China’s TikTok Abandons Plans for U.S. Shopping Feature After Massive Fail in UK Test

China’s TikTok has reportedly abandoned plans to launch a shopping feature in the U.S. following a disastrous test of the same feature in the UK. Many members of the UK team abandoned the company due to oppressive management practices. One former team leader said, “The culture is really toxic. Relationships there are built on fear, not cooperation.”

The Financial Times reports that TikTok’s shopping feature was extremely popular in Asia, but plans to launch the feature in America have been abandoned after a failed experiment in the United Kingdom. The UK launch as reportedly handled so poorly that half of the staff working on the project walked out, and the executive in charge of the feature was replaced after deciding that he “didn’t believe” in UK employment law.

Livestreamed e-commerce has been popular in China and other Asian countries, with brands showing a QVC-style product video alongside a clickable shopping basket. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, enjoyed rapid growth of its shopping feature on the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin. The company reportedly sold 10 billion products using the feature.

Thinking that they were on to a winning feature, the company launched TikTok Shop in the UK and planned to expand across Europe before launching in the United States. But those plans have now been scrapped after the UK project failed to meet targets and influencers abandoned the service.

A TikTok employee told the Financial Times: “The market just isn’t there yet. General consumer awareness and adoption are still low and nascent.” The executive leading TikTok Shop, Joshua Ma, apparently took major issue with UK employment law and thought that it was something you could choose to “believe in” rather than the actual law of the land. Ma reportedly told London-based staff that he “didn’t believe” in concepts such as maternity leave and was promptly removed from the project by TikTok.

At least 20 members of the TikTok London e-commerce team left the project since it launched, while others said that they were on the verge of quitting. Two employees reportedly even received paid settlements over poor working conditions. The team members were reportedly expected to work over 12 hours a day, including an early start to accommodate calls with China, and ending late as live streams were more popular in the evening.

Photos of the employees working until the early hours of the morning were shared internally as examples of “commitment” to the company and a handover in which an employee said they would work during their holiday was displayed as an example of good practice.

“The culture is really toxic. Relationships there are built on fear, not co-operation,” a former London-based team leader said. “They don’t care about burnout because it is such a big company, they can just replace you.”

Read more at the Financial Times here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com