TikTok, the popular social media platform for sharing short-form videos, is testing an ecommerce offering that could have relevance for the promotional products industry.

Working in conjunction with brands like streetwear label Hype, TikTok has a system in beta that would allow for in-app purchases of products, according to Bloomberg. The testing is reportedly occurring in places that include the United Kingdom in anticipation of an eventual global rollout.

Just when that full release might occur is unclear, but TikTok parent company ByteDance reportedly aims to facilitate $185 billion in ecommerce sales in 2022.

In-app purchasing could lead to ample opportunity for TikTok creators to sell branded merchandise right from the app, thereby potentially accelerating sales of the swag and creating revenue for promotional products companies that provide such creators with merch.

“TikTok has been testing and learning with ecommerce offerings and partnerships, and we are constantly exploring new ways” to add value, the company said in a statement reported by Social Media Today. “We will provide updates as we explore these important avenues for our community of users, creators and brands.”

When it comes to ecommerce, TikTok is starting from a strong place. It’s sister platform Douyin, available only in China, reportedly raked in $26 billion from in-app sales in the first year of its ecommerce program.

TikTok needs to make eCommerce work, because short-form video doesn't lend itself to the same ad opportunities. https://t.co/bvFd06oC5d

— Andrew Hutchinson (@adhutchinson) May 12, 2021

TikTok specifically has waded into ecommerce before too, with offerings that have included live-stream shopping events and integration with Shopify to show product ads in-stream. The under-development ecommerce offering would, according to reports, be a permanent feature that would allow for the buying of products directly in the app. It’s a service TikTok is eager to offer to keep popular creators on its platform.

“While TikTok has seen massive success in building a huge user base, it’s still in the early stages of providing comparable monetization tools to its competitors,” Social Media Today reports.

“Those monetization tools – like selling merch, for instance, within the app – are likely to be necessary to prevent TikTok’s “top stars from drifting off to other platforms, where they could quickly make big dollars through in-stream ads based on their massive audiences, and subsequent view counts.”