DHGate told MIT Technology Review that the social media attention has resulted in a surge in transactions on the platform, with categories like home goods, electronics, outdoor gear, and pet supplies seeing the most popularity. During the week of April 12 to 19, home appliances saw a 962% increase in sales, while security tech jumped 601%.
TikTok is indeed not a vanity project for these manufacturers but a survival strategy in an increasingly competitive environment.
Chinese factories have long sold to overseas markets, but when domestic economic growth started to slow in the past decade, manufacturers increasingly turned to major B2B platforms like Alibaba to connect with buyers abroad without relying on middlemen. In the past few years, however, the cost of gaining visibility to foreign buyers on major platforms like Amazon and Alibaba has skyrocketed.
“It has become a crowded, saturated space, and it could cost 30,000 to 40,000 RMB [$210,000 to $290,000] a year just to get your factory to show up on the first page in search results,” says Logan Wang, an e-commerce manager at Shendeng Consulting, who advises Chinese manufacturers on overseas operations.
The landscape only got more fraught as traditional manufacturing sectors struggled with oversupply and post-covid stagnation. In 2024, China’s apparel exports to the US grew by less than 1%, while the average unit price of those goods dropped by 7.6%—a sign that competition is fiercer and profit margins are shrinking.
Add the new tariffs to this mix and Chinese manufacturers are increasingly motivated to find creative ways to reach buyers.
Linda Luo, a manager at a Guangzhou-based apparel factory, says that in the wake of the latest round of sanctions, her factory has paused US shipments, which previously accounted for around 30% of their sales. Now, storage rooms are filling up with products that have no clear destination.
“Many nearby factories are like us,” Luo says, “holding out to see how these tariffs develop, hoping the situation will resolve itself.” Motivated by the success of peers who’ve gone viral, Luo says, her team is now actively reaching out to TikTok-famous sourcing agents, hoping to forge direct connections with new buyers.
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