small business

TIKTOK may be a breeding ground for influencers, Love Island stars and budding celebs, but it’s not just glitz and glamour that can bring in the cash on the streaming app.

In fact, some of the top-earning creators have very unlikely niches.

Creators are known for bagging big money brand deals – from the likes of Superdrug beauty collabs to M&S food promotions.

Here, we take a look at some of the biggest money-makers making bank from seemingly mundane activities.

Chip Shop Diva

Destiny Harold has turned working in a fish and chip shop into a lucrative social media career.

The star, better known online as Chip Chop Diva, catapulted to fame for filming videos in at work in Merchants fish and chip shop in Bewdley, Worcestershire.

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Destiny works two days per week at the fish and chip shop while studying, and unexpectedly blew up online for posting videos from behind the counter.

And now, she has worked with numerous brands on high-profile collaborations.

Last summer, she partnered with car brand Dacia to serve chips on the beach in Deal.

While she was also named one of the “icons of the year” by confectionary brand Quality Street in December.

Destiny now has over 20,000 followers on Instagram and almost 2 million likes on TikTok.

Bus Aunty Bemi

Bemi Orojuogun is known to her over 400,000 TikTok followers as “Bus Aunty”.

She became famous for filming selfie videos in front of London’s red buses.

Bemi simply goes around the capital and films herself in front of different buses, with her videos racking up millions of views.

Working as a mental health nurse by day, Bemi’s catapult to fame was completely unexpected – with the online sensation shocked by her own prominence.

The videos have even led to political impact, with Bemi meeting Prime Minister Keir Starmer in December.

Meeting the Prime Minister on a bus in Norfolk, Bemi urged him to look at making public transport across the UK more accessible as she pointed out that not everywhere has such constant travel options like London’s TFL.

After he laid out the government’s plan to improve transport nationwide, Bemi was lauded as a “real role model” by fans.

Weeks later, she was invited to 10 Downing Street for the Pride in Place reception, an event which celebrated millions of pounds of investment into our local communities.

Samuel Wolfenden

Samuel Wolfenden is a Farrier & Equestrian Influencer, becoming famous in 2023 for filming content at work.

The hunky star shares content from his workdays with horses and tips for fans.

He boasts a whopping 1.3M followers on Instagram.

Since rising to fame, Sam has appeared on This Morning – with Josie Gibson often commenting on his social snaps now – and taken part in fashion shows.

Amongst his famous list of followers are Maura Higgins and Katie Price.

Charzreviews

An account named Charzreviews, run by Charlotte Blockley, is one of the UK’s most prominent ‘review and restock’ creators.

While you may think testing household products such as pillows and storage bins is mundane, this creator has built up quite the career from it.

Charlotte known in the creator community for being a “TikTok Shop millionaire”.

The title comes as she has generated over £1,000,000 in sales (total revenue) by simply showing how she uses everyday gadgets in her UK home.

She boasts over 200,000 followers.

Jane Hastings

Liverpool hailing Jane has highlighted the power of TikTok shop by using it to boost orders for her small toy shop.

The creator live streams on the app daily to demo toys the shop sells and pack customer’s orders.

While it may not seem like much, Jane is thought to have sold over hundreds of thousands of items through the platform.

Jane describes herself as a “nan of 10” and posts under her toy shop’s page, @toystoystoys.uk.

She told Liverpool Echo of her success: “Within the the first 12 months I’d sold 100,000 items.”

Her page has almost 50K followers.

CARAVAN park owners have a message for Labour: park the holiday tax now. 

One of those making the call is Claire Flower, who runs a site in Paignton, Devon, which has ­welcomed guests for more than 60 years.  

Beverley Holiday Park was started by her grandfather and now 12,000 tourists a year spend their breaks there. 

But Claire, 53, fears for the future if Labour bring in a visitor tax of at least £2 per head per night. 

She says: “If the Government puts a tax on everyone ­visiting, that means a lot of families won’t be able to afford it.  

“Holidays aren’t just a luxury, ­people rely on them for their mental health and family time. 

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“Plenty of parents these days work two or three jobs and there can be shift work in families, too. Holidays are often the only place whole ­families get to sit and eat together. 

“The Government talks about wanting people to spend their money here, not in Spain or Portugal or wherever in Europe, but how are people encouraged to do that if they’re going to be taxed for it?” 

Clare is a member of the Holiday and Residential Parks Association (Harpa), which wants the Government to abandon plans for local mayors to tax anyone staying ­overnight on a break in their area.  

She believes the tourist tax will affect the whole English Riviera in the South West, which depends heavily on holidaymakers. 

Claire says: “The economy of the entire bay will be hit. We employ 180 staff in the summer and 80 all year round.  

“We pay our VAT, our business rates, all our taxes and we help the local economy in a really big way with all the visitors we can accommodate who go on and spend in local businesses. 

“If our numbers start to dwindle, it’s impossible to say where the impact will hit hardest.” 

The park has free indoor and outdoor swimming pools but its utility bills have gone through the roof. 

Claire says: “It’s becoming harder and harder to operate but we have such loyal and lovely visitors, so we work hard to keep prices affordable.  

“We’ve even got a 30 per cent off Easter holiday offer at the moment to encourage people in.” 

The park was founded by Claire’s grandad Stan Jeavons in 1965, and her nephew Adam Furneaux, 22, is the fourth generation to work there. 

Claire says: “Grandad would be devastated at the prospect of the tax. English holiday parks like ours contribute £9.2billion in visitor spend into the economy.  

“For a lot of people, even if they could afford to go abroad, there may be a health reason they can’t or there might be another reason they choose to holiday in the UK rather than overseas.” 

Lee Jenkins, from Abertillery in Gwent, has been visiting Beverley Holiday Park since 1971, when he was three years old.  

He spent his honeymoon at the park with wife Julie in the 1990s and visits several times a year.  

Taxi driver Lee, 58, says: “We’re supposed to support the UK ­economy, aren’t we?

“This country needs people holidaying here, not abroad, so we can support local businesses and spend what we earn here rather than overseas. 

“It seems so short-sighted to tax people out of UK holidays, and it will impact the whole country’s economy.” 

Association Harpa represents 3,000 holiday parks across the UK, from small campsites to major companies.

It believes a holiday tax on British families will place extra financial strain when many are already ­struggling with the cost of living. 

The organisation’s director general, Debbie Walker, says: “Holiday parks and campsites offer some of the most affordable holidays in the UK and this tax risks pricing people out of breaks at a time when money is so tight. 

“While we fully recognise the financial pressures facing local authorities, a holiday tax adding around £100 to a typical two-week family break is not the right ­solution. 

“If we want people to choose UK holidays, taxing them for doing so sends exactly the wrong message.”

Park Holidays UK, which operates more than 50 sites in the UK, says that a tourism tax would be “totally self-defeating” as well as punishing hard-working families who choose to take a holiday in Britain. 

Chief marketing officer Brad May says: “The Government imagines a holiday levy would help raise ­revenues for cash-strapped local councils.

“But it’s far more likely that ­visitor numbers to these areas would drop as families turn to other destinations which are not slamming a tax on their fun. 

“When our guests take a well-earned break, many enjoy visiting nearby attractions, going out for a meal and spending money in local shops.

“So, it’s these businesses which will also suffer as an unintended consequence of this move.” 

All of them are backing The Sun’s Hands Off Our Hols campaign. 

It is a sentiment echoed by Alfie Best, who owns Wyldecrest holiday parks. 

He says: “When you think of a budget holiday in this country you automatically have a picture of a caravan park in your mind. They have been the backbone of holidays for a generation.  

“This tax will surely drive ­holidaymakers abroad in search of better value getaways. 

“If it comes into force, the tax will ultimately lead to the closure of many parks and lots of job losses.” 

WASHINGTON — A trio of Senate Democrats is calling for the government to start refunding roughly $175 billion in tariff revenues that the Supreme Court ruled were collected because of an illegal set of orders by President Trump.

Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire are unveiling a bill on Monday that would require U.S. Customs and Border Protection to issue refunds over the course of 180 days and pay interest on the refunded amount.

The measure would prioritize refunds to small businesses and encourages importers, wholesalers and large companies to pass the refunds on to their customers.

“Trump’s illegal tax scheme has already done lasting damage to American families, small businesses and manufacturers who have been hammered by wave after wave of new Trump tariffs,” said Wyden, stressing that the “crucial first step” to fixing the problem begins with “putting money back in the pockets of small businesses and manufacturers as soon as possible.”

The bill is unlikely to become law, but it reveals how Democrats are starting to apply public pressure on a Trump administration that has shown little interest in trying to return tariff revenues after the Supreme Court announced its 6-3 ruling on Friday.

Because of the ruling, going into November’s midterm elections for control of Congress, Democrats have begun telling the public that Trump illegally raised taxes and now refuses to repay the money back to the American people.

Shaheen said that repairing any of the damage caused by the tariffs in the form of higher prices starts with “President Trump refunding the illegally collected tariff taxes that Americans were forced to pay.” Markey stressed that small business tend to have ”little to no resources” and a “refund process can be extremely difficult and time consuming” for companies.

The Trump administration has asserted that its hands are tied, because any refunds should be the responsibility of further litigation in court.

That message could put Republicans on the defensive as they try to explain why the government isn’t proactively seeking to return the money. GOP lawmakers had planned to try to preserve their House and Senate majorities by running on the income tax cuts that Trump signed into law last year, saying that tax refunds this year would help families.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN on Sunday that it’s “bad framing” to raise the question of refunds because the Supreme Court ruling did not address the issue. The administration’s position is that any refunds will be decided by lawsuits winding their way through the legal system, rather than by a president who has repeatedly stressed to voters that he has the ability to act with speed and resolve.

“It is not up to the administration — it is up to the lower court,” Bessent said, stressing that rather than offer any guidance he would “wait” for a court opinion on refunds.

Trump has defended his use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose broad tariffs on almost every U.S. trading partner, saying that his ability to levy taxes on imports had helped to end military conflicts, bring in new federal revenues and apply pressure for negotiating trade frameworks.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model released estimates that the refunds would total $175 billion. That’s the equivalent of an average of $1,300 per U.S. household. But determining how to structure reimbursements would be tricky, as the costs of the tariffs flowed through the economy in the form of customers paying the taxes directly as well as importers passing along the cost either indirectly or absorbing them.

The president has previously claimed that refunds would drive up U.S. government debt and hurt the economy. On Friday, he told reporters at a briefing that the refund process could be finished after he leaves the White House.

“I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years,” Trump said, later amending his timeline by saying: “We’ll end up being in court for the next five years.”

Boak writes for the Associated Press.