TikTok Shop: What Is It and How Do You Use It?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock these last few years, you probably know what TikTok is. It’s everywhere, being used by nearly everyone. And its influence is ever-growing, expected to reach 1.8 billion monthly active users by the end of 2024. 

Part of its growing reach is due to its more recent feature, TikTok Shop, launching in September 2023. Due to its seamless integration with the platform, it has given community-driven trends such as #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt new life, giving users shoppable content with every scroll. 

Keep reading to discover how you can utilise this new shopping experience for your eCommerce business. 

What is TikTok Shop?

As the name suggests, TikTok Shop is a new fully integrated eCommerce feature within TikTok, allowing users to purchase products directly through the app. 

It has a range of unique features, setting it apart from previous social media eCommerce markets such as Instagram Shopping. 

It provides 4 native ways to shop; LIVE Shopping, shoppable videos, product showcase and the shop tab (we’ll get more into these later). Users can checkout without ever leaving the app and as a seller, you can join an affiliate programme that lets you collaborate easily with creators to further your product reach. 

All sounds pretty good, right? Well, when done right, it is!

Brands such as P.Louise Cosmetics have completely taken off by utilising TikTok Shop and all its features, gaining 126k orders and 110M product views in just 3 months. 

Why is this beneficial for your business? 

TikTok Shop is a great option for eCommerce businesses that are looking to broaden their reach, particularly with Gen Z and Millennial audiences. If you play it right, you can leverage viral content to drive your sales by relating it to your product, which is available directly in the app. 

This seamless integration also lends to reducing the friction between content discovery and purchase, allowing your customers to discover your brand and purchase from it without ever leaving the app. 

Setting up a TikTok Shop

So, how do you get your products on TikTok Shop?

The process is relatively simple, and full details can be found here, but we’ve broken it down into a step-by-step guide: 

1. Make sure you have a business account on TikTok (this not only unlocks TikTok Shop but also Ads Manager and extra analytics).
2. Navigate your way to the Seller Centre and fill out the application – ensure you have all relevant documents to confirm your business. 
3. Wait for the results – you’ll usually get accepted within a few days.
4. Link your bank account.
5. Add your products – this can be done manually through TikTok Seller Centre or by using a tool to sync your existing online product catalogue and your new TikTok Shop. 

Best practices for selling on TikTok Shop

Now your shop is all setup, it’s time to get selling! 

As mentioned before, there are 4 native ways to shop on TikTok, so let’s go into these in a bit more detail. 

First is LIVE Shopping. These events are similar to Instagram and Amazon Live, with your live stream available to both your followers and new customers via the For You Page. As you showcase each of your products, a pin related to that product will pop up. Viewers can then click on that pin to add the item to their cart and then check out within the app itself. It’s essentially selling your products in real-time.

Next are shoppable videos. These appear within a customer’s feed and again are available for both your followers and on the For You Page. It’s a regular video with your product linked just above the caption, where a user can easily click on the product link and checkout right there, in-app. 

You then have a product showcase, which appears on your TikTok page, in a tab next to your videos. Here, users can view your entire catalogue directly from your account. 

Finally, there’s the shopping tab, which appears in each user’s app, next to their home page. This is where they can search for a particular product or just browse more freely in the shop. 

In addition to all this, you can also join TikTok’s affiliate programme and enable creators to help promote your products as well. Any shop can sign up for this feature and you set your own commission rate. You can either use open collaboration, which allows any TikTok-approved creator to promote your products, or target collaboration, in which you can approve or deny each influencer when they apply. We would recommend sending creators product samples where you can, as it allows them to create better content for your brand. These influencers can also link your products to their videos, lives and product showcases. 

Are there any cons?

As with pretty much anything, TikTok Shop of course has its downsides. 

For one, TikTok has pretty limited targeting options when it comes to advertising, which could be an issue if you need to reach specific or niche demographics. TikTok is always expanding on the advertising front, so who knows if this is an area they’ll look to improve, but for now it’s pretty limited.

Another potential drawback is TikTok Shop is not available globally yet. Currently, it is only available in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. So if you’re looking to target more worldwide, this may not be the best option for you. 

Naturally, TikTok also takes a commission on your sales, which could be something to consider if you’re already selling on places such as Amazon or Etsy. Currently, this sits at 9%, although this is still lower than both Etsy and Amazon, which are currently at 15% each for the most part. 

Selling via TikTok will require effort on the content front, as it relies on video that appeals enough to sell your products. If you don’t already make sufficient video content and don’t have much spare time on your hands, TikTok is probably a platform to avoid altogether. 

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So, there are the basics of TikTok Shop, a new possible eCommerce channel on one of the most popular apps today. If you need extra help utilising TikTok as a platform first, our previous article dives into that in more depth. 
As always, get in touch for any guidance you may need, and one of our lovely team members will get back to you.