On TikTok Shop, the e-commerce bazaar from the popular video-sharing app, a truly fantastic deal is being offered. A user called “Basketball World,” showing details from Apple’s website, touts a 97% discount on some of Apple’s luxury AirPod Max headphones. The usual price is $549, Basketball World explains, but he’s selling them for just $16 through TikTok.

It’s a scam, obviously. The headphones for sale are actually cheap Chinese-made knockoffs. But this is the reality of TikTok’s e-commerce blitz — a multibillion-dollar push into online shopping that risks driving away the users who made the app a success, bombarding them with low-rate copycat goods when what they truly want is the comedy, dancing and creativity to which they have grown accustomed.

TikTok’s Scammy Shop Insults Users and Hurts Its Business

TikTok’s Scammy Shop Insults Users and Hurts Its Business

On TikTok Shop, the e-commerce bazaar from the popular video-sharing app, a truly fantastic deal is being offered. A user called “Basketball World,” showing details from Apple’s website,........

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