What is TikTok Shop?

The questions I get asked a lot what is Tiktok Shop?  TikTok shop is a marketplace similar to Amazon Sellercentral, Ebay, and Walmart marketplace.  

TikTok Shop is a social commerce platform that allows businesses and creators to sell products directly to TikTok users. This gives TikTok a competitive advantage compared to Amazon, eBay, and Walmart Marketplace.

Based on my observations, TikTok has combined three components for its TikTok Shop, which I have listed below.

• TikTok Social Media Platform (Creators & Viewers)
• TikTok E-commerce Marketplace (Products, ordering, customer services) helps sellers tap into video viewers interested in buying a product.
• TikTok's Affiliate Program supports sellers and assists creators in monetizing product promotions.

By integrating these three components, TikTok ensures optimal engagement for creators, viewers, and sellers.

How do you get started?

Getting started is easy, and creating an account with your company's information will take about ten days.

Link to get initiated: Link: https://seller-us-accounts.tiktok.com/  

After you get accepted to sell on TikTok, get all your bank, warehouse, and shipping options done before uploading your products. You, the seller, must decide which App connection to pull your product information and push order information into Shopify. As of 9/24/2023, you can use the TikTok Shop app or a private app.

1. This Applies to sellers using FBA (Amazon Multichannel Fulfillment or other 3PL to fulfill the orders)
2. If you ship from your home or warehouse, you can buy the shipping label directly from the TikTok shop. (same process as eBay, Amazon, and Shopify when you buy shipping labels within their platforms)

For Step 1.1, I highly recommend CedCommerce Shopify Connector as the connector. The cost is $39.99 per month, but worth it. Setting up the product and fixing all the issues can take 5 to 30 hours, depending on the number of SKUs.

How to get traffic to the TikTok Shop?

You have two options: the Affiliate program pays creators 10% to 20% to livestream or create products attached to their TikTok Profiles.

The second option is to link your TikTok Ad account with the TikTok Shop to run ads for your store. This approach has yielded a better ROI than directing traffic to the brand's website.

Over the past year, I've noticed that as the e-commerce landscape slows down, social media giants aim to keep users engaged on their platforms. They appear to reward advertisers in search results when users are directed to shops within their systems, such as Facebook Shop and TikTok Shop.

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