Douyin Is the Hottest Upstart eCommerce Marketplace Right Now
Walmart and Douyin have recently achieved the highest growth rates among the world's top 10 marketplaces. What are the secrets to their global success?
eCommerce Top Rankings
Alibaba and Amazon have been the leading eCommerce players for some time. But new entrants could bring new challenges to the ranking – who poses the biggest threat to the world's top eCommerce companies?
Antonia Tönnies
Working Student
January 28, 2025
Retailers
Chinese New Year is just around the corner, marking the end of the Lunar Year of the Dragon and the beginning of the Lunar Year of the Snake. But before we ring in the New Year, let's take a look back at the past few years. There have been many changes among the world's largest eCommerce companies, with Chinese businesses gaining more and more ground.
The Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding, Ltd. is at the top of the heap. Even though the company has seen a negative growth trend after its peak of US$1.3 trillion in eCommerce activity revenue in 2021, it remains at the top. It appears that Alibaba has not recovered from the Chinese government's crackdown from 2021 and 2022. In addition, China's economic woes have strong implications, as it is the most important market for Alibaba, where it generates 88.3% of its 2023 activity revenue. Chinese consumers have cut back on spending due to a real estate crisis and increased job insecurity among young people.
Note: eCommerce activity revenue includes all first-party sales and third-party GMV from online platforms operated by a company or its subsidiaries, as defined by ECDB. Since GMV may include third-party sales, returns, commissions, and service fees (e.g., shipping), eCommerce revenue can exceed the company's total revenue.
This development has helped Amazon.com, Inc. get closer to its biggest rival, Alibaba. A major difference between these two companies is their audience. Amazon largely sells to individual customers, while Alibaba works with businesses. This translates into higher profits, as businesses are more solvent and therefore tend to order in larger quantities than private shoppers.
However, with an eCommerce activity revenue of US$761 billion to US$1.1 trillion in 2024, the difference between Amazon and Alibaba remains big. Other competitors with lower eCommerce activity revenue like PDD with US$684 billion stand closer to the U.S. company – and the competition, as we all know, never sleeps. Just like ByteDance.
In the last five years, the Chinese company ByteDance, Ltd. has climbed from US$5.8 billion (2020) to US$618 billion in eCommerce activity revenue. In other words, the company has multiplied its eCommerce activity revenue by over 118. This is due to the success of its social media and eCommerce platform douyin.com and the related rise of social and livestream commerce in China.
The boom around Douyin propelled ByteDance so much that it managed to knock two big companies off their fifth and fourth places in the world's top eCommerce companies. First it was the U.S. company Walmart, Inc. in 2021. And last year, ByteDance surpassed JD.com, Inc. – as PDD Holdings, Inc. did in 2023.
Over the years, ByteDance's absolute growth rate has evolved from US$66.5 billion between 2019 and 2020 to US$210.6 between 2023 and 2024. In particular, its latest growth rate, which represents an increase of 51.7%, is rather high compared to its current competitors. This development is thanks to ByteDance's social media platform, which works primarily with short, engaging videos that effectively blend entertainment and commerce.
As a result, users looking to consume content are nudged toward impulse purchases with almost no friction. ByteDance is hitting the ‘Zeitgeist’ of digital consumption trends. At its current rate of growth, the company is on track to become the third largest eCommerce company in the world this year.
Related Articles
Walmart and Douyin have recently achieved the highest growth rates among the world's top 10 marketplaces. What are the secrets to their global success?
Aldi's latest strategic move is making headlines: It is going to close its online store aldi-onlineshop.de. What does Aldi lack that its direct competitors don't?
The affordable fashion segment has suffered from market shocks and frequent changes in trends and dynamics. Uniqlo seems to combine two points of discussion: Affordability and sustainability.
Click here for
more relevant insights from
our partner Mastercard.
Our Tool
We’re not just another blog—we’re an advanced eCommerce data analytics tool. The insights you find here are powered by real data from our platform, providing you with a fact-based perspective on market trends, store performance, industry developments, and more.
Analyze retailers in depth with our extensive Retailer dashboards and compare up to four retailers of your choice.
Combine countries and categories of your choice and analyze markets in depth with our advanced market dashboards.
Compile detailed rankings by category and country and fine-tune them with our advanced filter options.
Discover relevant leads and contacts in your chosen markets, build lists, and download them effortlessly with a single click.
Benchmark transactional and conversion funnel KPIs against market standards and gain insight into the key metrics of your relevant market.
Our reports provide pre-analysed data and highlight key insights to help you quickly identify key trends.
Find your perfect solution and let ECDB empower your eCommerce success.