TikTok is investing heavily in e-commerce with its TikTok Shop program, offering perks to brands and creators who participate.
Getting started on TikTok Shop as a seller is simple. Brands and small businesses need to apply on the TikTok Seller Center portal and upload documents for verification. The feature is available in countries including the US, Vietnam, Singapore, the UK, and Thailand.
Read a 9-page document from TikTok detailing how to get started on Shop as a merchant and best practices
The primary way creators and brands can help boost sales is through affiliate marketing. Brands give a percentage of each sale to creators who promote the brand's products. Sellers set their own commission rates, which usually range between 5% and 20%, according to creators and a TikTok exec.
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Read about what TikTok Shop can offer brands, according to an exec who spearheads the program
How to start a TikTok Shop as a seller
Brands can join TikTok Shop by applying on the platform's website.
Once accepted to the program, they can set up their own product showcase on their TikTok profile and pay creators a commission to promote items through affiliate marketing. Sellers set their own commission rates, and they can choose between a couple of affiliate plans:
- "Open" collaboration, with all or selected products and the ability to set varying commission rates;
- "Targeted" collaboration, which allows merchants to choose the creators they want to partner with.
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Merchants can access a Seller Center App to manage their shop, inventory, orders, promotions, creator collaborations, and customer service. Sellers can also integrate third-party e-commerce platforms, like Shopify, Square, Ecwid, and BigCommerce.
Is TikTok Shop free for sellers? You can register for free as a seller, but TikTok currently takes a 2% commission combined with a 30 cents per transaction fee from merchants, with plans to increase that to 8% in July.
When setting up a Shop on TikTok, sellers should read the company's list of prohibited items. Sometimes, goods that are initially approved, such as homemade foods, can be taken down for not complying with the company's terms. Sellers should also be aware that TikTok uses a combination of AI and manual reviews to track product listings, which has caused headaches for some merchants who have had to appeal violation claims they view as unwarranted.
Sellers should also pay close attention to TikTok's shipping and order fulfillment rules, as the company can issue violations when a merchant fails to ship within its required three-day window for items sold in the US.
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Read more about TikTok's three-day shipping requirements for sellers
What TikTok Shop offers sellers
As TikTok worked to woo merchants, it began offering perks such as free shipping and discounts for new sellers.
Read about how TikTok subsidized shipping and hawked 30% discounts as it raced to onboard US sellers
TikTok occasionally puts together special promotions to encourage sellers to post videos, go live, and hopefully drum up sales. During its push around Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2023, the company ran a series of seller competitions and other offers, including coupons to promote their videos in the app.
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Read more about TikTok's Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategy
Some independent sellers told Business Insider that Shop has been lucrative for them. One creator who signed up to sell his independently published books on TikTok was able to quit his job as a nurse and focus on writing full time.
Check out how Adam Beswick used TikTok Shop to become a full-time author
However, not all brands are on board with Shop, and getting blue-chip corporations to start selling on the app has been particularly difficult, BI reported.
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Read more about how TikTok is pitching to marketers to get them onto Shop
The company has plans to not only onboard third-party merchants, but also to start selling items directly. It launched a product page with this aim in the UK, "Trendy Beat," and reportedly has plans to emulate this strategy in the US.
How to start earning money as a creator
Creators can apply to start selling on Shop when they meet the platform's community guidelines and other criteria, such as being at least 18 years old and having at least 5,000 followers.
Several creators told BI they've been making thousands of dollars on Shop and getting millions of views on their affiliate content
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Creators (and brands) have three ways to sell on TikTok Shop, according to a document the company shared during a recent web summit:
- Livestreaming: creators can go live on the platform and promote products to their viewers;
- Shoppable videos: creators can link to products on the videos that they publish on the profile;
- Product showcases: creators can list their favorite products in a dedicated showcase at the top of their profile.
On TikTok Shop, creators earn money through affiliate commissions. When they advertise a product in their content, they receive a cut of the sales they generate.
TikTok has also offered creators bonuses, perks, and various exclusive programs to get them to use Shop.
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Check out the perks TikTok has offered to woo creators to use Shop
Tips for live selling
TikTok Shop encourages merchants to sell in livestreams, in addition to posting videos and enlisting influencers to push products.
The company recommends that sellers go live for at least two hours at a time when pitching products on lives.
Some merchants, such as electronics retailer Newegg and luxury goods reseller What Goes Around Comes Around, are aiming for longer stretches, such as eight or even 24-hour streams.
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"The longer you can stay in, the more people you can bring in to comment and things like that," Newegg's media services director Drew Roder told BI.
Read more about TikTok's recommendations for selling on livestreams
