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Jun 14, 2024 • 4 min read

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TikTok Shop Image Search:

TikTok, a leader in the social media world, is now testing a new feature that could challenge Google’s dominance in search. The company confirmed to that it is experimenting with a feature allowing users to take or upload photos to find similar products in TikTok Shop. This feature, is available to users in the United States and Southeast Asia, who will see a camera icon in the search bar within TikTok Shop.
For example, if you're at a restaurant and like the plate you’re served on, you can open the TikTok app, snap a picture of it, and find similar items available for purchase on TikTok Shop. Or, if you’re online shopping and find an expensive top, you can save the image and upload it to TikTok to find a similar item at a lower price. This new image search feature eliminates the need for textual descriptions, similar to Google Lens and Amazon's visual search tool.
TikTok has already started to impact Google’s search market, with executives noting in 2022 that TikTok and Instagram were eating into its core Search product. With this new feature, TikTok aims to further entice users to use its app for product searches and make purchases directly through TikTok Shop. Recently, TikTok revealed that TikTok Shop has over 15 million sellers worldwide, including more than 500,000 in the U.S., and has invested over $400 million in platform safety, employing a team of more than 7,500 people to ensure TikTok Shop remains secure.

U.S. Inflation:

U.S. inflation dropped to 3.3 percent in May, sparking hopes for early interest rate cuts and boosting the stock market. This data, released on Wednesday, came just before Federal Reserve officials were set to discuss their plans for rate cuts this year, and was slightly below economists' expectations.
The decrease in inflation is a result of the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes over the past 2 years aimed at controlling rising prices. By increasing interest rates, the Fed makes borrowing more expensive, which in turn reduces consumer spending and business investment, slowing down economic activity and easing inflationary pressures. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.
The CPI is a crucial indicator used to gauge inflation and the overall economic health of a country. Inflation reached a peak of 9.1 percent in 2022. The current 3.3 percent rise in the headline consumer price index was just below the predicted 3.4 percent from a Reuters survey. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, reached 3.4 percent, slightly below the expected 3.5 percent.

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