Most collaborations between brands and creators in the TikTok Shop ecosystem still begin with a cold message and end in a one-off transaction. Rui Zhang thinks the fix is a 110,000-square-foot room in Los Angeles.

Rui is Senior Director of Marketing and PR at FastMoss, a data analytics platform built for the TikTok Shop ecosystem, and the main organizer of YFCon, a social commerce expo and conference. The Spring Picks edition, taking place April 14-15 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, is expected to draw more than 13,000 attendees, 300-plus brands, and 150 confirmed guest speakers, including TikTok Shop’s top lifetime gross merchandise value affiliate, Alle Brean, and creator Brandon Hans, who has driven over $18 million in GMV on the platform.

Now in its third U.S. edition, YFCon is co-hosted by FastMoss and YooFinds, a creator product selection platform. Rui reports that 80% of exhibitor booths sold out more than a month before the event opened, a signal she reads less as a scheduling victory and more as an indicator of where the industry is heading.

“While online communication has been the default, it often lacks depth and trust,” Rui says. “What we’re seeing now is a strong demand for in-person interaction, where brands, creators, and partners can meet, evaluate opportunities, and build real relationships.”

The Problem FastMoss Built YFCon to Solve

FastMoss entered the market as an analytics tool, giving brands and creators real-time data on trending products, content performance, and creator-product fit within TikTok Shop. The platform addresses what Rui describes as information asymmetry, a condition where brands cannot identify which products will work, creators cannot evaluate which products to promote, and both sides default to trial and error.

“Brands don’t know which products will work, creators don’t know which products to promote, and both sides often rely on trial and error,” Rui explains. “This leads to inefficiency, missed opportunities, and fragmented collaboration.”

But data alone, Rui argues, does not solve the relationship problem. FastMoss can match a creator to a product; it cannot replicate the trust that comes from holding that product, meeting the founder who makes it, or watching another creator demonstrate it live. YFCon was built to close that gap.

“In today’s e-commerce ecosystem, most interactions between creators and sellers still happen online, and conversations are often limited to commissions and flat fees,” Rui notes. “YFCon was created to bridge that gap.”

An Expo Designed Around Execution, Not Exposure

Rui emphasizes that YFCon is not a traditional expo where “people just walk around collecting tote bags and pretending they’ll follow up later.” She says it’s “designed as an execution-driven environment.”

The event is structured around eight experience pillars: brand and merchant exhibitions, immersive brand interaction zones, filming and content creation zones, creator fan meet-up zones, livestream studio areas, sample matching zones, keynote speeches and panel forums, and new product launches. The sample-matching zones are particularly central to the model: creators can physically evaluate products on the floor and initiate partnerships on the spot, rather than negotiate remotely based on spec sheets and commission structures.

For brands, Rui says the format delivers a 10x improvement in content-matching efficiency compared with standard outreach. For creators, the event offers access to new product trials and direct connections with platforms and service providers that typically require months of online outreach to establish. Speakers are selected on a single criterion: demonstrated GMV performance, not thought leadership credentials.

“We prioritize creators, brands, and ecosystem players who are actively driving GMV on TikTok Shop, rather than those sharing only high-level perspectives,” Rui says.

TikTok Shop Is No Longer Just a Traffic Channel

One of the more direct arguments Rui makes is that most brands and creators are still operating with an outdated mental model of TikTok.

“One of the biggest misconceptions we’ve seen is that many brands and creators still treat TikTok as purely a traffic or distribution channel,” Rui explains. “But that assumption is no longer valid. The platform is no longer just about reach. It has become a full commerce engine where content, product, and conversion are deeply integrated.”

The speaker lineup at this year’s event is calibrated to make that argument through example rather than abstraction. Matt Kahla, a tech creator and affiliate marketer, has generated more than $22 million in TikTok Shop GMV through product reviews and social commerce content. Janel McQueen drove $4.2 million in GMV in 2025 alone through fashion content. Susan Luckhardt scaled from zero to more than $1 million in GMV within months and now coaches other creators on repeatable affiliate systems.

Those case studies are an editorial choice. The shift Rui wants attendees to internalize is precise: from getting views to driving transactions.

Live Commerce as the Format That Changes the Trust Equation

Live shopping occupies a central position in this year’s programming, and Rui frames it not as a format experiment but as a structural shift in how commerce works.

“What makes live particularly powerful is that it brings together product, content, and interaction in real time,” she says. “It creates a sense of immediacy and trust that other formats often cannot replicate.”

YFCon has multiple creators on its speaker roster who have each generated over $2 million in GMV through live streaming. Beyond the panels, the event also provides on-site live-streaming infrastructure so that brands and creators can go live on the floor during the conference itself, collapsing the distance between learning about a format and executing it.

This mirrors a broader pattern visible in the event’s scale projections. The Spring Picks edition targets 13,000 attendees and focuses on spring and summer sales cycles. The October edition, timed around Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the Christmas season, is expected to reach 30,000 attendees.

What the Booth Sell-Out Actually Signals

For Rui, the demand numbers attached to this year’s YFCon are notable not because they are large in absolute terms but because of what drove them. 

Online collaboration tools have hit a ceiling, she argues, and brands operating within the TikTok Shop ecosystem have reached sufficient volume to feel the friction that ceiling creates. Cold outreach messages decline in response rates. Commission negotiations happen over weeks. Relationships that should take a conversation take months.

“The early sell-out of booths signals that the industry is moving beyond purely digital connections,” Rui says. “People are looking for more efficient, high-trust ways to collaborate, and offline environments like YFCon are becoming increasingly important in making that happen.”

For YooFinds, which operates as the creator product selection platform co-hosting the event, the concentration of 12,000-plus native overseas creators at a single venue addresses a distinct pain point: the fragmentation of outbound creator sourcing. Brands that would otherwise spend weeks vetting individual creators through cold channels can instead conduct multiple evaluations within a single day on the expo floor.

Rui does not position YFCon as a replacement for data or digital tooling. FastMoss’s analytics platform remains central to how the ecosystem makes decisions. The event exists alongside it as an accelerant for the relationships that data alone cannot manufacture.

“The most valuable moments are not just on stage, but what happens in between,” Rui says. “The conversations, the unexpected matches, and the deals that start on the spot.”

Registration is available here.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Check Out Our Podcast