The news: Blackhawk Network is enabling in-app gift card purchases for TikTok Shop, per a press release.

TikTok users can purchase digital gift cards while ordering other goods in one transaction.

Why this matters: TikTok Shop ecommerce sales are roaring—we forecast $23.41 billion in sales this year, up 48% YoY. 

Latching onto a fast-growing discovery channel-turned-transaction layer can help Blackhawk capture more gift card spend from Gen Zers. 

• 18- to 24-year-olds spend an average of 58 minutes with the ByteDance app per day, per our forecast—the most time out of any demographic group. 
• And 62% of Gen Zers use TikTok to discover new products, per Harris Poll data shared with EMARKETER.

Zooming out: Gift card purchases may marry well with TikTok’s feed and impulsive-driven UX. Users already primed for shopping and discovery after scrolling: 47% of TikTok users ages 25 to 44 go on to buy a product they heard about on the platform, per a December report by Edison Research.

Implications for retailers: TikTok Shop is an underutilized growth channel for picking millennial, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha spend. 

With legacy brands only just starting to move onto the platform, retailers need to alert social ecommerce shoppers that they have a storefront on TikTok Shop with digital gift cards available for purchase.