Author's Note

I am unfortunately a chronic social media user. I jumped on TikTok in 2018 and have watched it transform to what it has become today. While I don’t necessarily participate in making the dancing videos or spill my deepest secrets for the world to see, I do admire the platform and the way it entices users to keep scrolling. 

Small businesses were a massive headline in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic where the lack of business was hurt. At that time, I was working at a local restaurant. Prior to the pandemic they were open seven days a week and just a few weeks into quarantine they began to close their doors for nearly half the week.

When TikTok Shop was introduced I began to see more and more advertisements from small business owners and people using large platforms to promote small businesses. My immediate thought was “wow, if only this happened just a few years earlier.” 

In the fall of 2023 I had the opportunity to intern with the Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce where I collaborated and networked with business owners of all types from local gift boutiques to regional banking institutions. This opened my eyes to the locals that run these businesses and have gambled their time and money to operate. 

For my senior project, I knew I wanted to write about something relevant and happening at this very moment. With the amount of small businesses that were impacted by the global pandemic, I wanted to gauge the amount of opportunity that TikTok Shop has for small businesses. Using marketing techniques, I picked the demographic that engaged most with TikTok Shop to investigate how they are making purchases from small businesses in their daily lives as well as online.