Cracking TikTok Shop Unleashing More Sales

An Introduction to TikTok Shop

Introduction

Originally conceived as a social video platform, TikTok quickly earned its reputation as a powerhouse for product discovery: A whopping 70% of users say they’ve found new brands and products on the platform, and at least 50% of users have purchased products directly as a result of product discovery in LIVE videos or content in their feed.

What’s perhaps most staggering about these statistics is that they pre-date the September 2023 launch of TikTok Shop, a series of features that removes friction in the customer journey from product discovery to purchase.

At Pattern, we’re firm believers in the potential for TikTok Shop to drive brand awareness and grow revenue for our partners. We’re proud to be official partners of TikTok Shop, and are deeply immersed in boosting sales for brands on this platform on a daily basis.

This comprehensive guide will make it easy for you to navigate the intricacies of TikTok Shop—from how to set up your Shop, to tips for optimizing its performance.

Let’s embark on this journey together.

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What is TikTok Shop?

In the past, users would come across products on TikTok and then seek them out elsewhere, such as in physical stores, on Amazon, or on brands’ Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) websites. TikTok Shop allows brands to harness the potential of TikTok’s robust discovery engine, facilitating sales at the very moment users discover a product

TikTok Shop is a series of features that make it easy for brands to create a store with product listings, create LIVE and in-feed videos with product links, connect with TikTok Affiliates to market their products, create promotions, manage orders and reviews—all in one place. This is all managed through Seller Center, where brands can also access performance metrics, and draw inspiration from similar brands to see what content is driving product sales.

TikTok Shop draws inspiration from the successful precedent set by Douyin, the original short-form video app published by TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, exclusively for the Chinese market. Douyin, launched a year before TikTok, boasts over 750 million daily active users. In comparison, as of 2023, TikTok has reached 1.5 billion monthly active users (150 million monthly active users in the US), with projections estimating two billion users by the end of 2024. Douyin has seen remarkable success in e-commerce with an estimated ~$200 billion in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) in 2022.

Although TikTok Shop officially launched in September 2023, reports suggest it may have approached nearly $20 billion in GMV by the end of that year. With its current trajectory, TikTok Shop has the potential for massive growth and disruption, easily surpassing the $200 billion GMV benchmark set by Douyin.‍

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How to Use This TikTok Shop Guide?

This guide to TikTok Shop will help you navigate the nuts-and-bolts of how to launch your brand on TikTok Shop, and offer strategic insights and tips for how to meaningfully grow revenue on the platform.

We’ll kick off with a step-by-step guide to creating a TikTok Shop. Then, we’ll take you on a tour of the features that TikTok has developed to help manage your product listings, create content, manage logistics, and track your Shop’s performance. Lastly, we’ll share our perspectives on how to strategically leverage the power of this platform, including tips for getting started with affiliate marketing, tips for optimizing LIVE videos, and how to maintain the health of your account.

Getting Started on TikTok Shop

Create a TikTok Account

If you already have a TikTok business account, skip down to the next section, Create a TikTok Shop.

1. Download the TikTok app.
2. Establish a new personal account, filling in essential brand details, such as email addresses. (Pro tip for businesses: create a generic group email address like social@yourbrand.com for account setup so multiple people can login. You can change the email address associated with your TikTok account later but it'll be a process.)
3. Convert the account to a business account.
   1. In the TikTok app, tap Profile at the bottom.
   2. Tap the Menu button at the top.
   3. Tap Settings and Privacy.
   4. Tap Manage Account.
   5. Tap Switch to Business Account and follow the instructions provided below to finish.

Note: The conversion process to a business account requires some time as it undergoes TikTok's authorization process. Once TikTok has converted your account, proceed to the next step.

1. Navigate to https://seller-us.tiktok.com (Make sure you're in the US region)
2. Have the following information ready:
   1. Legal entity documentation (EIN, Articles of Incorporation/Organization)
   2. Tax documentation (W9, Type of entity)
   3. Beneficiary Owner Information for all Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs) with more than 25% stake in the entity (Address, Ownership %, Passport, Last 4 of Social Security Number)
   4. Owner/legal representative should match on all business registration documents
3. Click Sign Up with TikTok Account using your existing login.
4. Once you're in the Shop homepage there should be "Must-Do" missions on the Shop homepage. The missions will guide you through inputting the owner and tax information.
5. Link your official TikTok account (your @username)
   1. Top Right Menu > Linked Accounts > Link Official Account
6. Add in your bank deposit information
   1. Left Hand Menu > Finances > Add Bank Account

Here’s TikTok’s official TikTok Shop setup guide if you need further help - Official Help Doc

Add products to your TikTok Shop

There are a few ways to add products to your shop. You can do it through your Seller Center in TikTok Shop individually, or as a batch upload. If you’re on Shopify, you can also sync your TikTok Shop with your Shopify instance to sync your catalog, inventory, fulfillment and orders between Shopify and TikTok Shop. Then, you can manage your TikTok Shop as a sales channel within Shopify. This is all done through the TikTok for Shopify App developed by TikTok. We’ll cover more details about how to add products to your store later on in this guide.

Here are some additional resources directly from TikTok about adding products to your store the first time:
How to add products through Seller Center. (video)How to set up the TikTok for Shopify App

Managing Your TikTok Shop: Using Seller Center

Seller Center serves as your central command for managing your TikTok Shop. The left-side navigation bar provides access to a range of tools and features, allowing you to seamlessly handle various aspects of your Shop. Here’s a quick overview of the main tabs within SellerCenter:

Orders: View and manage all incoming orders.

‍Products: Upload and manage your product listings.

‍Marketing: Use diverse promotion tools to enhance your marketing strategies.

‍Affiliate: Navigate to the Affiliate tab, where you’ll find the Affiliate Center and other campaign-related functionalities.

‍Growth: Find recommendations from TikTok with Missions and Rewards to grow your Shop.

‍Analytics: Access detailed insights into your Shop’s performance.

‍Account Health: Monitor the overall health and performance of your Shop account.

‍Finance: Manage financial aspects, including transactions and payouts.

This comprehensive walkthrough gives you a quick glimpse of the main tabs within Seller Center, ensuring you have easy access to all the necessary tools and features. As you delve deeper into each tab, you’ll discover the wealth of resources available to optimize your Shop’s performance and drive success.

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TikTok Shop Seller Center: The Orders Tab‍

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On the Orders tab you’ll find five different menu options: Manage Orders, Manage Returns,Fulfillment Settings, Shipping Options, and Shipping Templates.

Manage Orders

This view offers a quick snapshot of the status of your orders. You can search for a specific order by ID or product name. Across the top, you’ll see an overview of some of the critical stages of action orders might fall into and how many orders you currently have in those stages. This includes things like orders that need to be shipped in 24 hours or less, orders that are overdue for shipping, and orders that need to be returned/refunded. Below that, you’ll see a list of all your orders that you can filter and sort as needed.

Manage Returns

You’ll use this page to manage all of your requested returns and refunds. It has a similar view to the Manage Orders screen, showing the critical stages that returns and refunds fall under and how many of your orders are in those stages. You can also customize your return policy by clicking on Customize policy on the top right.

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Fulfillment Settings

In this view, you can configure your TikTok Shop order fulfillment method. This includes things like shipping, your policy for order cancellation, and setting up a policy where people can request refunds without returning the item (which is often less expensive for brands).

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Shipping Options

Create and manage the shipping options you’d like to set up with TikTok Shop on this tab. There are essentially two options here: TikTok shipping or Seller shipping. With TikTok shipping, you’re using the partnered services of USPS, UPS, and FedEx. You’ll be able to charge customers’ shipping fees according to the standard rates from the carrier you select. With Seller shipping, you’re creating your own shipping rates (or using the rates of a TikTok Shop integrated partner that you’ve contracted with like a 3PL solution).

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Shipping Templates

Use this page to configure your shipping fees if you selected the Seller Shipping option. Your shipping fee template will be based on where you store inventory (your warehouse). You’ll configure your warehouse settings in your Account Settings. You can also access this at the top of this page where it says, “Manage warehouse information.” Clicking that link will take you to this page.

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In this view (Account Settings -> Warehouse Settings) you’ll add the information for your various warehouses. You’ll need at least one Pickup Warehouse and one Return Warehouse.

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TikTok Shop Seller Center: The Products Tab

Under the Products tab you’ll find five options: Manage Products, Product Ratings, Product Optimizer, Manage Stock, and Media Center.

The Manage Products Tab

This tab is your central location for managing the products you’re selling. At the top of the page you can add a new product one at a time, or upload multiple products at once with theBulk action option. You’ll also find a full list of all your products that you can filter and sort down to easily find the information you need. On each product listing there are several product management options, including the ability to hide the product, edit the quantity, edit the price, deactivate the product, copy it, create an ad for the product, or set an affiliate commission for the product.

The Product Ratings Tab

Product Ratings is your central location for managing product reviews. On the top left, you can respond to reviews with issues. If you receive Negative reviews (1 and 2-star ratings) orNeutral reviews (3-star reviews), we recommend investing the time to resolve those issues and see if you can increase the rating. You’ll also see your Negative review dashboard. This will show you an overview of all of your product reviews. You can filter this view by date range. It’s also a quick way to check in on your Negative review rate. This is an important number to keep track of because if it gets too low, you can get hit with Violation Points, which can have serious ramifications (we’ll cover that later).

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‍The Product Optimizer Tab‍

Product Optimizer is a valuable feature that shows you improvements you can make to your product listings to increase their visibility. It’s organized into suggestions to improve your product visibility. These suggestions come in two types: Recommendation opportunities, andSearch ranking opportunities.

‍Quick Tip

You should be mindful of your products’ search optimization in TikTok Shop. It isn’t going to hurt. However, we know from experience that today, approximately 80% of sales are driven by TikTok Affiliates and Content, leaving only 20% of sales coming from the search and shop tabs. This could change pretty fast though as some research is showing that younger shoppers are moving their online search behavior away from traditional search engines like Google and over to TikTok.

This article quotes a Google senior vice president saying,“In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram.” (3 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/technology/gen-z-tiktok-search-engine.html)

Recommendations show up for users under the ‘You may also like’ feature that users see in their cart and when viewing their orders. TikTok aligns listings from brands that fit into their recommendation algorithm that decides what products to recommend at a personalized level to each TikTok user. You can see from the screenshot below that this will recommend things like increasing the length of your description. It even has a ChatGPT plugin that will pre-write descriptions for you.

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TikTok suggests the following best practices to increase the frequency with which your product will appear in product recommendations:

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Product Descriptions

• Provide 3-5 selling points in the recommended format: keywords + detailed description +image. Keywords should summarize one of the main functions or features of the product. Detailed descriptions should expand upon keywords, and images should provide support.
• Improve readability by segmenting or chunking information and bolding keywords or benefits. ‍

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Product Images

• An image resolution of 1200x1200 pixels is recommended, with a minimum of 600x600 pixels.
• Make sure the product is clearly and prominently depicted in the main image. A white background is recommended.‍
• Include at least 5 images to adequately represent your product.
• Use a clean background, show the complete product, prominently show the product, don’t block the image, and don’t splice the image.

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‍Search ranking Opportunities

Search optimization to rank high for keywords related to your product is critical in all marketplaces, and TikTok is no different. In the Product Optimizer tab you’ll also see recommendations on how you can improve search ranking. The recommendations are broken down by Product name and Image.

Here are some of the recommended search optimization strategies TikTok provides:

Product Name‍

• Use more than 10 characters
• Recommended format: brand + attribute + size or type + keywords
• Use title case and don't use all caps for any word or phrase
• Don't use any marketing messages, URLs, symbols, or special characters

Product Images

• The recommendations provided here are the same as the ones listed above for the
• Product Images (they provide the same recommendations here as the Product Images guidelines provided above).

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The Manage Stock Tab

In this view you can view, adjust, and manage your current inventory status, and set alerts at different inventory thresholds so that you don’t accidentally run out of a product. We highly recommend setting alerts, because out of stock issues can lead to pretty severe Violation Points and negatively impact your ability to sell on TikTok Shop.

Alert Settings

You can set Alerts for all of your products at once, or select products that don’t have an alertset, or select the products you’d like to share an alert value. Once you’ve selected the desired products, just enter the Alert value (the number of products you have in stock) and hit theApply button. You can set the notifications to pop up in your Message Center in Seller Center and/or email.

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The Media Center Tab

The Media Center tab is a central place to manage your product images and videos.

Here, you can store all of your associated product images and video (with some limits), organize them into folders, search for them, and filter the collection by uploaded date. Keep in mind that you only get 5GB of storage for images and 10GB of storage for video.

TikTok Shop Seller Center: The Marketing Tab

The Marketing Tab is your hub for managing Promotions, Ads, Campaigns, and TikTok-funded promotion settings. Let’s take a look at the Promotions tab first.

Promotions

In this tab you can manage your Shop’s promotions. There are two views inside the Promotions tab: Create a promotion, and Manage your promotions. In the Create a promotion view, you’ll see six different promotions you can create: Product Discount, Flash Deal, Coupon, Shipping Fee Discount, LIVE Coupon, and Creator LIVE Giveaway.

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Product Discount

Product Discounts are a product-level promotion shown to shoppers as a strikethrough on your original price, the new price, and the percentage discount. Creating a product discount is easy. Just follow these three steps:

1. Create your promotion name and the duration.
2. Select the products from your shop that you'd like to include in the promotion.
3. Set the percentage discount from 1%-99% off.

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Flash Deal

Flash Deals are used to create a sense of urgency around a promotion. They’re displayed to shoppers as an orange banner on the product listing with a countdown timer, in addition to a similar treatment to the price as you see in the Product Discount. There are two key things to remember with Flash Deals. First, your Flash Deal price has to be lower than the lowest paid price for a product after discounts in the last 30 days. So, if you already ran a Product Discount promotion 20 days before your Flash Deal, you’ll have to set the Flash Deal price lower than that Product Discount price. Second, if you have a Flash Deal and a Product Discount run on the same days for a product, the Flash Deal will take priority.

Here are the steps to creating this promotion type:

1. Create the promotion name and duration.
2. Select the products you'd like to include in the promotion.
3. Set the discount percentage from 1%-99% off as well as the limit on how many purchases can be made in the Flash Sale.

‍Coupon

Coupons can be used to increase the total order value for your shop for a time. For example, you can create coupons that incentivize customers to purchase a percent off orders over a certain dollar amount. Shoppers can also combine your coupon with TikTok Shop coupons and get an even bigger discount. They can only use one coupon from you, however. Shoppers will see an option to claim the coupon in their purchase flow.

Here’s how you set up a Coupon:
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1. Create the promotion name, the coupon claim period, and the coupon validity rules.
2. Choose the discount type and amount. You can select from a fixed amount or percentage off.
3. Choose if you'd like to apply the coupon to your entire shop or just specific products.

Shipping Fee Discount

This promotion can be used to overcome abandoned carts when the shipping fee is added or even to increase the average order size. For example, sellers will often create a free shipping promotion for orders of a minimum dollar amount. The shipping coupon will be showcased on the product listing and can be claimed by the seller during their purchase flow.

Quick Tip

There are several variables that go into how you should structure your shipping discounts to increase AOV and reduce abandoned cart(average price of your products, the complexity of your product line, and more).

Here are some strategic guidelines for shipping fee discounts:

1. The last thing you want to do is make it too complicated, so set a normal number like $50 or $75.
2. Don't make it laborious to qualify for free shipping. If your average product price is $5 and you set free shipping to $100 (1) people will rarely qualify (so why even offer it?) and (2) people have to spend a lot of time figuring out the other nine products they want to buy from you to qualify, leading to abandoned carts.
3. One way to work into the number with data is to pull orders for the last 90 days. Then, group the orders into different $5 increments. Find the groupings that are trending. Maybe most of your orders are sitting around $40 or $45. Test out placing the free shipping qualifier at $50 and then review conversion from there.

Here is how to set up a Shipping Fee discount:

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1. Create your promotion name and the duration.
2. Choose the shipping areas that you want to include in the promotion and the minimum spend threshold.
3. Select if you'd like the promotion to go to your entire Shop or just select products.

LIVE Coupon

This is a coupon specifically created for your shoppable livestreams. It’s an excellent way to boost conversion on your livestreams as well as boost engagement, as these coupons can only be claimed if you join the livestream. Shoppers will be able to claim the coupon in the purchase flow of the livestream. Remember that your livestream has to go live within the same dates that you set the promotion period for, or your LIVE Coupon will not show up in the livestream.

Here is how you create a LIVE Coupon:

1. Create the promotion name and set the coupon claim and expiration period.
2. Choose a fixed amount or percentage off discount.
3. Decide if you want to apply the coupon to your entire showcase or selected products only.

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Creator LIVE Giveaway

This feature allows you to set aside items for creators to give as giveaway prizes during their livestreams. This is a great way to build and expand partnerships between your brand and creators you want to work with. You’ll have the opportunity for the creator and their followers to try out your brand.

Here is how you set this up:

1. Select the products you want to include in the giveaway and how many you want to include.
2. Select the creator you want to set these products aside for.
3. Allocate the quantity and items to the creator.

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The TikTok Shop Affiliate Tab

We’ll go into more detail about this tab in the Working With Creators section under How to Have Success On TikTok, found later in this guide. For now, just know that this is a path to access the Affiliate Center on TikTok Shop. The Affiliate Center is your hub for easily collaborating with TikTok creators and incentivizing them to sell your products for you. TikTok reports that shops that use TikTok Shop Affiliate are seeing an increase in sales by up to 85% compared to shops that do not use it.

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The TikTok Seller Center LIVE & Video Tab

Shoppable Videos Tab

‍‍In this tab you’ll quickly see the performance of all your Shoppable Video content. This section is organized into four parts: Overview, Get Inspired, Create Content, and Content Data. The Overview offers a quick snapshot of your content performance over the last 7 days or as of yesterday. Below that, you’ll see introductory videos about Tips for creating videos and a summary of the trending videos that TikTok believes relate to your category you can get inspiration from.

Let’s move over to Get Inspired.

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As its name implies, here TikTok is aggregating videos to offer inspiration for high-performing content that might boost your sales. This is a great destination to see what other creators and brands are doing with their accounts and content and to learn more about what is working.

Here, you can select different categories to search through, look through all the videos TikTok is suggesting, or find specific accounts to get ideas from. You can also search for trending songs and hashtags that are working for your category. Once you have selected the initial object you want to search through TikTok provides additional filtering options to help you dive deeper. You can select from three tags: Shops like yours, Top sales, or Most views. Once you’ve selected one of these tags you can then filter by Category, Duration of video, and Upload time (Last 7,14, or 30 days).

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The TikTok Seller Center Growth Tab

Missions & Rewards

Under the growth section you’ll find various missions that TikTok provides to help you get your TikTok Shop to the next level. You can collect rewards by completing these missions. You’ll also see a tab here for access to Special Programs, as they become available.

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Apps & Services

In this section of Seller Center you’ll find access to TikTok-approved third-party apps and services. This includes apps from categories like e-commerce management (connectors, ERP, print-on-demand, dropshipping), customer service, merchandising, finance, shipping and logistics, and services like content management and operations mentoring. This is where you’ll go to connect various apps to your TikTok Shop.

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The TikTok Seller Center Analytics Tab‍

Track the performance of your Shop in Analytics. There’s a lot to look at in this section. Let’s start with the Overview page shown above. Then, we’ll take a look at the other views listed across the top next to Overview, including Sales, Traffic, Shop Tab, Post purchase, Product, Promotion, Market, Customer, and Report.

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Overview

This view will show you a general time-based overview of how your shop is doing. It’s broken down into three categories: Sales, Traffic, and Post purchase. You’ll also see a quick daily performance overview on the right.

In the Sales category, you’ll see a quick snapshot of your Shop’s performance with Gross Merchandise Value (GMV). You’ll also see a quick snapshot of Ordered SKUs and the number of Buyers. All of these metrics can be compared to a previous period to see if you are growing over time.

The Traffic view will show you your average click-through rate, average conversion rate and the amount of visitors your Shop has had in a certain period.

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The Post purchase view gives you a snapshot into how your Shop is doing after purchases are made. It shows a snapshot of the number of Cancellations and returns, the amount of Reviews, and how many Orders have complaints by SKU.

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Sales

Here is the Sales view in the Analytics section where you can see Gross sales over a time period from your Shop and other sales metrics.

Traffic

The Traffic view in the Analytics tab will show you the amount of traffic broken down by your LIVE content, Video, and traffic coming to your Shop from Search.

Shop Tab‍

This view shows you how your Shop is performing specifically from the Shop tab that users can access at the top of the screen on TikTok, versus discovering your Shop in content like Livestreams and Shoppable videos.

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Post Purchase

Here you’ll find some critical information about your shoppers’ experience, including fulfillment timelines, cancellations and refunds, reviews, and complaints made against your Shop and products.

Product

The Product view in the Analytics section will show you detailed sales information sorted by product SKU. You’ll find things like GMV, Units sold, and total orders, all organized by your specific products.

Promotion

Here you can track the performance of all of the promotions you have run. Filter by promotion type (Product discounts, Flash deals, Shipping fee discounts, Coupons, etc.) to figure out what kinds of promotions work best with your products and audience.

Market

In the Market tab you can see how your Shop ranks compared to all TikTok Shops. Be aware that to access this information, you have to grant permission to TikTok to use your Shop data in the shop rankings view, which means potentially sharing your performance data with competitors.

Customer

The Customer view in the Analytics tab offers detailed analytics about the number of buyers your Shop has, how many of them are Repeat buyers, and data about your followers.

Report

Report allows you to build reports to understand how your Shop is getting sales with various content types and the channels that those content types are in. For example, you can build a report showing how LIVEs from Affiliates have done in driving sales to your shop. Or, you could see how your own branded shoppable videos are performing.

The TikTok Seller Center Account Health Tab

Experienced e-commerce pros who have sold on marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Walmart, know that tracking account health and following marketplace policies can be critical to your success. Let’s take a look at what Account Health means on TikTok Shop.

In the Seller Center on the left navigation menu you’ll see the Account Health tab. Inside of Account Health there are two options: Shop Health and Shop Experience. In the Shop Health screen, you’ll be able to monitor your shop’s status and see what violations you may already have on your account. You’ll also see the Violation Score, which is an important number to keep in mind as you grow your Shop.

The second option under Account Health, Shop Experience, is less punitive in nature but more of an incentivization technique used by TikTok to create a solid shopping experience for their users. If you can maintain high scores in the Shop Experience category you’ll actually receive more traffic and additional benefits from TikTok.

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Let’s first dive deeper into the Shop Health Evaluation Policies. These policies were created to help Sellers understand how TikTok will apply enforcement to your shop if you violate their rules. We’re just looking at the US applicable policies here. The policy will also most likely be updated, so make sure you check with TikTok official channels for the latest.

There are six main categories that TikTok monitors about your Shop to determine if they need to take enforcement action. They are: Seller Qualification, Product Eligibility and Qualification (including prohibited and restricted products), Product Listings, Customer Service, Seller Fulfillment, and E-commerce Content.

If you get hit with an enforcement action you’ll be notified via email from sellersupport@shop.tiktok.com. The violations and penalty will also be shown in the Seller Center Shop Health. Violations are tracked with Violation Points, which are penalty points given to sellers when their Shop breaks TikTok’s rules or leads to a poor customer experience. If you accumulate too many Violation Points you’ll reach a milestone enforcement threshold. This may even include suspending or revoking access to TikTok Shop. If you accumulate 48 points it is certain you will be removed from TikTok Shop. Here are some things to keep in mind with Violation Points.

• Received Violation Points will reset every 180 calendar days beginning from the date the points were issued.
• If your Shop hits 48 points or more, it'll be shut down.
• If your Shop gets closed, your points will not reset until you successfully appeal enough of the violations.

Here are some examples of reasons you might get Violation Points and their corresponding range of points given. This doesn’t include everything and TikTok really can penalize you for anything they believe violates their Seller Terms of Service. These are organized by the different categories or topics that TikTok has shared they will penalize on and shows the corresponding range of Violation Points for each of these example reasons.

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Topic - Seller Qualifications‍

Violation Reasons

Missing Qualifications

Description

If you are missing any required qualifications to sell on TikTok Shop.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

Missing a business license, brand authorization (where applicable)

Violation Points

16-48

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Violation Reasons

Expired Qualifications

Description

Your qualification documents have to be current.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You are running with an expired business license.

Violation Points

16-48

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Violation Reasons

Inauthentic Qualifications

Description

If you forged, modified, altered, or tampered with your qualification documents.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You provided forged/fake qualification documents.

Violation Points

48

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Topic - Product Eligibility and Qualifications

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Violation Reasons

Missing Qualifications

Description

If you are selling products regulated by local laws or products included in TikTok Shop Restricted Products Policy, you have to submit valid documentation like testing, certificates, etc.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

Electronic products were sold without the required safety markings

Violation Points

16-48

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Violation Reasons

Expired Qualifications

Description

Qualification documents for your products that need them have expired.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

Cosmetic products were sold with an expired business license.

Violation Points

16-48

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Violation Reasons

Inauthentic Qualifications

Description

Your product compliance documents have to be authentic and valid.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You forged or altered testing reports.

Violation Points

48

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‍Violation Reasons

Intellectual Property (IP) Infringement

Description

If you violate the IP rights of TikTok or a third party.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

Selling counterfeit goods or unauthorized use of a third-party brand's IP.

Violation Points

2-48

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Topic - Product Listing

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Violation Reasons

Product Created Under Inappropriate Category

Description

All products must be created under the appropriate product categories.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

Miscategorizing a product like a cosmetic product placed under household goods.

Violation Points

2-48

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Violation Reasons

Listing Prohibited Products

Description

Sellers must not sell any products included in the TikTok Shop Prohibited Products Policy.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

Listing explosives

Violation Points

48

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Violation Reasons

Duplicated Listing

Description

You can only list a product once on one page.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

Listing a product more than once (like listing the same shirt with multiple colors as multiple products, instead of creating variations under one product listing)

Violation Points

1-48

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Violation Reasons

Inappropriate or Prohibited Content in Product Listings

Description

Your product listings need to be accurate and they can't violate the TikTok Community Guidelines

Non-Exhaustive Examples

Products that contain hate speech, child abuse, pornography, harassment, bullying, etc.

Violation Points

48

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Violation Reasons

False or misleading product info

Description

Your product detail page has to be accurate and appropriate.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

Making misleading or false claims about your product.

Violation Points

4-48

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Topic - Customer Service

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Violation Reasons

Unsolicited Customer Messages

Description

You can only message people responding to a customer service issue or for necessary reasons to complete an order.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You start sending out unsolicited ads (moderation team).

Violation Points

1-48

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Violation Reasons

24-Hour Response Rate

Description

You need to respond to customer messages within 24 hours. You have to maintain at least an 85% 24 hour response rate on all messages.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You don't respond to a customer within 24 hours. Note: This only applies after more than 20 messages have been received.

Violation Points

2-48

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Violation Reasons

Selling or Shipping Prohibited Products

Description

You cannot sell or ship any of the prohibited products listed in the TikTok Shop Prohibited Policy

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You ship or sell a firearm

Violation Points

48

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Violation Reasons

Prohibited Customer Communication

Description

If a customer reports communication from you that is prohibited in the TikTok Community Guidelines.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

A seller uses racist remarks when talking to a customer.

Violation Points

16-48

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Violation Reasons

Inappropriate Customer Review Handling

Description

Not handling customer feedback or reviews on products or shops the right way.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You completely roast and abuse a customer when responding to their review.

Violation Points

2-48

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Violation Reasons

IM Satisfaction

Description

Sellers must ensure they receive 4 stars and above for at least 50% of their chat surveyed.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

If you're unable to resolve customer questions satisfactorily and you get less than 4 stars for 50% of your chats.

Violation Points

2-48

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Violation Reasons

Requesting a Customer Cancel Their Order

Description

Sometimes you may not have enough inventory to fulfill a customer order. When this happens, you have to cancel the order. You cannot ask your customers to cancel their orders. You also can't ask a customer to accept a similar product as a substitution.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You tell the customer to cancel their order instead of doing it yourself.

Violation Points

2-48

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Violation Reasons

Non-Customer Fault Return & Refund Rate

Description

Return orders due to defects not caused by the customers are considered non-customer fault return orders. This rate has to be less than 1.5% of all orders within 30 calendar days.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You send products with defects to customers.

Violation Points

2-48

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Violation Reasons

Selling Products that are "Significantly Not As Described" (SNAD)

Description

You cannot sell and deliver SNAD items like: items that are significantly different from the product description, Products that are significantly lower value than the advertised price, Items that are completely missing, Items that are missing parts or components.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You sent a customer an empty package.

Violation Points

16-48

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Topic - Seller Fulfillment

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Violation Reasons

Seller Fault Cancellation Rate (SFCR)

Description

Orders that are canceled because you did something wrong as the seller (lack of inventory, wrong pricing, etc.). You must maintain a SFCR below 2.5% over the orders which are placed in the past 8-14 days.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You cancel an order cause you ran out of inventory.

Violation Points

2-48

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Violation Reasons

Late Dispatch Rate (LDR)

Description

You must ship out orders within 3 business days from the order creation date. Any orders shipped after 3 business days are considered late dispatch orders. Your LDR needs to be less than 4% in the past 8-14 days.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You ship out more than 4% of your orders in the last 8 days after 5 business days from when the order was created.

Violation Points

2-48

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Topic - Seller Fraud

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Violation Reasons

Fraudulent Orders

Description

Any orders or a service that is not made by a legitimate customer.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

An order that is placed by the seller or a group of affiliates to increase sales and abuse TikTok Shop's services.

Violation Points

48

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Violation Reasons

International Dropshipping

Description

This is a practice where orders are shipped directly to customers from international suppliers or warehouses other than the US-based warehouses that hold the inventory.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You are shipping from your supplier in China rather than a US-based warehouse that holds the inventory.

Violation Points

16-48

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Violation Reasons

Fake Products

Description

Any product that is sold with the intent to defraud the customer. This is completely determined by TikTok's discretion.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You ship an image of the product to the customer instead of the product itself.

Violation Points

48

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Topic - E-Commerce Content

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Violation Reasons

Prohibited or Restricted Product Promotion

Description

Sellers and creators cannot promote or create content about prohibited or restricted products found in the TikTok Shop Prohibited Products Policy and the TikTok Shop Restricted Products Policy.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You are trying to sell or promote firearms in videos or livestreams.

Violation Points

6-48

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Violation Reasons

Inconsistent Product Promotion

Description

Sellers and creators must ensure that products promoted in all uploaded content are consistent with the product listed or linked in the corresponding product detail page.

Non-Exhaustive Examples

You inaccurately list or link a different product to what you are promoting in a Livestream or video.

Violation Points

1-48

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TikTok Shop may take joint enforcement actions on a seller's account if their linked creator account breaches the TikTok Shop policies.

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If you start racking up points because of policy violations TikTok will start to take action according to specific milestone thresholds they have laid out. Here’s a breakdown of the type of enforcement actions you would get if you hit the corresponding Violation Point threshold.

‍Violation Point Milestone = 12 Points

Enforcement Actions‍

• A formal violation warning message will be sent to the seller at 7 points.
• You won't be able to enroll in mega-campaigns, user growth activities, free shipping subsidies, and other TikTok Shop benefits for 7 calendar days.
• You won't be able to add or update listings for 7 calendar days.
• You won't be able to create a new affiliate plan for 30 calendar days.

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‍Violation Point Milestone = 24 Points

Enforcement Actions‍

• A formal violation warning message will be sent to the seller at 19 points.
• You will not be able to enroll in new mega campaigns, user growth activities, free shipping subsidies, and other TikTok Shop benefits for 14 calendar days.
• You won't be able to add or update listings for 14 calendar days.
• You won't be able to create a new affiliate plan for 60 calendar days.

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Violation Point Milestone = 36 Points

Enforcement Actions‍

• A formal violation warning message will be sent to the seller at 31 points.
• You won't be able to enroll in new mega campaigns, user growth activities, free shipping subsidies, and other TikTok Shop benefits for 28 calendar days.
• You won't be able to add or update listings for 28 calendar days.
• You won't be able to add a new affiliate plan for 90 calendar days.

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Violation Point Milestone = 48 Points

Enforcement Actions‍

• A formal violation warning message will be sent to the seller at 43 points.
• If you reach the 48-point milestone, your account will be suspended permanently. The decision to reactivate a seller account or not is completely up to the sole discretion of TikTok Shop.

There are even more enforcement actions that TikTok may take. If you need to dive deeper into these the full, official list can be found here.

So what do you do if you’ve been hit with violations and are racking up those Violation Points? The first thing is to resolve the violation as fast as you can. If you were hit with an enforcement action that you don’t think is justified, though, you can appeal it by submitting a ticket in the Seller Center.

Here are some things to keep in mind with TikTok’s appeal policy:

• You can only raise up to two appeals per case.
• You have to submit the first appeal within 30 days of the enforcement.
• The second appeal can be raised within 15 days of the first appeal getting rejected.
• If your appeal is successful, TikTok Shop will remove any associated enforcement actions issued and restore any privileges taken from your account.
• TikTok Shop determines by their sole discretion if an appeal is approved or not. After the second appeal, the decision is final.

To submit an appeal you’ll need to do the following:

1. Gather any and all supporting documentation you can (pictures of valid orders, pictures showing you are shipping orders, showing tracking number info for shipping, your customer request responses, etc.) to prove your case on specific orders or for your whole business.You can add up to 10 images as supporting documentation on an appeal.
2. Provide a clear explanation of why the enforcement action taken against you is invalid.
3. Give TikTok Shop any extra information or materials that they might require.

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TikTok Shop Fee Structures

TikTok's fee structure has changed pretty quickly from launch and will probably have future changes. Right now, TikTok will be charging a referral fee from sellers on all qualified transactions. A qualified transaction is any order that hasn’t been canceled, returned, and/or refunded. The referral fee is currently set at 8%. There is a grace period where the referral fee is 6% during June 2024.

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Strategies for TikTok Shop Success

The Strategy

Because TikTok is primarily a social app and entertainment platform, it’s different from other marketplaces that you might be selling on. Amazon, and other similar marketplaces, are based on a search shopping experience. Typically, consumers go to Amazon with purchase intent and search for specific brands, products, or categories ready to buy or consider buying. In this world, success comes down to getting in front of your customer during their search through strong keyword marketing, including optimized listings that rank organically and ads targeted at specific keywords.

The search keyword approach is still important on TikTok Shop (and is growing in importance), but less so compared to other marketplaces. In fact, TikTok has let us know that only about 10-15% of sales are happening through TikTok's Search feature or the Shop tab. That means 85-90% of the sales are coming through shoppable videos and livestreams. That’s because TikTok is built on a different paradigm: a discovery algorithm centered around entertainment. TikTok users typically don’t come to the platform with purchase intent. But, as they scroll through content to be entertained or educated, they’ll serendipitously “discover” brands or products that resonate with them. Success on TikTok comes down to your ability to create product-discovery content that gets prominently featured in users’ feeds and entices your audience to want what you’re selling. This shopping experience is called Shoppertainment.

67% of TikTok users say TikTok inspired them to shop even when they weren’t looking to do so. (https://www.grow-with-tiktokshop.com/pdf/TikTok%20Shop%20G.R.O.W%20Whitepaper.pdfhttps://www.tiktok.com/business/en-US/blog/infinite-loop-tiktok-retail-path-to-purchase)

To win on TikTok Shop, you need the right content. Let’s walkthrough the different content types and selling features you can leverage on TikTok with tips and strategies for each one.

The Different Selling Features of TikTok Shop

Shoppable Videos

A Shoppable Video is created the same way as your typical content videos. The difference is a Shoppable Video has a link to the product being featured in the video. Here’s how you create a Shoppable Video:

1. Open up the TikTok App.
2. Click the plus sign located at the center-bottom of the screen.
3. That will take you to the pre-shooting screen where you can access TikTok's enormous collection of sounds, effects, filters, and more to enhance your videos.
4. At the bottom of the screen you can select the duration of your video. Shoppable Videos can be up to 10 minutes long.
5. Start recording by tapping the red button at the bottom of the screen.
6. When you're done recording, tap the pink check mark on the bottom right of the screen.
7. Clip the recording as needed.
8. Add sound to the video. Music is a big factor on TikTok and has been shown to give videos more reach when used.
9. Use text overlays, stickers, and transitions to add more excitement to the video and to callout unique features about the product or offer like free shipping.
10. Once you're done adding effects you'll be able to add your product links on the next page.
    1. Tap Add Link in the middle of the screen -> tap Product -> then hit the pink Add button on the product listing you'd like to add.
11. Finally, add a caption, hashtags, consider tagging other people, and then share.

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Tips For Success With Shoppable Videos

• Identify your target audience. Think about what is going to engage them.
• Outline your story. Think ahead of time about transitions, effects, and how you're going to create the video.
• Describe the product in an engaging way in the video. Make sure you explain what it is, how it works, how it is made, and why people love it.
• Hint to your viewers that they should click the shoppable link in the video. You can do this by telling them in the video to shop below at the link or add text or stickers that say something like "Buy now with the link below."
• Utiliize promotions to drive a sense of urgency.
• Make the video look good. Use a decent camera, think about audio, and use some proper lighting (especially on the product). However, we've found that more natural and authentic content is actually performing better than highly produced videos that come off as more of an ad.
• Take time thinking about hashtags to use and making sure your caption is optimized for the right keywords as well as being snappy and engaging.
• Turn the video into a conversation instead of just talking at people. Answer questions from comments in previous videos. Incorporate ways of interacting with your audience.
• Get the hook right and master the "3 second rule." The first three seconds of the video are vital. Use animations, creative ideas, trending music or sounds, to keep the audience in those first thee seconds.

LIVE Shopping

Besides Shoppable Videos that show up in the For You Feed, you can also sell products through LIVE videos. (You have to have the minimum number of followers determined by TikTok to get access to Livestreaming.) Here is how that works:

1. Open the TikTok app.
2. Tap the plus sign at the bottom center of the screen.
3. Scroll the bottom menu bar until you reach LIVE.
4. Now you are in the TikTok pre-LIVE screen.
5. Choose a cover photo and title for your LIVE as well as a topic.
6. When you are ready hit the Go LIVE button.
7. To end your session, tap the power button icon at the top right of your screen. You'll be able to see performance metrics like total viewers, revenue, and more as soon as you end the LIVE.

Tips for Success With LIVE Shopping

• ‍ Promote your livestream before it actually happens. Tell your audience about your livestream on your other social channels, in email, and on TikTok before you go live.
• Bring a well-known influencer to co-host your livestream with you.
• You'll need to upload all of the products you are going to talk about in your livestream into the LIVE. You can do this in the pre-live menus under Business.
• Just because those products are in the showcase does not mean they are readily seen by the audience. To make them front and center in the livestream you have pin them. If you are doing a LIVE with many products you'll have to pin each one as you begin to talk about it. If you are just selling one product you can leave it pinned the entire time. Here's how to pin the products:
  • Tap the Shopping Bag icon in the bottom center of your screen. Then click the pink Pin button next to the product you want to pin.
• Utilize Flash deals and LIVE Giveaways to make the LIVE even more exciting.
  • To set up a LIVE Giveaway, navigate to the pre-LIVE screen and tap LIVE Giveaway. Choose your prizes, set your giveaway guidelines, and then hit publish. Winners are auto-selected. The Giveaway orders will then show up in your Seller Center and they need to be shipped out within 24 hours of the Giveaway.
• Introduce yourself.
• Experiment with all the features you normally have available when making a TikTok video like filters, effects, stickers, and text.
• Experiment with the Billboard feature. During your LIVE, you can add billboards to the screen like announcing a flash sale.
• Provide a brief description of the product, talk about the best features of the product, the benefits of those features, and provide some use cases/examples of ways to use the product.
• Engage with your audience (ask questions, tell stories, and give real-time shoutouts as viewers make purchases)
• Remember that really hard selling might turn viewers away so test out keeping the conversation as neutral and authentic as possible.
• There is a good chance your audience will turnover, viewers will leave and new users will continue coming in, so it is okay to repeat yourself during the LIVE.

Working With Creators/Affiliates on TikTok Shop

The most effective way you’re going to sell more on TikTok Shop is by collaborating with creators by getting them to post videos about your product, and making sure they use product links in their videos. TikTok has made this process more manageable by introducing the TikTok Shop Affiliate program. With this program Sellers and Creators can make money more easily on TikTok. Sellers sell more products and Creators can earn commissions when they create content for those products.

There are two ways you can work with Creators in the TikTok Shop Affiliate program: Open Collaboration and Target Collaboration. Let’s talk about these in more detail.

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Open for Collaboration

With the Open Collaboration method, Sellers are able to post the products that are available for promotion by Creators. You can make all of your products available for Open Collaboration or specifically select the ones you’d like to showcase. You can also set your commission guidelines for Creators on an individual product level, on a group of products, or for all your products.Once a product is set for Open Collaboration, it becomes visible to all TikTok Shop Creators.

Here is how you create an Open Collaboration:

Step 1.

Access the Open Collaboration tab in the left navigation bar from your TikTok Shop portal.Then, click Add product to affiliate or click on the Products not added to affiliate tab.

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In the Products not added to affiliate tab you’ll see every product that hasn’t been added toan Open Collaboration yet and add them as needed.

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If you want to add all your products to an Open Collaboration, use the Batch add button. You’ll be asked to enter a commission rate for all the products in the plan. The commission rate is the percentage that Creators will receive for the products they sell from their Showcase or Content.

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Step 2.

Next, you’ll need to select whether or not you would like to approve Creators that request to participate in your Open Collaboration. If you do, just turn on the Require approval toggle when you are prompted. This will allow you to approve or reject Creators from adding your products in their Product Showcase.

You also need to decide if you are going to send out free samples to Creators that are approved into your Open Collaboration. This is known as product seeding. It’ll help Creators make better content for your product by using it in their content. When you toggle Set up Free Sample to on, you’ll need to choose the amount of free samples available for every product, declare if there is an expiration date for requesting samples, and set the follower threshold of Creators that you want to get free samples.

You can also edit these settings in the Open Collaboration screen for each specific product.

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This whole process can also be automated by turning on the New products Auto-Mode feature.With this feature turned on every product added to your Shop will automatically be part of an OpenCollaboration. You’ll set a default commission rate that is applied.

If you have turned on Require approval on any of your products, you’ll see Creator applications at the top of the Open Collaboration screen. Clicking there will take you to the Creator application page.

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This is where you can approve or reject Creators’ requests. You’ll also be able to remove the Creators you have previously approved.

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The Affiliate products tab will allow you to see how many Creators have added your products and how many Creators have posted content with your product. If you click on the Creator added number, you’ll see even more details.

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In the Creator added details screen, you’ll see all the Creators who have made content with your product. You can invite Creators here, or add them to your saved Creators list which you can later use to create Target Collaborations. If you’d like to remove a Creator, click on the ellipsis.The video number will take you to the actual videos that each Creator posted with your product.

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Target Collaboration

To get to the Target Collaboration screen go to the left navigation menu, click on Collaboration and then Target Collaboration.

In the Target Collaboration screen you can see all the existing Target Collaborations and create new ones. These collaborations are arranged in four tabs at the top:

Ongoing: Collaborations that are not expiring within 7 days.
Expiring: Invitations that will expire within 7 days.
Canceling: Invitations that you’re in the process of canceling (these will take effect the next day)

‍Canceled: Invitations that have already expired or have been canceled.

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Finding Creators for Targeted Collaborations

On the left navigation under Discover creators, click on Find creators. Here you can find Creators using several options and filters. You can search for the Creator by username or nickname, or select a main category you’d like to search, segment by follower profiles (# of followers, follower age groups, and follower genders).

When you find a Creator you like, you can Invite them directly from this view to join a Collaboration or you can click the heart icon and save them to a list for later. If you click the Creator’s profile, you can see more detail about them.

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Once you have saved a list of creator(s) you’d like to invite, hitting the Invite button will send you to the Invite to collab page.

On this page, you can add a creator to your collaboration by adding their username or ID in the search bar, or adding a saved list of creators. If you click on Add saved creators you’ll be prompted to select or remove Creators from your Saved Creator list. You can filter and sort your Saved Creator list by followers, video views, and LIVE views. Then, pressing Add you’ll see all the Creators that were added to this invite.

Next, you’ll add the products you’d like included in your Target Collaboration. You can filter products by category, search for a product, or sort the products by price or quantity sold. Select the products you’d like to add to the Target Collaboration invite and hit the Add button.

After you’ve added products, you’ll set the commission rate for the Target Collaboration. You can do this for each product individually, or it can be done in a batch by selecting multiple products and clicking Batch edit commission rate.

If you have entered a commission rate for a product that is higher than that product’s Open Collaboration commission rate, you will see a green up arrow. A red down arrow will indicate that the commission for the Target Collaboration is lower than the Open Collaboration commission rate.

The Creator will see that you are offering a higher commission rate to them in the Target Collaboration invite.

You’ll need to add in a few more details to complete creating the Target Collaboration. You’ll need to name the invitation, set an expiration date, add contact information like an email and phone number, and include a message to convince the Creators to join your Target Collaboration. Once you’ve entered all of these final details, click Submit.

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The next time around, you can duplicate previously created Targeted Collaborations with thesame products and commission rates, and send it to a new set of Creators.

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Managing Target Collaborations is very similar to managing Open Collaborations. You can click into any Target Collaboration on the Target Collaboration page. This will take you to the Target Collaboration Details Page.

On this page you can see the progress the collaboration is making in terms of how many Creators have added your products and how many have posted content. Below that, you’ll be able to see specifically who has created content, how many of your products are now in their Showcase, how many products they’ve posted content about, and message Creators directly.

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Keep in mind that it takes 24 hours for the content posting data to populate in this view. If you click on a specific Creator’s profile, it will take you to a view that will show you all the collaborations you’ve done with that Creator.

You can see the price of each product they have added, their commission rate, how much estimated commission they’ve made, whether or not they have added the product to their Showcase, the number of times this Creator has posted with your product, and the number of livestreams the Creator has done with your product. You can also click on the number in the Video column to see the videos the Creator made with your content.

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‍Tips For Success Working With Creators

1. When someone commits time to create content for you on TikTok, they do so in the hope that they’ll make sales and make commission. Give creators enough education about your product and guidance about content that has worked in the past. Enable them to see success early and often and they will be more inclined to work with your brand versus looking for a different product to promote.
2. If you’re not an established brand, it’s going to be challenging to build an affiliate program on TikTok Shop through Open Collaboration. You’ll most likely need to start with a Targeted Collaboration, putting forth a consistent effort recruiting affiliates and managing the process of getting them to promote your brand. You’re competing with all of the other Open Collaboration opportunities from other brands. Affiliates will only commit time to brands they know they can make money from. It will be a challenge standing out in the crowd.

3. Even established brands want to be careful about who is talking about your brand and products and what they’re saying about it. This is even more critical if you’re selling products that TikTok highly restricts and monitors like almost anything with food and supplements. We highly recommend using Targeted Collaborations. If you decide not to, we recommend requiring approval before anyone on the platform can become an affiliate for your product.
4. The commission rate you set for affiliate collaborations can vary by brand, product price point, and category, but our baseline recommendation is that brands should be at 15-20% commission to be competitive with the best affiliate programs today.

Using TikTok Ads for your Shop

Combining TikTok Ads with your TikTok Shop will be a dynamic way to boost your sales. We’ve seen success with using ads to promote livestreams before and during the event to drive more traffic, finding affiliate content that worked really well and turning it into an ad using TikTok’s Sparkcode feature, and running ads to your TikTok Shop itself. To back your TikTok Shop withTikTok Ads, you’ll need to connect your Business Center account, Ads Manager account, and the TikTok account with the shop to advertise. A full walkthrough on how to do that can be found here.

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Running ads on TikTok is going to take some serious focus and continuous testing. We've seen brands that do it well getting a ridiculous ROAS right now. We've also seen brands spend cash on TikTok with little to nothing to show for it. There are several ways TikTok Shop Ads can help growth. They boost your organic content in-feed to a larger audience than your organic content can reach alone. You actually tap into a new stream of traffic dedicated to paid content further increasing you reach and exposing your product to a wider audience. Also, if you are struggling to convince Affiliates to join your program driving more sales with ads can help prove to Affiliates that your product sells, convincing them they should sell it too.

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We also believe, although difficult to prove, that TikTok is likely favoring ad spend pointed at TikTok Shop because they get an additional revenue gain from the referral fee when a purchase is made. It would make sense they are favoring ads that benefit them versus ads pushing off-platform to a DTC site or Amazon.

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‍TikTok Shop Tab

The Shop Tab is a consumer-facing tab found by TikTok users by clicking Shop at the top middle of the screen on TikTok. Once they click the Shop tab they are brought into the shopping experience on TikTok. In this view there are eight sections to navigate. These are important to understand as a seller as they all present an opportunity for your products to be found. These sections or Channels will also be how your Analytics section shows where your items are being sold.

1. Search: The search section allows buyers to search products. Your product names and listings need to be optimized to show up here for the right keywords. You can also now run keyword search ads on TikTok as well.
2. Cart: The typical checkout cart on e-commerce sites where buyers can store items in their cart and checkout when ready.
3. Favorites: Found at the top right section of the Shop Tab, the Favorites Tab allows buyers to track all items they have favorited.
4. First order offers: A list of all the products featured on the First order offers section.
5. Today's Deals: Products that are featured on Today's Deals.
6. Featured Brands: Products that have been selected as featured show up in this section.
7. Featured Categories: Products that are within featured categories will appear here.
8. Recommended For You: All products that are featured in the Recommended For You section. These are added here on an individual basis from the TikTok activity of each user.
9. Others: All items not listed in any of the other channels in the Shop Tab are included here.

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TikTok Shop Strategy Wrap-Up

Now that we’re on the same page about all the different selling features you should be employing with TikTok Shop, let’s review some of the most important strategy highlights.

1. Partner with creators/affiliates to grow an audience and drive conversion. TikTok is built on discovery, and the key to getting your product discovered by as many people as possible. That discovery only happens with great content. TikTok states that sellers collaborating with creators experienced an 85% sales growth on average. Our data also shows that the best product-discovery content comes from creators, not from brands themselves. According to our analysis, creator-content ads are six to eight times more likely to receive engagement versus the brand ads and content. They’re also three to four times more likely to get a conversion. If you need help implementing a creator strategy on TikTok, we’d love to chat.
2. Maintain the health of your account. On any e-commerce marketplace, this can 100% make or break your success. You can find many horror stories of entire products getting crushed by not playing within the standards of sites like Amazon or Walmart.com. This isn’t any different on TikTok Shop, especially as they push to make the platform more legitimate within the U.S. Keep a steady pulse on your Account Health tab. Make sure you do the easy things like comply with shipping time, product listings, and not using other companies’ intellectual property. If a problem occurs, address it with TikTok as quickly as you can.
3. Use TikTok’s optimization recommendations on your product listings. Remember that under the Products tab in Seller Center you can find the Product Optimizer tab. This will be the best place to make sure all of your product listings are optimized and provide the best opportunity for your products to show up in search results in the ShopTab. Aside from getting products discovered, following the recommendations in this section will also help with conversion.
4. Leverage promotions to standout.TikTok can be a noisy place. Most users are not there to shop. You’ll need to get creative with promotions to incentivize impulse buying behavior. Better yet, crack through the noise by partnering with favorite creators.
5. Target Collaborations are going to be better for your brand. First, you can be more selective in the types of creators you want to work with. The best content from creators that are authentic and align with your brand. Second, in an Open Collaboration you will be competing with all of the other brands. Affiliates will place preference on Open Collaborations on brands/products they know they can make money with. If that isn’t obvious for your brand you will need to do some extra convincing with targeted messages and targeted commission rates.
6. Be consistent and post frequently on TikTok. The sellers that have had the most success so far are showing up daily on TikTok both with their own brand content, as well as with creators showcasing their products. They’re also showing up often with livestreams.

Next Steps

As a premiere TikTok Shop partner we are helping brands launch and scale in this exciting new channel fast. We think there are four areas of competency a brand needs to be good at to succeed on TikTok Shop.

1. Shop Operations
2. Content Creation
3. Affiliate Execution
4. Advertising

We've built a team and tech that helps in all four of these incredibly well. We're partnering with household name brands and seeing success in GMV, ROAS, and brand reach. We'd love to work with you as well and help you add another sales channel for your brand's growth.

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Let's connect! ->

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TikTok Shop Glossary

3PL - Third Party Logistics - Outsourced provider of shop logistics like shipping, returns, packaging, and processing orders.

Affiliate Marketing - Utilizing content creators to market your products on your behalf. Affiliates are typically given a flat rate or percentage of sales that they help drive to your TikTok Shop. Each affiliate is given a unique link to your product pages making sure they are given credit(attribution) to the sale and paid appropriately.

AOV - Average order value

Batch shipping - Fulfilling multiple orders at the same time.

Bootcamp Program - A learning program for beginners to TikTok Shop. There are six sessions that help sellers understand TikTok Shop Seller Center, TikTok Shop Affiliate Program, and managing your Shop.

Brand Authorization - The channel through which a seller submits prior approval from a brand owner to sell products that have the brand’s trademark(s), name(s) or logo(s).

Campaigns - Campaigns offer exclusive experiences for TikTok users, ranging from product sales and discounts to new product launches.

Creator Connect - The Affiliate Marketplace is where you can browse TikTok Creators in SellerCenter, and filter according to your desired criteria. This includes filters like categories, follower count, and budget.

Seller Community -

DFO - Defect Order Rate - One of the performance metrics on your seller account that measures the amount of defective orders you have to your total order amount. This is one of the metrics used to rate your customer service standards.

For You Page - The For You Page, found at the top of TikTok home, lets users scroll throughShort Videos, Shoppable Videos and LIVEs that are tailored to each user based on their preferences and usage history on TikTok.

‍GMV - Gross Merchandise Volume (also commonly called Gross Merchandise Value) This term is used in e-commerce to show the total value of sales achieved in monetary units. It’s typically measured within a specific timeframe and marketplace.

GPM - Gross Merchandise Volume per mille. Meaning the amount of sales achieved per 1,000 people that saw your product. This term has been developed to help understand the efficiency of Shoppable Videos and livestreams. For example, a GPM of $10 means the livestream sold $10 per 1,000 people that joined the livestream.

Growth Center - this is a feature that helps TikTok Shop sellers learn how to manage their stores and earn rewards. There are a series of missions that sellers can complete to receive an associated reward.

Handbook - TikTok has created a set of “handbooks” to help sellers learn how to do better withTikTok Shop.

Holiday Mode - A setting in Seller Center that allows you to quickly set inventory of products to 0 so buyers can’t buy from you temporarily.

Host Academy - This is an intense offline training day that teaches you how to do LIVE streaming. It is taught by TikTok Shop trainers. They will teach you how to be a great LIVE host, manage the livestream by reading and maintaining traffic, and strategies around selecting the best products optimized for LIVE.

LDR - Late Dispatch Rate - This measures the percentage of orders shipped late (orders that take longer than 2 working days to ship out) out of the total number of orders shipped. It’s measured in a 7 calendar day period.

LIVE stream or LIVE shopping event - A LIVE shopping event hosted by sellers or creators where buyers can see how a product works, see how other people are reacting to it, ask questions or make comments, and even buy all in real-time.

Newsletter Education - Seller newsletters are periodic publications by the TikTok Shop which are distributed through the TikTok Shop Academy or other digital platforms which contain information, updates, trends, news related to certain topics, new features, and tips on selling on TikTok Shop.

NRR - Negative Review Rate - the rate of negative Shop reviews versus all reviews.

Official TikTok Shop Account - The account you registered on Seller-id.tiktok.com to sell your products on TikTok Shop.

Spark Ad - An ad type with TikTok where advertisers use an organic post from a creator as an ad. The advertiser needs to get authorization from the creator to use the content which is simplified with the Sparkcode feature in Tiktok.

Sparkcode - An authorization code that allows advertisers to run an organic post from a creator as an ad through their ad account. This type of ad is called a Spark Ad.

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