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Tiktok allows users to shop through app with shopify deal, Vaccination gathers steam

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TikTok users will soon be able to buy stuff directly through the short videos on the app — something they had only been able to do through ads until now.

TikTok is primarily a video-sharing-focused social networking service owned by Chinese company ByteDance which already runs a thriving social media marketplace on Douyin, its twin video app for the Chinese market. Buying products through social media websites isn’t yet as common in the U.S., though Pinterest and Facebook-owned Instagram have made some inroads.

The Canadian e-commerce company Shopify said on Tuesday that businesses will be able to add a shopping tab to their TikTok profiles to create a “mini-storefront” that links directly to their online store for checkout.

The shopping tool, which is still being tested, is available to merchants in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada, and will roll out to more regions in the coming months. Shopify already had a deal with TikTok that let merchants create “shoppable” video ads that drive customers to online stores.

Reality star Kylie Jenner is among the first merchants to participate in the program by selling her skincare and cosmetics line through TikTok.

Meanwhile, the mandate for full vaccination has gathered more steam across the U.S. as MNC’s like Walt Disney to Goldman Sachs are requiring workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 after the federal government gave full approval to the Pfizer shot.

For the past eight months, COVID shots were dispensed in the U.S. under emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Some workers and unions objected to getting the vaccine — and some employers were reluctant to require it — because it had yet to receive FDA full approval.

That happened on Monday.

Shortly after the FDA acted, Walt Disney reached a deal with its unions to require all workers at its theme park in Orlando, Florida, to be vaccinated. Goldman Sachs told employees Tuesday that it will require anyone who enters the bank’s U.S. offices to be fully vaccinated starting Sept. 7, according to a memo issued.

Drugstore chain CVS said pharmacists, nurses, and other workers who have contact with patients will have to be inoculated. Oil giant Chevron Corp. said it will require some of its workers — such as those who travel internationally, live abroad, or work on its offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico — to get their COVID-19 shots.

However, the nation’s two largest private employers don’t seem to echo the sentiment.

Walmart said on Tuesday that there is no change to its policy, which requires vaccinations for office workers but not store employees. E-commerce giant Amazon, which doesn’t mandate vaccines for any of its employees, declined to comment.

Earlier this summer, President Biden had announced that federal workers will have to get vaccinated or else face weekly testing and other measures.

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