Shopping on TikTok is more common among Millennials than among Gen Z adults

TikTok Shop, the online sales platform integrated into the Chinese social network, is winning over more and more users. According to a recent study, while Gen Z are the bigger users of TikTok, Millennials are more likely to say they use TikTok Shop relative to their platform usage. This trend highlights younger consumers’ growing interest in social media shopping.

In the United States, over a third of Millennials (37%) have already purchased items on TikTok Shop, while 64% of them use the Chinese social network. Meanwhile, 76% of Gen Z use the platform and 40% of 18-26 year-olds have already made purchases on it. In other words, the Millennials who use TikTok are making more purchases overall. The latest survey* by Morning Consult highlights Generation Y’s interest in shopping on social networks.

Millennials also tend to make multiple purchases. In fact, 18% of them have made between two and five purchases, and 9% have made more than five, compared with 16% and 8% respectively for 18-26 year-olds, and 6% and 5% for 13-17 year-olds.

This new mode of consumption does not seem to appeal to older users of the social network, as only 14% of Gen X and 2% of Baby Boomers have ever bought something on TikTok Shop.

It’s mainly on YouTube and Facebook that American Millennials do their social media shopping (over 60% of them). While they far outstrip Generation X and Baby Boomers, 18-26 year-olds and Millennials share a common attraction to shopping on the Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Pinterest platforms.

“Teenage Gen Zers are notably low on their usage of Facebook’s shopping features, which is commensurate with their use of the platform overall,” the research explains.

Less than 30% of them turn to Meta’s platform for shopping, compared to almost half the US population of all ages.

*Gen Z survey conducted from December 5 to 21, 2023 among a representative sample of 1,007 Gen Z aged 13 to 26, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-3 percentage points. Adult survey conducted from December 5 to 9, 2023 among a representative sample of 2,218 US adults, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-2 percentage points.