TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is testing a livestream food-delivery service on its Chinese TikTok platform Douyin.
Key Details
- ByteDance is testing out food delivery on Douyin, where restaurant owners can live stream to market food and offer delivery services and allowing the company to enter the $66.4-billion food-delivery market in China.
- Restaurants can do live videos of food and provide discount codes where customers can claim the discount and select a time within two days for the food item to be delivered.
- For now, the delivery is being tested in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu, with plans to extend the service if the test results are good.
Why it’s news
Chinese TikTok fans can now order food without leaving the video app. TikTok parent company ByteDance is testing a food-delivery service across Douyin.
Douyin is the Chinese version of TikTok and is heavily used by restaurant owners to market their business by live-streaming food.
Now companies can livestream food with discounts attached, allowing watchers to select the discount and have the food delivered at a time of their choosing within the next two days.
The feature is currently only being offered in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu, but the company says, “We would consider expanding the feature to more cities in the future depending on the testing results. There is no detailed timeline yet.”
ByteDance is hoping to compete with Alibaba’s Ele.me and Meituan—the two companies that dominate the Chinese food delivery market.
ByteDance says the Douyin food delivery is different from the other two services as it allows users to watch a video or live stream of the food, and the other services are on-demand ordering like that of UberEats.
TikTok Controversy
In the last few years, TikTok has exploded in the U.S., securing about 80 million active monthly users in America.
Many U.S. lawmakers have expressed concerns about the safety of U.S. citizens’ data considering TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance and lawmakers are starting to crack down on the app’s use.
Many federal lawmakers have proposed bans on the app due to its ties with China.
The U.S. House officially banned TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices ordering all employees to delete the app due to security concerns, and multiple states have banned the app.
Many representatives continue to try and get the app entirely banned in America unless China decides to work with U.S. officials.