
SHANGHAI -- At a department store here this month, a cosmetics sales clerk touted the virtues of a product designed for sensitive skin. Moments later, customers were flocking to buy.
All this happened not in person, but online in a live video on TikTok. ByteDance, the Chinese startup behind the viral video sharing app, sees it as a tool for challenging Alibaba Group Holding's dominance in China's e-commerce market.