sell in the Philippines ,and it is something that we are prepared to actually deliver to our sellers, which is the traffic that will be on TikTok Shop during these times."

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Ople said TikTok Shop Philippines' top sellers have almost half of their sales coming in from live streaming.

"The top top top sellers, more top than that, have 80 percent of their sales coming from live streams," he added.

When asked about how the company competes with other online shopping marketplaces like Lazada and Shopee, Ople said TikTok is not comparing itself with these platforms and is focused on how well its livestreams are doing.

"I think the difference in consumer behavior lends a lot to that, because the way you enter Tiktok is quite different from the way you enter other online platforms," he explained.

"Because you are on TikTok regardless if you want to buy something. And I think that's the main difference on why we're not, you know, really looking into other platforms, as we're trying to fix our platform."

Unlike Shopee and Lazada, TikTok users have to open the short video-sharing app first, then usually watch a video before clicking the Shop tab.

Ople also noted that they are trying to bring more Filipino sellers onto their platform.

"We’d like to focus on our own platform because there's a lot of education that we still need to bring. So we're not really looking into competition, but rather how to improve Tiktok Shop as a whole, because I'm sure other players in the country are doing the same."

"But for us, it's more on focusing. How do we get the Filipino entrepreneurs onto the platform, and how do we educate them to take advantage of the platform?"

Ople said a good host is key to helping boost sales on TikTok Shop.

"The host really makes a great live stream. So for example, if you go into a live stream, you would notice that a good host would be able to keep a person inside the live stream until they buy something, meaning the host has to be engaging," he said.

"She has to be able to talk to the people in the comments," he added.

He also noted that good lighting and audio make it easier for a livestream to sell products.

"The quality of audio can really make a difference in the experiences. Right lighting would be the third, because if your items are not welded, it will not look very enticing to buy," he said.

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