Imagine having over three million people tune in live to watch you sell a product. That’s a magnitude of people I can’t even imagine. That would fill more than 34 of Malaysia’s biggest stadium, the National Stadium. That’s more than half of Singapore’s population.
That’s the number of people who clicked into Khairul Aming’s livestream on February 2, 2024.
The influencer-turned-entrepreneur started a TikTok LIVE to launch his new product, Dendeng Nyet Berapi. At its peak, the livestream received over 3.3 million viewers.
In less than four minutes, Khairul sold 80,000 orders, generating over RM1 million in revenue.
“The viewers on the LIVE stream were completely organic, and recorded the highest number of views on a TikTok Shop LIVE stream at its peak,” Nur Azre Abdul Aziz, Partnerships Lead at TikTok Shop Malaysia told us.
Some flaws in the system?
Like three million other people, we were also in the livestream, awaiting the chance to get our hands on Khairul Aming’s latest product.
My colleague who was in the livestream shared that there was no lag, but the actual Shop itself was buggy. She wasn’t able to add items to her cart, or when she did, they would disappear from the cart, or it wouldn’t allow her to proceed to payment.
Ultimately, she wasn’t able to secure one out of 80,000 of the Dendeng Nyet Berapi. With millions of people vying for Khairul Aming’s products, though, perhaps that’s to be expected.
When asked about the lags and whether TikTok Shop had prepared in advance for the volume of buyers, the team shared, “At TikTok Shop, we constantly work towards ensuring a seamless shopping experience for the buyers and sellers.”
To them, safety is a top priority, so their focus is on providing security for those who choose to purchase on TikTok Shop.
A fluke, or by design?
At the end of the day, Khairul Aming has something many livestreamers might not have—star power. The creator has 3.9 million followers on Instagram, and 4.2 million on TikTok.
So, is this kind of viewership really replicable or even imitable by others on TikTok LIVE?
To that, Nur shared that TikTok Shop allows brands and sellers to be discovered via Shoppertainment, bringing together the best of both worlds when it comes to content and commerce.
“Khairul Aming, who has already established himself on the platform, has an audience that he can reach out to via a series of tools and content made available on TikTok Shop, ultimately leading to the success of his LIVE stream,” she explained.
So for those who want to have more people tune in to their livestream and thus improve their performance on TikTok Shop, growing your own TikTok platform is critical.
That said, TikTok Shop also seeks to provide businesses of all shapes and sizes with equal opportunities to succeed, and believes that such levels of success are not limited to those with a large following.
“Over the years since TikTok Shop was introduced, we have been able to witness the growth of many local businesses that have shifted from brick-and-mortar to online storefronts, or those that have found their niche solely on TikTok Shop,” Nur pointed out.
Some examples she gave included Kedai Bookcafe, who achieved more sales in one year at TikTok Shop compared to a decade of physical selling. There’s also JTT Store MY, whose primary revenue stream is now from TikTok Shop.
Perhaps because of these success stories, TikTok Shop now has over one million businesses onboard in Malaysia alone.
A sustainable platform?
If you’ve been keeping up with global events, you may remember that some time last year, TikTok Shop was banned in Indonesia. The Indonesian government cited the reason being the need to protect smaller merchants and users’ data.
With that in mind, we wondered if TikTok Shop would face the same fate here in Malaysia, or if it’s something the team is concerned about.
“TikTok Shop aims to bolster the growth of local businesses, and as such, we work closely with Malaysian SMEs to equip and empower them to sell on the platform,” Nur said to that.
She elaborated that the team is working with various government and non-governmental organisations to empower SMEs nationwide.
This includes projects with Perbadanan Usahawan Nasional Berhad (PUNB), Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), and the state governments of Sabah and Sarawak to encourage digital economy growth in East Malaysia.
Moreover, TikTok Shop is partnering with the Ministry of Domestic Trade to further equip rural and local brands with the know-how to go further.
Leading up to Raya, TikTok Shop is also working with Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) to encourage sellers in six states to carry out LIVE shopping streams.
“TikTok Shop is committed to supporting Malaysian businesses in reaching their fullest potential,” Nur concluded.
Realistically speaking, TikTok LIVE and TikTok Shop isn’t some surefire way to become successful or sell out a million ringgit’s worth of products in four minutes. Khairul’s success has been years in the making, after all.
However, it seems like TikTok Shop serves as a platform where people stand a chance to accelerate their businesses—or in the case of older, smaller businesses, sustain it.
Khairul Aming’s stream showed that it’s not a stretch to imagine 3.3 million people tuning into a livestream, and for them to buy out 80,000 products in less than four minutes. It also shows how TikTok has the infrastructure to support that.
His success might not be easily replicable, but it gives a benchmark of what is possible in Malaysia, for Malaysian entrepreneurs, for Malaysian-made products.
Featured Image Credit: TikTok Shop / Vulcan Post
