The retail industry is facing a truly unprecedented moment – stores across the world, including our own, are closed in order to help curb the spread of Covid-19. And while most of our physical doors aren’t open today, the Levi’s® brand continues to find new ways to grow its digital business and connect with fans across all types of platforms, mediums and technologies. That’s what makes its newest partnership with TikTok so exciting – it’s the brand’s latest effort to enable consumers to buy its products directly from a social platform.
TikTok was a natural partner for the brand to deepen its connection with the next generation of Levi’s® fans. In November 2018, TikTok reported it had 680 million monthly active users around the globe and estimates today put it as high as 800 million. Of those active monthly users, nearly 60 percent fall between the ages of 16-24.
Through this year’s Levi’s® Haus Miami activation, the brand partnered with TikTok influencers Callen Schaub, Cosette Rinab, Gabby Morrison and Everett Williams to create their own customized denim using our laser-powered Future Finish 3-D denim customization technology. Consumers were able to view these Future Finish videos and then click to buy the same design on levi.com directly from influencers’ TikTok posts which wrapped up on April 19. So far, watch time for these videos are twice as long as platform average on TikTok.
Levi’s® is proud to be one of the select partners in TikTok’s “Shop Now” program, giving consumers the option to purchase items they love via TikTok. While it’s still early in the implementation process, the brand is already seeing great engagement on the platform and increased traffic to the website. Since launch, product views to levi.com’s Future Finish pages have more than doubled for every product included in the experience.
“TikTok was the perfect platform for us to expand our efforts in social commerce. Over the last decade, we’ve been on a journey to not only grow our digital footprint, but also help our fans buy our products at the point of inspiration, when they see something they love,” said Brady Stewart, managing director, U.S. Direct to Consumer. “As consumer behavior shifts over the coming months and people explore different online channels for shopping and engaging with brands, we are here to connect with consumers, wherever they are.”
The launch with TikTok builds on similar partnerships the Levi’s® brand has had with other social platforms such as Snap, Instagram and Pinterest. Through our Digital Partnerships initiative, we’re working with technology players, large and small, that are influencing the way consumers shop today. With these projects, we’ve seen a lot of success in amplifying brand and product stories to test and scale social commerce on emerging platforms.
While these channels are still nascent compared to more traditional e-commerce channels such as levi.com or our partners’ online stores, they do contribute to our overall digital business, which is now more than 15 percent of our total revenue, double what it was just three years ago.
As TikTok and other social networks continue to accelerate efforts to become a platform for e-commerce as well as connection, we’re excited to join them in this journey.
