A Swedish-style candy store got an unexpected boost from a TikTok video

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Tyler Graybeal is the owner of Sweetish, a Scandinavian candy store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Graybeal founded his company in 2019 after friends suggested that there should be more stores in the United States where customers could choose their candy from bulk bins, like in Sweden.

In January, Graybeal noticed thousands of orders coming through its website seemingly overnight. After initial confusion about where the spike was coming from, Graybeal and his team discovered that a TikTok post about their store had gone viral, racking up thousands of views.

At first it was difficult to keep up with demand.

“The traffic that came from the virality at the beginning was definitely daunting and we really weren't sure what to expect,” Graybeal said. “It changed the business dramatically, so much so that we went from having an average of about 30 to 50 orders a day in our queue, growing to a few thousand at one point and getting to 10,000 orders within a few days.”