eDesk, a customer support platform for eCommerce sellers, has released new data revealing a seismic shift in consumer behaviour as TikTok Shop matures from a viral novelty into a high-stakes retail powerhouse. The rapid rise in discovery commerce is creating a profitable opportunity for retailers, but also a dilemma: retailers are selling items faster than they can support them. According to eDesk’s new research, due to this fast-paced environment, consumers are looking for much quicker (almost 4x) response rates than what is typical on traditional marketplaces.
The primary difficulty for sellers using TikTok Shop is the transition from traditional asynchronous communication to the rapid-fire of today’s ‘always on’, ‘social-only’ businesses. A study conducted by eDesk sought to evaluate how TikTok Shop users compare with eBay and Amazon users in terms of customer response expectations. eDesk reviewed thousands of exchanges between customers and sellers and found that the average customer expects to hear back from a seller on TikTok Shop within 1.1 hours after making a purchase, while the average response times on Amazon and eBay were approximately 4.2 hours and 6.0 hours, respectively. Customers who do not receive timely responses to their enquiries have become less forgiving and, therefore, more likely to abandon their purchases; 47 per cent of customers will abandon their purchases if they have not received an answer within 30 minutes after they ask a question, and 60 per cent will have given up on their purchase entirely if they have not heard back from the seller within 60 minutes.
The demands on support teams have increased dramatically with the rise of viral product categories and niche discovery items. Beauty & Wellness products are not like traditional electronics (14 tickets for every 100 orders), but instead average more than 40 tickets for every 100 orders based on viral trends (like snail mucin or salmon sperm skincare); thus, before making a purchase, consumers routinely evaluate ingredient composition and authenticity. Approximately 38 per cent of customer-support interactions occur in public forums, and when a resolution is achieved, twice as many customers are likely to complete a purchase. Despite this, automation continues to pose challenges, with approximately 34 per cent of tickets reopened after receiving initial automation responses. This statistic illustrates the importance of providing customers with a human experience right from the start to guarantee their satisfaction.
The findings emphasise that the 2026 landscape is defined by financial leakage for those who fail to anticipate these shifts, with 15–20 per cent of refund values currently tied to auto-approved refunds.
“ The moment a product goes viral, the real pressure starts. Our data shows a significant gap in response expectations, which stretches support teams and quietly reduces the profit retailers worked hard to earn,” said Gareth Cummings, CEO at eDesk. “The smart retailers are not reacting to this; they are preparing by using unified tools to bridge the speed gaps and ensure they hold on to their customers during the critical window following a live session.”
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