The #1 best-selling clothing product on Amazon for most of January and February was a pair of high waist leggings that went viral on the social app TikTok. “tiktok leggings” is still one of the most-searched terms on Amazon.
The trend first started in November 2020 when Lauren Wolfe posted a video. That video now has more than 2.5 million views on TikTok. The hashtag #tiktokleggings has 272 million views, and #amazonleggings has 175 million. More than ten thousand users have posted pictures with one of those hashtags on Instagram.
For the last thirty days, “tiktok leggings” was one of the top 100 most-searched terms on Amazon, spending multiple days in the top 50 reaching peak-popularity during the last week of February. Due to TikTok’s limitations, none of the videos shared by its users could link to the specific product. Instead, users went to search for the product on Amazon after seeing a video on TikTok.
A company out of Guangzhou, China, sells the $30.99 Seasum “Women’s High Waist Yoga Pants Tummy Control Slimming Booty Leggings” leggings. Hundreds of other brands are now trying to compete for the sale by offering similar products too. Seasum success is similar to the Amazon Coat by the Orolay brand.
Social commerce is at its infancy in the US, but it is starting to drive sales invisibly on the surface. The hashtag #amazon has a total of ten billion views on TikTok. Many users went shopping on Amazon after seeing one of those videos. That happened without Amazon directly promoting on the app and without videos linking directly to products.
TikTok has been introducing shopping features over the past few months (most recently, it added shops and affiliates). Facebook and Instagram are expanding their shopping efforts too. On the latter, most of the shopping happens driven by ads rather than pure social influence. Nonetheless, as shopping becomes more commonplace on social apps, more of it will be driven by organic content and discovery, not necessarily by ads.
Amazon appears distant from the typical TikTok content. Its official TikTok account only has 129,000 followers too. However, many of its shoppers are daily TikTok users; they discover products to later buy on Amazon through content posted by others. The viral leggings are a fluke, but they signify the social platform’s power to drive sales. Neither the brand nor Amazon influenced that - TikTok users collectively pushed the product as high as the 50th most-searched term on Amazon.
