TikTok did $64bn. Amazon did $716bn.

Everyone's talking about TikTok Shop right now.

And fair enough $64.3 billion GMV in 2025, up 94% on the year before. Projected up another 48% in 2026. That's a serious number.

Here's the one nobody puts next to it:

Amazon did $716 billion in net sales. Growing 12% on a base that size.

Translation: TikTok is growing faster than anything else in ecommerce and it's still not in the same conversation.

But that's not even the stat that should change how you plan your quarter.

86% of customers still buy on Amazon, regardless of where they discovered the product first.

Sit with that one.

So when a founder asks us "should I focus on TikTok or Amazon?", our honest answer is that it's the wrong question.

One platform is built to create demand. The other is built to service it. Marketplaces are conversion machines, not education machines and TikTok is the best education machine anyone's built.

The customer sees your product mid-scroll, gets sold on why they want it, and is then one thumb swipe from typing your name into Amazon.

If you're not there when they do, someone else is.

We also get into the stuff the TikTok hype cycle skips:

→ Why TikTok is funding your discounts and how long that can possibly last
→ The trust gap (one of us has a friend who's £33 down on a jacket that never arrived)
→ Survivorship bias: "just go viral" is a strategy right up until it isn't
→ Why the fastest-growing group on TikTok isn't teenagers
→ The exact category signals that mean you should start with TikTok

This isn't an anti-TikTok episode. We're building on it with brands right now.

But if your plan is "TikTok is taking over, so we'll ease off Amazon", we'd listen to this one before you commit the budget.

- Ali & Leon

P.S. Leon has publicly committed to wearing red speedos on the pod if we average 1,000 views a video. We're not saying share this episode. We're just laying out the facts

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