In an incredible move that could directly challenge American e-commerce giant Amazon, TikTok is pushing a plan to build product fulfillment centers across the US. The move, which will create a huge e-commerce supply chain, was revealed by the company’s job openings on LinkedIn weeks ago.

According to a report by Axios, the short-form video platform is committed to make e-commerce its next major revenue stream.

“By providing warehousing, delivery, and customer service returns, our mission is to help sellers improve their operational capability and efficiency, provide buyers a satisfying shopping experience and ensure fast and sustainable growth of TikTok Shop,” the company wrote in one job listing.

In the past few years, TikTok has recorded unprecedented growth buoyed by youths’ patronage, and has seen its ads business skyrocket. The growth has created a vehicle for the social media company to establish subsidiaries globally, outside its core business.

TikTok’s move to go fully into e-commerce is not surprising given its attempts at shopping that it has done by partnering with other firms and creating its own shopping features.

The company began to pilot a shopping feature in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. last year via a deal with Shopify. It also launched a separate live shopping feature in the U.K. earlier this year but reportedly struggled to get creators on board.

TikTok’s plan is to build on the shopping feature to create its own e-commerce supply chain that could give it more control and boost profits in the U.S. and around the world.

Axios quoted TikTok as saying in its job postings that it is looking to build an “international e-commerce fulfillment system” that will include international warehousing, customs clearings and supply chain systems that support domestic e-commerce efforts in the U.S. and cross-border e-commerce efforts. The systems will eventually perform parcel consolidation, along with transporting goods from one stage to the next and managing free returns.

According to the job listing, one position, a logistics solutions manager for a global fulfillment center, is looking for a Seattle-based employee to plan and design fulfillment centers and e-commerce logistics solutions that include the transportation of goods, order prediction and inventory management.

Another Seattle-based role calls for the creation of a new fulfillment service center “from scratch.” The center, the posting says, “is a global team responsible for developing and growing our logistics solution” and will include product fulfillment by TikTok Shop to its sellers by “providing warehousing, delivery, and customer service returns.”

The advertised role is the development of fulfillment services for TikTok’s e-commerce logistics in the US, but other roles point to a team that will be responsible for a global logistics and warehousing network. This indicates the company’s plan to go global, beyond the US and Canada.

But Axios noted that for now, it does not appear that TikTok plans to build out its own transportation unit like Amazon. The job postings imply that TikTok would work with vendors to handle shipping, parcel consolidation and transportation.

“One job description for a fulfillment logistics manager implies that, like Amazon, TikTok is looking to develop a free return program,” the report noted.

A TikTok spokesperson quoted by Axios said that in areas like the U.K. and Southeast Asia, where the company now offers e-commerce programs, it aims to provide “a selection of merchants which offer a range of product options as well as delivery options,” adding that the company’s “focus” remains on its currently active e-commerce regions.

With the e-commerce plan, TikTok, which has become a threat to social media platforms such as Meta, is moving to challenge other tech companies like Google and Amazon that rely on intent-based search advertising to drive business on their shopping platforms. Using its multi-million user-base, TikTok’s influence in the global e-commerce industry will be massive.

When they reached out, I checked their resumes and noticed that everyone attended Federal University of Technology Owerri, the best technical university in Africa. I want to commend Isidore  and Igbo for technical excellence and operational execution for what they have accomplished in Fuelfact. I also want to thank Interswitch for supporting them. Never have I seen a big company extending a huge hand to innovators in the way the fintech pioneer has done.

Igbo does not talk too much but do not be deceived by those smiles: he graduated with First Class from FUTO (EEE) and is one of the finest system developers out there. He is wickedly smart. As Africa adopts their affordable, reliable, user friendly forecourt automation (FCA), Wetstock management (WSG), and FuelPay epayment platform, Tekedia Capital salutes innovation. We help #builders to rise.

FuelFACT Technologies Solutions Inc (https://fuelfact.com/) is an engineering company with expertise in forecourt automation (FCA), Wetstock management (WSG), and FuelPay epayment platform. FuelFACT is effectively positioned to tackle the problems faced by dealers and merchants in the downstream sector by providing end to end revenue assurance through eliminating cash at retail stations, minimizing theft/losses and hence maximizing revenue for dealers.

Fuel station owners can remotely monitor sales transactions, change prices, monitor pump efficiency, monitor deliveries and tank volumes, and monitor variances in real time.  They track assets from depot to trucks to storage tanks to dispensers comprehensively. You need help? Click and email.

She is a really brilliant young woman, creating an amazing company. A chartered accountant, certified fraud examiner and MBA holder with a bachelor degree in one of the nation’s best – UNIBEN. Tekedia Capital invested in their mission at AjoMoney. Join us today at 7pm WAT at Tekedia Mini-MBA Live as Chineye Ochem ACA, CFE, MBA shares how to start and build a modern startup. Visit ajo.money to learn about her company. They are growing rapidly, expanding into Rwanda and other countries. Yes, the African diasporas have asked for their product and they’re now in the beautiful America, out of the amazing Nigeria!

Nations rise when pioneering entrepreneurs emerge. At Tekedia Institute Mini-MBA, we educate on theory, business cases, and practice, using executives, CEOs, teachers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, etc to deliver the best-for-value business education in Africa. We just opened registrations for the next edition here https://school.tekedia.com/course/mmba10/

We admire him because he is the generation’s finest innovator. Elon Musk is leading the world of market and has opened new vistas on how to unlock alpha. Today, he is a leading perfume salesman. Yes, the founder of Tesla, SpaceX, Boring, (keep adding), is the founder of “Burnt Hair” perfume line. In just hours, he has sold 10,000 bottles – and that is $1 million at $100 per bottle.

In this age, core competency while still relevant is largely non-catalytic in most downstream businesses. The most important asset for most businesses is distribution, not supply (I explained here). With Elon’s millions of followers, he can push more perfumes than Burberry, Avon, etc because what could take those firms months to sell, he could sell in hours.

If you want to win in the 21st century digital economy, you must control or influence demand, not supply. In the industrial age economy, power went to gatekeepers of supply. Today, the empire builders are those that control demand. This is possible because digital supply is unbounded and unconstrained, making it largely not a factor. Digital utilities like Google, Facebook, and Twitter which control demand become the new gatekeepers.

Recall Kim Kardashian – she built a $1 billion fashion company: “In 2020, Kardashian sold 20 percent of KKW Beauty to Coty, the French-American multinational beauty company, for $200m in a deal that valued the company at $1bn”. She had no marketing department. She only created a brand, and a company in Asia produces it. As she pushes those on Twitter, Instagram, etc, people buy and another company packages them.

Largely, she ran a billion dollar business with few staff. Indeed, having the channel to sell perfume, shoes, etc is more important than having the capabilities to actually make perfume, shoes, clothes, etc; you can easily find factories to handle the supply.

Indeed,  in the internet age, you win by controlling and influencing demand, not just by providing supply.  Elon is influencing demand and does not need to be the best perfume company to thrive!

 The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has scented a new opportunity to capitalise on quirky products, launching a perfume called “Burnt Hair” that he said sold 10,000 bottles to earn a million dollars in just a few hours.

“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long!?” Musk asked on Twitter, where he now describes himself as a perfume salesman.

“The essence of repugnant desire” is the website description of his latest offering, which costs $100 a bottle and is set to start shipping in the first quarter of 2023, making good on a product Musk first touted in September.

Previous brainwaves have included Tesla’s (TSLA.O) own-brand tequila, launched in 2020, and a pair of “short shorts” to signify Musk’s victory over investors who bet against the electric vehicle maker, now the world’s most valuable car firm.