Business
Have followers and something to sell? TikTok may want to make a deal
It is just past 10 p.m. and Aaliyah Arnold, the 20-year-old founder of BossUp Cosmetics, is selling to the TikTok universe.
As she livestreams from a Culver City filming location, about 750 people around the world watch her announce a flash sale for a mystery box containing six to eight BossUp products. Typically priced at $101.96, the bundle is now 49% off — for the next few minutes only. On viewers’ smartphone screens, a countdown timer and a red “Buy” button appear, along with a flurry of heart emojis.
“Make sure you’re shopping shopping shopping till you can’t shop no more!” Arnold, in a light pink Santa Claus sweatshirt and a full face of glam, says into one of several cameras arranged around her. To the side of the makeshift stage, members of a production crew, fueled by energy drinks and a steady stream of fast-food deliveries, ready the next group of products.
Arnold and co-host Daniel Rene hype heavily discounted BossUp products during a marathon TikTok livestream filmed in Culver City last month.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Arnold is 10 hours into a marathon selling spree and still has two hours to go. Like a Gen Z version of QVC, TikTok Live shopping events are part of a push by the social media platform to combine the convenience of mobile commerce and the frenzied consumerism of limited-time deals with interactive, unscripted entertainment. By the time her livestream ends at midnight, Arnold will have racked up $70,000 in sales and 10,000 new followers.
TikTok launched TikTok Shop — a feature that enables users to buy directly within the app — in the U.S. last year, and since then small-business owners, celebrities and major retailers have been using the livestreaming function to boost their sales and engage with customers in real time. Brands might use a Live to unveil a line of boots and take questions from viewers on sizing, or to demonstrate how to use a new hairstyling tool or kitchen gadget.
Although anyone with at least 1,000 followers can livestream themselves, TikTok has been reaching out to influential users like Arnold who have large followings and a proven ability to sell and inviting them to be a part of its TikTok Shop Partner program.
In exchange for a cut of the action, the company offers professional services to help sellers turbocharge their businesses. That includes helping them produce, as Arnold described, “huge mega livestreams” — splashy multi-hour events professionally filmed in studios, event spaces and homes around Los Angeles.
A look at how Arnold’s recent TikTok Live shopping event appeared on viewers’ mobile screens around the world. Live selling enables customers to interact with sellers in real time.
(TikTok)
TikTok’s push into the e-commerce market comes amid a backdrop of uncertainty over the company’s future in the country. The app faces a nationwide ban after years of back and forth with the U.S. government over national security concerns; the ban is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 19 unless TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests its U.S. operations.
Online live selling has been a retail phenomenon for years in China but has been slower to catch on in the U.S., where it accounts for only a tiny fraction of e-commerce revenue. That’s despite the 1990s popularity of television channels like QVC and the Home Shopping Network, and more recent live-shopping efforts by tech companies and retail brands including Amazon. In 2022, Facebook shut down its live-selling feature after two years; Instagram pulled the plug a few months later.
Livestreaming e-commerce was estimated to total $31.7 billion in the U.S. last year, according to Coresight Research.
“This pales in comparison to China’s livestreaming market, which was valued at $512 billion in 2022, revealing the significant growth opportunity in the U.S. market,” the firm said.
With a built-in audience of 170 million American users, many of them extremely online young adults well-versed in shopping on their mobile devices, TikTok is trying to push the watch-and-shop trend into the mainstream.
Rene and Arnold demonstrate BossUp’s lip oil to viewers during her livestream.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Live selling is “redefining the future of shopping on TikTok Shop,” said Nico Le Bourgeois, head of U.S. operations for TikTok Shop. He said the number of Live shopping sessions hosted on the app every month has nearly tripled in the last year.
Longer and higher-quality Lives drive more sales on TikTok Shop; that’s a win for sellers and for the social media company, which takes a single-digit percentage cut of sales on the platform, set at 6% and called a referral fee. Le Bourgeois declined to say how much revenue live selling has generated but said the number of people shopping on TikTok Shop every month has nearly tripled since its launch 15 months ago.
When they told me, “Can you do Live for 12 hours?” I was like, “You guys are sick, no.”
— Magdalena Peña, founder of beauty and hair-care brand Simply Mandys
TikTok Lives have become a pillar of brands’ sales strategies for the holiday season, and cheerfully chaotic livestreams are being held around the clock. From Nov. 13 through Dec. 2, nearly half a million Live shopping sessions were hosted on TikTok, for a total of more than 660,000 hours.
On Nov. 24, rapper Nicki Minaj hosted a two-hour livestream for her line of press-on nails that became the highest-viewed TikTok Shop Live ever, with 80,000 viewers simultaneously watching at one point. A few days later, Canvas Beauty Brand founder Stormi Steele surpassed $2 million in sales during her Black Friday livestream, a new record for a single TikTok Live.
The foray into e-commerce marks an evolution for a platform that had been known primarily as a place to endlessly scroll through frothy short-form videos. In short order, the company has shown that it “isn’t just entertainment — it’s a retail accelerator,” Oliver Chen, a retail analyst and Columbia Business School professor, wrote last month.
Arnold started BossUp when she was 14 and joined TikTok a year later in 2019. She would spontaneously host livestreams by broadcasting herself from her iPhone, which grew her fan base and got the word out about her burgeoning cosmetics brand.
But if viewers wanted to buy products, Arnold had to direct them to BossUp’s website because TikTok wasn’t shoppable back then. Many wouldn’t follow through.
Arnold founded BossUp when she was 14 and joined TikTok a year later. She would casually livestream from her iPhone, which grew her fan base and got the word out about her burgeoning beauty company.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
After the introduction of TikTop Shop in September 2023, BossUp sales swelled and Arnold’s casual livestreams caught the attention of TikTok. The company emailed Arnold with an offer to set her up with a Los Angeles agency called Yowant that specializes in working with online creators.
Arnold now flies from her home near Houston to L.A. every few weeks to host lengthy TikTok Live shopping sessions produced by the agency, which negotiates payment directly with its clients. Yowant provides her with producers and engineers, and assembles a stage with lighting, cameras and large monitors that display questions and comments as soon as viewers type them.
TikTok Shop employees, meanwhile, help her decide on a sales strategy for each Live, planning out the optimal date, a catchy soundtrack, how steep the discounts should be and which third-party affiliate products she should sell alongside her own, for which she receives a commission.
TikTok Shop has built me up like crazy.
— Aaliyah Arnold, founder of BossUp Cosmetics
Right at noon on the day of her Live last month in Culver City, the crew lets out a roar of cheers as the cameras are turned on.
“Deals and sales and giveaways — you don’t want to miss it, join in join in join in!” Arnold shouts over the commotion. “The biggest Live we’ve ever done, it’s starting right now…. Get a drink, get a snack, let’s go!”
“This is so overstimulating,” types one viewer.
Arnold and co-host Daniel Rene kick things off with a flash deal for BossUp’s Color Changing Lip Oil, usually $12.99 but marked down to $5. “Tap tap tap, shop shop shop!” she says before reminding viewers that shipping is free. Orders begin to pour in.
Seconds later a bullhorn blares, signaling the end of the deal, and Arnold is immediately on to the next discount. She does several makeup tutorials during the Live, deftly lining her lips a deep mahogany shade as a cameraman zooms in on her voluminous pout.
“People pay good money for lips like that!” Rene says approvingly.
In an interview with The Times before the livestream began, Arnold said TikTok Shop “has built me up like crazy.” She declined to provide revenue figures, but said that in the 12 months after TikTok Shop was introduced, BossUp sales increased nearly 500% compared with the 12 months prior.
That enabled her to purchase a house in June and bring on family members as employees. She bought a truck for her grandfather and a packaging warehouse for her fast-growing business.
Arnold’s recent TikTok Live in Culver City brought in $70,000 in sales over 12 hours.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Despite the uncertainty around TikTok’s future, business owners are forging ahead with all-out Live sessions in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
Over six days starting the day before Thanksgiving, Magdalena Peña, the founder of beauty and hair-care brand Simply Mandys, hosted three TikTok Live sessions for a combined 29 hours. The first brought in more than $1 million in sales.
Like Arnold, Peña was approached by employees at TikTok Shop shortly after the e-commerce feature was rolled out.
“When they told me, ‘Can you do Live for 12 hours?’ I was like, ‘You guys are sick, no,’” she recalled. “There’s no way.”
The professional services and other perks that came with TikTok’s support, however, persuaded her to reconsider. The company, for example, offered free advertising and to pay for 30% discounts for first-time buyers.
There were some stipulations: Peña, 37, could no longer include her daughter in her livestreams because she was underage; wasn’t able to showcase products not linked to TikTok Shop; and had to ship orders within two days.
“The better you follow the rules,” she said, “the more TikTok helps you.”
Magdalena Peña, the founder of beauty and hair-care company Simply Mandys, during a TikTok Live last month.
(TikTok)
Since partnering with the company, she has filmed TikTok Live shopping sessions in Culver City and West Hollywood. Peña is responsible for paying her travel costs to the Live sessions, driving with her husband and business partner from their home in Sanger, Calif.
That is, until a few weeks ago, when the couple bought a small plane. Simply Mandys’ revenue through November of this year was already quadruple what it was in 2023 — a jump Peña credits to her Live events on TikTok, which she called a “total game-changer.”
She said she is still adjusting to the frequent travel and the long days of filming, finding motivation in the adrenaline rush that comes when she sees the sales figures climb during her Lives.
“I do everything possible to hit the goal,” she said. “I tell my team, ‘I’m not leaving here until I hit that number.’”
Retired nurse Nancy Reed has been through the ringer trying to get insurance for her home next to a San Diego County nature preserve.
First, she was dropped by her longtime carrier and forced onto the state’s insurer of last resort, the California FAIR Plan, which offers basic fire policies — something thousands of residents have experienced at the hands of fire-leery insurance companies.
But what she didn’t expect was how hard it would be to find the extra coverage she needed to augment her FAIR Plan policy, which doesn’t cover common perils such as water damage or liability if someone is injured on a property.
She secured the “difference-in-conditions” policies from two insurers, only to be dropped by both before finally finding another for her Escondido home.
“I’ve lived in this house for 25 years, and I went from a very fair price to ‘we’re not insuring you anymore’ — and I’ve had three different difference-in-conditions policies,” said Reed, 71, who is paying about $2,000 for 12 months of the extra coverage. “And I’m holding my breath to see if I will be renewed next year.”
Now, a Department of Insurance regulation that would have required the FAIR plan to offer that additional coverage has been blocked by a state appeals court — leaving the plan’s customers to find that insurance in a market widely considered dysfunctional.
The court ruled earlier this month that the order would have forced the plan to offer liability insurance, which was not the intent of the Legislature when it established the plan in 1968 to offer essential insurance for those who couldn’t get it.
“We appreciate that the court confirmed the California FAIR Plan is designed and intended to operate as California’s insurer of last resort, providing basic property coverage when it cannot be obtained in the voluntary market,” said spokesperson Hilary McLean.
Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said he is “looking at all available options” following the decision. “I’ve been fighting so people can have access to all of the coverage the FAIR Plan is required by law to provide,” he said in a statement.
Lara has faced criticism from consumer advocates who’ve called for his resignation over his response to the state’s ongoing property insurance crisis.
A FAIR Plan policy covers fires, lightning, smoke damage and internal explosions, as well as vandalism and some other hazards at an additional cost. But in addition to water damage and liability protection, it doesn’t cover such common perils as theft and the damage caused by trees falling on a house.
The demand for the additional coverage — commonly referred to as a “wrap-around” policy — has become even greater than in 2021 when Lara issued the order overturned on appeal.
The FAIR Plan at the time had about 160,000 active dwelling policies following a series of catastrophic wildfires, including the 2018 fire that nearly destroyed the mountain town of Paradise. By September, that number had grown to 646,000.
The insurance department lists less than two dozen companies that offer wrap-around policies, including major California home insurers such as Mercury and Farmers and a a number of smaller carriers.
Broker Dina Smith said that to find the coverage for her home insurance clients she needs to place about 90% of them with carriers not regulated by the state — with the combined coverage typically costing at least twice as much as a regular policy.
“The [market] is very limited,” said Smith, a managing director at Gallagher.
Safeco has not written California wrap-around coverage since the beginning of the year and will begin non-renewing existing policies next month. Smith also said carriers are being selective, with the ones that offer the coverage often demanding exclusions, such as for certain types of water damage.
“If I’ve got a newer home with no prior claims … for liability losses, it’s going to be easy to write. If I get a home that is built in the 1950s that might still have galvanized pipes … that’s going to be a tough one,” she said.
Attorney Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, a San Francisco consumer group, said the difference-in-conditions, or DIC, market is getting just as problematic for homeowners as the overall market.
“The market is not as strong as it needs to be … given how many people are in the FAIR Plan, and there aren’t as many DIC options — with the DIC companies being just as picky as the primary insurers,” she said.
There is also confusion about the policies, she said. Her group is considering pushing for a law next year that would clearly label the coverage so consumers better understand what they are buying.
The Trump administration will begin to garnish the pay of student loan borrowers in January, the Department of Education said Tuesday, stepping up a repayment enforcement effort that began this year.
Beginning the week of Jan. 7, roughly 1,000 borrowers who are in default will receive notices informing them of their status, according to an email from the department. The number of notices will increase on a monthly basis.
The collection activities are “conducted only after student and parent borrowers have been provided sufficient notice and opportunity to repay their loans,” according to the email, which was unsigned.
The announcement comes as many Americans are already struggling financially, and the cost of living is top of mind. The wage garnishing could compound the effects on lower-income families contending with a stressed economy, employment concerns and health care premiums that are set to rise for millions of people.
The email did not contain any details about the nature of the garnishment, such as how much would be deducted from wages, but according to the government’s student aid website, up to 15 percent of a borrower’s take-home pay can be withheld. The government typically directs employers to withhold a certain amount, similar to a payroll tax.
A borrower should be sent a notice of the government’s intent 30 days before the seizure begins, according to the website, StudentAid.gov.
The administration ended a five-year reprieve on student loan repayments in May, paving the way for forced collections — meaning tax refunds and other federal payments, like Social Security, could be withheld and applied toward debt payments.
That move ushered in the end of pandemic-era relief that began in March 2020, when payments were paused. More than 9 percent of total student debt reported between July and September was more than 90 days delinquent or in default, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In April, only one-third of the 38 million Americans who owed money for college or graduate school and should have been making payments actually were, according to government data.
“It’s going to be more painful as you move down the income distribution,” said Michael Roberts, a professor of finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. But, he added, borrowers have to contend with the fact that they did take out money, even as government policies allowed many to put the loans at the back of their minds.
After several extensions by the Biden administration, payments resumed in October 2023, but borrowers were not penalized for defaulting until last year. About five million borrowers are in default, and millions more are expected to be close to missing payments.
The government had signaled this year that it would send notices that could lead to the garnishing of a portion of a borrower’s paycheck. Being in collections and in default can damage credit scores.
The government garnished wages before the pandemic pause, said Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, which provides free advice for borrowers. But the 2020 collections pause was the first she was aware of, she said, and that may make the deductions more shocking for people who have not had to pay for years.
“There’s a lot of defaulted borrowers that think that there was a mistake made somewhere along the line, or the Department of Education forgot about them,” Ms. Mayotte said. “I think this is going to catch a lot of them off guard.”
The first day after a missed payment, a loan becomes delinquent. After a certain amount of time in delinquency, usually 270 days, the loan is considered in default — the kind of loan determines the time period. If someone defaults on a federal student loan, the entire balance becomes due immediately. Then the loan holder can begin collections, including on wages.
But there are options to reorganize the defaulted loans, including consolidation or rehabilitation, which requires making a certain number of consecutive payments determined by the holder.
Often, people who default on debt owe the smallest amounts, said Constantine Yannelis, an economics professor at the University of Cambridge who researches U.S. student loans.
“They’re often dropouts or they went to two-year, for-profit colleges, and people who spent many, many years in schools, like doctors or lawyers, have very low default rates,” he said.
This year, millions of borrowers saw their credit scores drop after the pause on penalties was lifted. If someone does not earn an income, the government can take the person to court. But, practically speaking, a borrower’s credit score will plummet.
Dr. Yannelis added that a common reason people default was that they were not aware of the repayment options. There are plans that allow borrowers to pay 10 percent of their income rather than having 15 percent garnished, for example.
The whiplash policy changes around the time of the pandemic were “a terrible thing from a borrower-welfare perspective,” Dr. Yannelis said. “Policy uncertainty is really terrible for borrowers.”
In the midst of attempting to complete filming on his western anthology ”Horizon: An American Saga,” Kevin Costner is facing another legal dispute over the production.
On Monday, Western Costume Co. sued Costner and the production companies behind the epic western, claiming unpaid costume fees and damages to some of the clothing during the filming of the series’ second episode.
“The costumes are costly to replace if damaged or not returned,” states the complaint, which included copies of invoices for about $134,000 in costume rentals. “Without a reasonable basis for doing so and/or with reckless regard to the consequences, defendants failed to pay for the rented costumes and failed to return the costumes undamaged.”
Western Costume, the iconic business based in North Hollywood, is seeking to recover roughly $440,000, including legal fees, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
A spokesperson for Costner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal and financial problems that have dogged the sprawling western drama, which Costner directed, co-wrote, starred in and partially funded.
In May, United Costume Corp., sued the production, claiming $350,000 in unpaid fees for the first two chapters of “Horizon.” Two months later, the costume firm filed to dismiss the suit with prejudice.
In May, Devyn LaBella, a stunt performer on “Chapter 2,” sued the production for sexual discrimination, harassment and retaliation in Los Angeles Superior Court. LaBella alleged an unscripted rape scene was filmed without the presence of a contractually mandated intimacy coordinator.
In a motion filed in August to get the suit tossed, Costner said he had reviewed LaBella’s complaint and was “shocked at the false and misleading allegations she was making.”
In October, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied Costner’s anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss the case. The judge also denied LaBella’s claim that Costner had interfered with her civil rights through the use of intimidation or coercion with respect to her participation in the filming of a rape scene, but allowed several of her other claims to proceed.
The case is pending.
The production is also facing an arbitration claim for alleged breaches in its co-financing agreement with its distributor New Line Cinema and City National Bank, “Horizon” bondholder, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
In June 2024, “Chapter 1” of the planned four-part series was released in theaters followed by a streaming broadcast on HBO Max, but it was largely panned by critics.
In its review, The Times described “Horizon” as “a massive boondoggle, a misguided and excruciatingly tedious cinematic experience.”
It failed at the box office, grossing just $38.8 million worldwide, on a reported $100 million budget.
“Chapter 2” premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last September, but its theatrical release was pulled and remains indefinitely delayed, while the final two chapters remain in production or development, according to IMDb.
Europe defends its digital rules after US targets Breton with visa ban
New Epstein files mention Trump. And, SCOTUS rules on National Guard in Chicago
Dem Senate candidate faces backlash after violent fantasy against conservative SCOTUS justices goes viral
Oklahoma teaching assistant fired after uproar over flunking Christian student who referenced Bible in essay
Boca Raton mayor launches run for Congress, touting GOP as ‘party of the middle class’
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Europe defends its digital rules after US targets Breton with visa ban
New Epstein files mention Trump. And, SCOTUS rules on National Guard in Chicago
Nick Fuentes says he’ll campaign against Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio in slur-laced rant
Libyan army chief killed in plane crash: What next?
U.S. and Ukraine reach consensus on key issues aimed at ending the war
-
Iowa1 week agoAddy Brown motivated to step up in Audi Crooks’ absence vs. UNI
-
Maine1 week agoElementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine
-
Maryland1 week agoFrigid temperatures to start the week in Maryland
-
New Mexico1 week agoFamily clarifies why they believe missing New Mexico man is dead
-
Detroit, MI1 week ago‘Love being a pedo’: Metro Detroit doctor, attorney, therapist accused in web of child porn chats
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist, shot and killed in his home in Brookline, Mass. | Fortune
-
Health1 week ago‘Aggressive’ new flu variant sweeps globe as doctors warn of severe symptoms
-
Maine1 week agoFamily in Maine host food pantry for deer | Hand Off