Short-term arbitrage or long-term strategy? Either way…is it time for supplement brands to start hedging those TikTok Shop bets? It shouldn’t be news to anyone at this point, but the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill last week that would give ByteDance about six months to divest the U.S. assets of TikTok or face a ban. If that desired result sounds familiar, it’s because the idea of a TikTok ban has roots in the Trump administration. In fact, a deal was even worked out where Oracle and Walmart would become minority owners in ByteDance. That deal eventually fell through, and Trump’s ban was struck down by a federal court. By the time Biden came to office, he rolled back Trump’s executive order and began private negotiations with TikTok. ByteDance was founded in 2012 and is now valued at just under $300 billion. ByteDance is often seen as the world's leading company on algorithms because its flagship apps TikTok (and TikTok’s sister app in China) are powered by commanding recommendation engines that make its apps extremely attractive to users. And it’s those powerful algorithms within the popular Gen-Z app that are at the heart of this ban TikTok national security debate. American lawmakers are concerned about TikTok’s relationship with mainland China. Like with most big Chinese companies, China's ruling Communist Party has set up a party branch at ByteDance. Scrutiny over ByteDance expanded further after the government took a stake in its local subsidiary that awarded the Chinese government a board seat at the subsidiary. So, American lawmakers are worried that the Chinese government will pressure ByteDance to share U.S. data gathered on TikTok, which the CCP could potentially use for nefarious reasons. In this content, I'll also share my strategic game theory breakdown on why banning TikTok has now become a lose-lose situation. Additionally, I share details around the social commerce trend that's powering TikTok Shop. The meteoric rise of TikTok offers supplement brands a plethora of opportunities from brand storytelling to sales expansion and various collaboration strategies. Whether it’s FitTok/GymTok advice, Hot Girl Walks, hydration in those Stanley Cups, or under-desk treadmills, TikTok has defined many health trends. So, it shouldn’t surprise you that as much as 85% of the total U.S. market TikTok Shop sales were with health and beauty products. One of the biggest health category merchants has been RYSE, which I'll share comments from its founder Nic Stella in regards to the power of leveraging TikTok. But don’t let those huge RYSE TikTok Shop sales numbers blind you because there are still risks for functional CPG brands beyond those stemming from the total ban of TikTok. This was something I recently talked about with one of the top CPG industry lawyers Ryan Lewendon. But either way, I don’t see a future without social commerce. It has now become too entrenched, too popular, and too valuable within the U.S. market. Moreover, details were leaked on an Amazon and Meta partnership where customers would be able to shop Amazon’s Facebook and Instagram ads and check out with Amazon without leaving the social media apps. As social commerce continues its rapid ascent, it cannot be overstated enough that supplement brands must adapt their digital strategies to fully exploit these emerging customer relationship channels to maintain a competitive edge in this increasingly dynamic business landscape.