From TikTok to Doorstep: the New e-Commerce Journey

Gen Z: Misunderstood or Simply More Demanding?

Gen Z is often described as a generation of impulsive shoppers: see it on TikTok, want it, buy it. But that description misses something important. This matters because Gen Z is not a niche consumer group. The cohort is expected to account for almost 20% of global spending by 2030, meaning its shopping habits are likely to influence the future direction of ecommerce rather than simply reflect a temporary youth trend.

Social media may have changed where shopping begins, but it has not necessarily made consumers less thoughtful. In many cases, it has given shoppers more information to work with.

A product discovered in a 20-second TikTok can lead to reviews, price comparisons, Reddit threads, alternative products and conversations with friends before a purchase is made. The journey between discovering something and actually buying it can be much longer than it appears.

That shift matters for retailers, but it also matters for the businesses operating behind the scenes. If the customer journey is becoming more fragmented, the expectations attached to every stage of it are rising too.

The question for e-Commerce may therefore be less about how Gen Z shops, and more about what Gen Z now considers a good shopping experience.

Shopping starts on TikTok, not at checkout

For many younger consumers, product discovery increasingly happens through platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube rather than traditional search. That does not mean that social media has replaced research. In some ways, it has made research easier. This is not just a marginal behaviour. In 2023, more than 80% of Gen Z consumers in the UK said they followed influencers on social media, compared with just under 70% of millennials and less than 15% of baby boomers. That makes influencer content a particularly important entry point into the e-Commerce journey for younger shoppers.

A creator might introduce a product, but shoppers can immediately see demonstrations, read comments, find alternative recommendations and compare prices elsewhere. Review-led content is especially important in this process. In 2024, review videos influenced over half of Gen Z consumers to make a purchase, showing that digital word-of-mouth plays an active role in the buying decision. The first interaction with a product is often only the beginning of the decision-making process.

This creates a new challenge for brands. They are no longer simply competing solely for visibility on a search results page. They are competing for attention across a much less linear journey.

A customer might discover a product on TikTok, investigate on Google, check reviews on another platform, purchase it through a retailer’s website and then spend the next few days tracking its delivery. From the customer’s perspective, that is one experience. For businesses, it can involve several different platforms, systems and companies. That gap is becoming increasingly important.

 Convenience has moved beyond checkout

Features such as mobile payments, flexible payment options and rapid delivery were once ways for businesses to differentiate themselves. Increasingly, they feel like basic expectations. But convenience does not end when a customer presses “buy”.

Delivery updates, tracking, collection options, returns and the ability to resolve problems quickly are all part of the same experience. This expectation also extends to communication. Over 40% of Gen Z social media users turn to social platforms for customer service, suggesting that younger consumers expect support to be immediate and available through the same digital spaces where shopping begins. A customer is unlikely to think, “The retailer was excellent, but the logistics provider was disappointing.” They simply remember that the order was a bad experience.

This means logistics is no longer just the final stage of e-Commerce. It is part of the product experience. That may be one of the more significant changes happening beneath the surface of online shopping.

Advertising might create the desire to buy, but the delivery is where the promise made by the brand is tested.

 The rise of circular shopping and social commerce

There is another change that complicates the traditional retail model: increasingly, the purchase does not have to be new.

Platforms such as Vinted and Depop have helped make second-hand shopping feel less like a compromise and more like a normal part of fashion consumption. For some shoppers, buying pre-owned can offer lower prices, for others, it is about finding something distinctive or extending the life of an existing product.

What is particularly significant is that resale does not necessarily sit outside traditional retail. It can compete directly with it.

If a customer has £100 to spend on a jacket, the competition is no longer simply between different retailers selling new jackets. A pre-owned designer jacket on a resale platform may be competing for exactly the same £100.

That changes the definition of competition. Retailers are therefore beginning to experiment with ways of participating in resale, repair and buy-back schemes rather than treating second-hand commerce purely as a threat. Brands including Patagonia, Levi’s and IKEA have explored different forms of circular commerce.

The key point is not that second-hand shopping will replace traditional retail. It is that the lifetime of a product is becoming more commercially significant than the moment it is first sold.

From one-way supply chains to products with multiple lives

This also creates a more complex logistics challenge. Traditional e-Commerce is relatively straightforward in principle: a product moves from a business to a consumer.

Circular commerce is different.  A product can move from manufacturer to retailer, retailer to customer, customer to resale platform, then from one individual to another. It might eventually be returned, repaired or resold again.

The physical movement of the product therefore does not necessarily end with the first customer. That could have implications well beyond fashion. If consumers increasingly think about products as things they can resell, return, repair or pass on, the infrastructure supporting those movements becomes increasingly important.

Convenient drop-off points, affordable delivery and simple returns might therefore do more than improve the customer experience. They can make entirely different models of consumption possible.

Price matters – but value is more complicated

It would also be easy to interpret Gen Z’s shopping behaviour simply through the cost-of-living crisis.

Price clearly matters. Comparison shopping is easier than ever, and consumers can quickly find alternatives when something feels overpriced. But the rise of resale and the importance of reviews suggest that consumers may be thinking about value rather than price alone.

A cheaper product is not necessarily better value if it performs badly, arrives late or becomes difficult to return. Equally, a more expensive product may seem worthwhile if consumers trust its quality, longevity or resale value.

This is where trust becomes particularly important. Consumers now have access to an enormous amount of information about products and brands. That makes it harder for businesses to control the entire narrative around what they sell.

A polished advertisement can create interest, but reviews, comments, creators and other customers can quickly challenge it.

The same principle applies to delivery. A retailer can spend heavily creating a premium brand experience, but that experience can be undermined if the final interaction with the customer is poor.

So, what is actually changing?

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Gen Z’s impact on e-Commerce is not that younger consumers shop through TikTok, buy second-hand clothes or expect fast delivery.

It is that the boundaries between discovery, shopping, ownership and resale are becoming less clear. A product can be discovered socially, researched collectively, bought digitally, delivered physically and resold through another digital platform.

For businesses, that means the customer journey is no longer a simple line from advertisement to checkout. It is becoming a network. And logistics sits across much more of that network than it once did. Gen Z may not be reinventing e-Commerce by demanding something completely new. Instead, they may be accelerating expectations that were already emerging: more information, less friction, greater flexibility and a more circular relationship with products.

The interesting question is therefore not whether retailers can keep up with Gen Z. It is whether the e-Commerce infrastructure built around a traditional, one-way purchase can keep up with a consumer journey that increasingly moves in every direction.