Douyin, Taobao sign new round of co-op that could total 20 billion yuan

Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, has signed a new round of cooperation with Alibaba's Taobao e-commerce platform on advertising and e-commerce, with the overall size of the partnership surpassing that of last year, according to Sina Tech.

According to a previous media report, the new deal could be worth around 20 billion yuan, which is three times the amount of the previous round. However, this figure has not been confirmed by Taobao and Douyin.

For the cooperation between Taobao and Douyin, insiders believe that Douyin's ambition to build its own e-commerce is clearer.

In June this year, Douyin set up its e-commerce department. Since then, Douyin has been making frequent moves in the e-commerce field, especially accelerating the pace of Douyin mini-store and building its own closed-loop e-commerce.

TikTok & Douyin remains No. 1 in global mobile app revenue in July

However, at present, the "mini-store" is not able to carry all of Douyin's e-commerce ambitions, and Douyin mini-store lacks a complete supply chain and after-sales service system. At the same time, Douyin also needs to balance its advertising revenue with its e-commerce revenue, the Sina report said.

Taobao's partnership with Douyin began in March 2018, when Douyin was "blocked" by Tencent and turned to Taobao for collaboration.

IDouyin started to develop its e-commerce business at that time and Taobao used Douyin traffic to expand its market.

However, after the June 18 mid-year shopping spree this year, some insiders revealed that Tmall merchants will no longer be able to add Taobao traffic to their Douyin stores after their purchase links are redirected to Taobao.

After July 1, you won't be able to add Taobao links on Douyin. The move means that Taobao and Douyin are "separating". After that, the two sides negotiated several times on whether to sign a new round of cooperation, until recently signing an agreement.

Just two days ago, Douyin came out with a new rule that will charge a 20% platform service fee for live banding tasks for product links that originate from third-party e-commerce platforms.