TikTok, a social media leader that seems interested in challenging Google's dominance in search, confirmed to TechCrunch that it's testing a feature that lets users take or upload photos and then find similar products in the TikTok Shop.
The feature, which was first spotted by X user Jonah Manzano, is available to all users in the U.S. and Southeast Asia. Users who have access to the new feature will see it in the form of a camera icon in the search bar of the TikTok Shop.
For example, say you're served a dish at a restaurant and you love it – just open the TikTok app, take a photo, and you'll find a similar item to buy in the TikTok Shop. Or, say you're shopping online and find a top you like, but it's too expensive – just save the image, upload it, and you'll find a similar item for less.
While it was previously possible to search for specific products in TikTok Shop, you no longer have to rely on text descriptions. The ability to use image search for shopping is something Google has offered for years with its image search tool, Google Lens. Image search is now also offered by Amazon, another tech giant that TikTok is trying to compete with.
Image credit: TechCrunch/Screenshot
TikTok has already made significant strides in eating into Google's search dominance, with executives at the tech giant saying in 2022 that TikTok and Instagram were eating into the company's core search product. With this new feature, TikTok hopes that people will not only turn to the app to discover new products, but also to make purchases through the TikTok Shop.
The company isn't just taking aim at Google and Amazon with this new feature — it's also competing with other companies that offer visual search tools for shopping, including startups like Klarna and Cherry.
TikTok recently revealed that there are now more than 15 million TikTok Shop merchants around the world, with over 500,000 of them in the U.S. The company has spent more than $400 million on platform safety and has assembled a team of more than 7,500 people to help keep TikTok Shop safe.
TikTok sees TikTok Shop as its next big potential revenue stream and is betting big on e-commerce. The company's e-commerce efforts are also a way to keep users hooked to its app instead of other apps. By building and expanding TikTok Shop's features, TikTok hopes people will spend more time and money on its e-commerce products.
The company is expanding its e-commerce efforts even as it faces a possible ban in the U.S. In April, President Biden signed a bill that will ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, fails to sell the app within a year.