11/8/2024

How the Trump presidency will affect digital retailing

A new president will mean some changes in the digital retail landscape.

The return of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency will have an impact on several key areas of digital retail.

The classic Who lyric "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss," is literally true in the case of the just concluded 2024 U.S. presidential election. While in many ways president-elect (and former president) Donald Trump is a known entity, the digital retail landscape and some of his views have evolved in the past four years.

Following is a look at how the arrival of a new presidential administration will affect the direction of three current digital retail trends.

TikTok

TikTok has been the focus of a variety of legal actions and accusations from federal and state U.S. lawmakers, going back to the first Trump administration. In 2020, Trump and members of his cabinet publicly called for TikTok to divest its U.S. business or face a possible ban.

The Biden administration doubled down on this push, culminating in April 2024 when President Biden signed a law with bipartisan support requiring TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to divest its U.S. TikTok operation by the end of January 2025, or else U.S. app stores and Internet hosting services will not be allowed to support TikTok or any other ByteDance apps.

TikTok is currently challenging the constitutionality of that law in federal court. However, in a March 2024 CNBC interview, Trump said a U.S. TikTok ban would just serve to make Facebook parent Meta bigger and called Facebook an "enemy of the people."

While the idea of TikTok divesting its U.S. business has enough support among Republican allies of Trump that he will likely seek some type of modification to its operations here, the odds of the TikTok app actually disappearing from U.S. smartphones have gotten much smaller.

Cryptocurrency

Like TikTok, Trump expressed concerns about cryptocurrency during his first administration but is poised to be more open to it in his second term. Trump and members of his family launched a cryptocurrency venture called World Liberty Financial in September 2024, and the president-elect has publicly said he may create a federal bitcoin reserve.

Cryptocurrency has been slowly expanding as an accepted form of retail payment by retailers including Newegg, Camping World and Sheetz. Walmart and Amazon have both signaled interest in cryptocurrency with job listings.

However, bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency may receive a turbocharge with the active support of the new presidential administration. Look for more retailers to accept cryptocurrency as payment and stockpile it in their savings as a growing number of consumers seek to use it and its value climbs further.

It is also worth noting that Trump has had success issuing collectible non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which may spark renewed interest in them among retailers both as a promotional tool and means of conducting secure digital transactions for virtual and physical goods.

Finally, the election of Donald Trump provides credibility to X (formerly known as Twitter), which was acquired for $44 billion by multi-billionaire and Tesla owner Elon Musk in October 2022 and officially rebranded to X in July 2023.

X has served as a promotional platform for retailers and brands and does have some digital commerce capabilities. But some observers have said that controversial comments Musk has made on X since he purchased it have had a negative impact on its suitability as a promotional and advertising vehicle.

However, while X was used for messaging by the Harris campaign and its supporters, Musk formally endorsed Trump following the failed attempt on his life in July 2024 and regularly posted a wide variety of content promoting his election.

Trump himself (through his verified account) and many of his supporters and conservative influencers also leveraged X as a major tool for communicating with potential voters. While nobody is suggesting X got Trump elected, it has been cited by many experts as a crucial element in his highly successful social media strategy and has proven itself a viable option for communicating with consumers.