After a blockbuster Black Friday week, TikTok and its proprietor ByteDance are shaking up their international e-commerce product and information science groups, in response to two firm staffers and a December memo considered by Enterprise Insider.
The transfer was designed to streamline collaboration in areas like synthetic intelligence, in addition to “enhance operational effectivity,” per the memo.
As a part of the change, which was applied within the first week of the month, international e-commerce product and design staff chief Zhou Sheng is stepping apart. Zhou helped construct the corporate’s e-commerce product and “tremendously facilitated” its international improvement, ByteDance e-commerce head Bob Kang wrote in his memo. After the restructuring, regional e-commerce product and consumer progress managers will report back to Chen Songlin, a ByteDance government who earlier labored on TikTok’s Chinese language sister app, Douyin.
The corporate additionally restructured its international e-commerce information science staff. Managers will report back to the chief Zhang Heng with the purpose of centralizing the group’s measurement and AI methods, per the memo.
AI has been a giant focus at TikTok Store this 12 months, one of many staffers mentioned.
“Just about each staff is engaged on it to some extent,” the worker mentioned. Among the work is customer-facing, whereas different efforts are designed to enhance inside effectivity, they added.
TikTok Store has undergone a collection of restructurings and job cuts over the previous 12 months as the corporate has sought to get its e-commerce enterprise off the bottom in key markets just like the US. In April, the corporate lower employees on its governance and expertise staff and restructured the group, handing extra energy to staffers primarily based in Singapore or China.
TikTok Store’s US employees have been underneath stress to carry out this 12 months after international management felt the group did not meet efficiency expectations in 2024, BI beforehand reported. The e-commerce platform, which formally launched within the US in late 2023, confronted headwinds earlier this 12 months as its sellers stared down threats of a political ban and rising import prices associated to tariffs.
Issues look like wanting up. This vacation season, the corporate mentioned it drove over $500 million in US gross sales throughout the four-day window between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Extra household-name manufacturers have joined TikTok Store within the US lately, together with Disney, Ralph Lauren, and Samsung.
Fears of a possible ban have pale for some retailers, because the Trump administration has repeatedly signed government orders delaying enforcement of the regulation that requires ByteDance to promote its US enterprise or face removing from app shops. In September, the Trump administration mentioned it had permitted a $14 billion sale of the US app in a deal that would contain Oracle, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Rupert Murdoch.
TikTok didn’t reply to a request for remark.
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