There’s a battle unfolding in video commerce, and it’s happening almost in silence.

On one side, TikTok Shop — loud, relentless, and always in the headlines. On the other, YouTube Shopping — quiet, cautious, and advancing mostly out of view.

TikTok shouts about its numbers and leaks GMV targets, while YouTube rarely makes noise beyond the occasional press release about a new feature. Yet the contrast in styles masks what could become the real story: YouTube Shopping may ultimately emerge as the bigger player. Instagram is obviously massive in this space, but it hasn’t placed a decisive bet on fully integrated commerce. Most of its shopping still flows through affiliate links and off-platform conversions. That’s why, for now, the real contest to watch is TikTok vs. YouTube.

Different Starting Points

TikTok Shop is far ahead today. In the first half of 2025 alone, its global GMV reached US$26.2 billion, doubling year-on-year. In the U.S., GMV hit US$5.8 billion, up 91% compared to last year. Behind those numbers is a dense ecosystem of brands, affiliates, and agencies built in just over a year. Its ad products are evolving quickly, its affiliate program is already scaled, and sellers across categories have jumped in.

YouTube Shopping, by comparison, feels more like a beta. It requires a minimum of 10,000 subscribers for creators, its integrations are rolling out slowly, and unless you’re following closely, you hardly hear about it.

But silence doesn’t mean stagnation. This is Google’s playbook: deliberate, methodical, testing before scaling.

Audience and Power

The most obvious difference is audience.

TikTok has explosive reach and it skews younger. While that demographic is powerful in driving trends, its purchasing power is more limited.

YouTube is a giant waiting to be awoken for commerce. As of early 2025, it has 2.74 billion monthly active users, spread across all demographics. Viewers watch over 1 billion hours of video daily, with an average session of 19 minutes — engagement that’s both deep and broad. And users already consume more than 30 billion hours of shopping-related content.

In other words: if TikTok is the mall where teens and young adults hang out, YouTube is the shopping district that reaches everyone from high schoolers to professionals to parents. And crucially, it skews slightly older, with higher purchasing power.

Brands and Positioning

TikTok Shop has pointed the way for how video commerce can work at scale, but its growth model has been heavily promotional and tilted toward opportunistic sellers. Yes, you can find names like Tarte, The Ordinary, and Goli, but the platform’s biggest breakout successes have been brands many had never heard of before: Merach, Bodywise, Wyze, Tymo, to name a few.

YouTube is taking the opposite approach. In its limited announcements, the brands it highlights are the likes of Abercrombie, Adidas, Benefit, Fenty. Established players with strong equity. And because YouTube requires creators to meet the 10,000-subscriber threshold, the quality bar is higher from the start.

One feels like a wide-open marketplace. The other feels (too?) curated.

Dollar Store vs. Department Store?

TikTok is moving fast and furious, trying to replicate the China model of Douyin commerce. The risk is that it ends up looking like the Dollar Store of digital commerce: massive reach, strong GMV, but heavy on low-cost, lower-quality goods.

YouTube, meanwhile, is progressing cautiously, aiming to ensure that both the creator and brand experience are premium. If TikTok has prioritized speed, YouTube is prioritizing quality.

What Happens Next

TikTok is the undeniable winner today. The platform has already reshaped social media and entertainment, and it’s proving it can turn traffic into transactions. But YouTube’s combination of scale, audience purchasing power, and brand credibility gives it an enormous, mostly untapped advantage.

The battle between TikTok Shop and YouTube Shopping won’t be decided this quarter or even this year. But make no mistake: it’s happening right now, in the background.

TikTok has shown the way. YouTube might just be the one to take it mainstream.