The Scroll Is the Store: What We’re Learning About Social Commerce - Penguin Random House UK
Overview
In this session from the CMO & CAIO Inspired Summit at Syon Park, London, in October 2026, Jonathan Donovan of Penguin Random House UK explains what happens when discovery, recommendation, entertainment and purchase all take place in the same scroll. Rather than sending people to a shop, the shop now comes to them, collapsing the traditional marketing funnel into a single experience.
Jonathan describes how the world’s largest trade book publisher, a business with a large and fast-changing catalogue, began experimenting with TikTok Shop through platform events, always-on short-form video and live shopping. He is candid about what worked, what surprised the team and why social commerce is not simply an e-commerce bolt-on but something that cuts across the whole organisation.
Key takeaways
- Get in it: you only learn how social commerce works for your brand by testing it, with clear guard rails, intent and a time box agreed up front.
- Let creators find your audience: an open commission for affiliates revealed who was really buying, and one title sold out within 48 hours of an affiliate event.
- Treat affiliates as a salesforce, not a fan club; they want to know whether they can sell a product, whether it is in stock, what the commission is and how the brand is backing it.
- Live shopping drives spikes but is demanding to run, and most sales now come from always-on short-form video.
- Sell propositions rather than listings, curate around IP rather than price, plan stock as a marketing lever and remember that paid media amplifies momentum but does not create it.
Watch the full session on YouTube: The Scroll Is the Store: What We’re Learning About Social Commerce
