Two years ago, Stephanie Sims, founder and CEO of Home & Arrow, started making wax melts in her home. She sold directly to friends, family and others through word of mouth and made around $2,000 between January 2023 and June 2024.
Then she joined TikTok Shop. In just 18 months, she earned over $200,000 from TikTok and website sales, many of which were driven by TikTok Shop.
“Unreal,” Sims says of the experience. “My website sales also saw a boost as a result of TikTok Shop, but the difference between the two platforms is significant. In the first quarter of 2024 alone, I made $10,481.28 on my website compared to $58,401.88 on TikTok.
“While the numbers have fluctuated throughout the year,” she adds, “TikTok consistently brings in three to six times more income than my website, depending on the month. In today’s economy, these sales are amazing for a small business. Honestly, even in a stronger economy, these numbers would still be impressive.”
Despite this success, Sims’ eyes—along with other business owners’—are now on an upcoming trial that could permanently shape the future of small businesses like hers. TikTok is heading to the Supreme Court to face a potential ban.
Why is TikTok on trial?
Here’s the TikTok drama in recent months that’s led up to this trial:
- President Biden signed a bill in April called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would ban TikTok in the U.S. as of Jan. 19, 2025.
- The bill requires TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, to sell the app to a company that isn’t under the authority of a foreign adversary (ByteDance is currently a China-based company).
- The president could give a 90-day extension, but currently, the White House is deferring to the Department of Justice in response to a possible extension.
- If the ban is put in place, companies like Apple and Google would have to remove the app from their stores or face a potential $5,000 per user fine.
Why are small-business owners concerned?
According to the Pew Research Center, one in three U.S. adults uses TikTok, and in a recent survey, only 32% of Americans supported banning TikTok. Research has also found that 52% of Americans regularly get news from the platform. The average U.S. adult spends close to an hour on TikTok each day, and adults in the age 18–24 category spend more time than older generations. This level of engagement provides businesses like Sims’ with the audience they need to turn a profit.
TikTok shared in a court filing that it estimates small businesses and social media creators could lose $1.3 billion in earnings and revenue in one month if the ban occurs. In TikTok’s own 2024 economic report, it stated that it helped drive $15 billion in revenues for small businesses in the U.S. in 2023.
Many business owners want to make their own choices about platform use and privacy, which has been the main concern about TikTok. “I totally understand that not knowing where the data is can seem creepy and challenging, but in fact, [what] matters is [that it’s] not held equally as apparent to other social media for other apps in general,” says Lauren Petrullo, CMO and founder of Mongoose Media, a digital marketing agency, and founder of Asian Beauty Essentials in Orlando, Florida.
TikTok data concerns
“I don’t think the American public in general cares about where their data is being stored, because they never actually look at that,” Petrullo adds. “We wear smart devices all the time. I couldn’t tell you where my loop data is being stored, and while I should care, in reality I don’t. There’s too many other things for me to worry about.”
Some TikTok users want improved data management, but not at the expense of a full and seemingly randomly chosen platform ban. “The TikTok ban is such a big deal because people are worried about…
