When I heard that what we believe was going to be a world first – a TikTok Live auction held simultaneously with both an online and an in-person audience of around 100 at TikTok’s London headquarters, I had to go along to find out how it worked.
The retailer was Luxe Collective and the one thing I couldn’t work out was how the bids would be taken, but as the action started it all became clear.
It wasn’t an auction as we know it, but rather a reverse auction where the price started high and was gradually lowered both for the audience and in real time on the TikTok app. How low would the bidding on luxury handbags go? As the price dropped the pressure grew until someone broke and pressed the buy button.
What was particularly fun, was when someone in the audience tried to bid only to discover that they’d been pipped to the post by an online bidder and the item was no longer available – while the TikTok Live online bidders (of which about 1,000 were watching), might have missed some of the atmosphere in the room, they had just as much chance of snagging a bargain… although the items still ranged from £100s to the low £1000s.
What was more interesting than the actual sales, was the community that Luxe Collective have built on TikTok – Those in the room were friends and some of their most active buyers, indeed they even had a few awards to give out on the night from the person who had watched their Lives the most (the winner appeared to have watched just about all of every Live they’ve ever done!) to their biggest spenders who buy regularly from the company.
But it wasn’t a one-to-one relationship between the buyers and Luxe Collective, this was a group of buyers that might not know each other by name, but certainly knew each other by their TikTok handle. Amazingly one woman was pipped to the post by an online buyer who got their bid in first, only for the room to erupt with laughter when the winning bidders handle was announced…. the rest of us had to have it explained that it was actually her husband that had won the item!
The biggest takeaway from the evening wasn’t that this was a unique event and a first on TikTok, not only holding an auction on TikTok Live but also with an in-person audience able to bid. It was that TikTok isn’t just about entertainment, and it’s gone further than a one to one relationship between a consumer and a business. Luxe Collective have built their success by fostering a one to many relationship where their customers are just as invested in the community and communicate with each other as much as the company supplying the product.
