Welcome to the future of e-commerce – TikTok Shop. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore TikTok Shop’s unique features and how brands can harness its dynamic platform to elevate their business.
What is TikTok Shop?
TikTok Shop marries social media with e-commerce, providing a seamless shopping experience within the TikTok app. Unlike other platforms, TikTok content on your For You Page is typically from strangers—chosen by the algorithm based on what it thinks you’ll like. This is completely different from other major social media apps like Facebook and Instagram which are mainly focused on content made by your following. TikTok Shop’s focus on short-form, creative content creates a unique space for brands to authentically engage with users and buy with a click of a button. Your customers don’t even need to leave the app—again, extremely different from competing social media apps.
Can Everyone Use TikTok Shop?
Currently available in the US, UK, and soon, Canada, TikTok Shop is testing its capabilities before expanding globally.
How Do I Set Up TikTok Shop as a Business?
Setting up your TikTok Shop is straightforward:
- Create a TikTok for Business Account: Convert your regular TikTok account to a TikTok for Business account for additional features, including TikTok Shop.
- Verify Your Account: Complete the account verification process by confirming business details and adhering to TikTok’s guidelines.
- Add Your Products: Populate your TikTok Shop with captivating visuals, concise descriptions, and relevant hashtags for enhanced discoverability.
- Connect Your TikTok Shop to Your Shopify Store:
- a. Set Up Your Shopify Account: Create or optimize your Shopify account with organized product details.
- b. Install TikTok Channel App: Install the TikTok Channel app in your Shopify dashboard.
- c. Connect Accounts: Follow the prompts to seamlessly connect your TikTok account to your Shopify store.
Linking Products to Videos
One of the coolest parts of TikTok Shop, as you probably know, is the ability to directly link products directly to videos. Your audience just clicks tagged products to get more info and TikTok lets you choose whether to send them to your storefront or go directly to check out right there in the app. Before TikTok Shop, there were so many hurdles the audience had to jump over to purchase from brands and from creators’ affiliate links. Each hurdle can easily be an excuse for someone to not go through with purchasing. Now, it’s a seamless experience.
How Do the Affiliate Collaborations Work on TikTok Shop?
The affiliate program gives sellers the opportunity to collaborate with creators, who will promote your products to drive more sales. With TikTok Shop Affiliate, both the seller and creator help each other to earn: sellers can sell more products and creators can earn commission from selling these products. Most affiliate commissions are around 10-25% but we have seen some brands get more competitive and give commissions up to 50%. You can give all the way up to 80%.
There are two options for affiliate collaborations—target and open collaborations. Target collaborations are where you invite specific creators to collaborate and promote your product. TikTok Shop Seller Center allows you to pick creators to invite to promote your product and gives you key insights to help inform your decisions.
Key Features of Open Plan:
We recommend brands set up an open affiliate plan ASAP. This allows anyone to find your products in the marketplace to link and promote them.
- Product Selection Flexibility:
- Choose to make all or specific products visible for promotion.
- Visibility Across All Creators:
- Products are visible to all TikTok Shop Creators, with an option to “require approval” for a curated approach.
- Commission Customization:
- Set commissions for individual products, groups, or the entire catalog (1%-80%). You want to do a commission that makes sense for your business but also is enticing for creators so that they promote your product.
How To Set Up Open Collaboration:
- Navigate to TikTok Shop Collaboration Settings: Access collaboration settings on your TikTok Shop dashboard.
- Select Open Collaboration: Opt for Open Collaboration to make your products visible to all TikTok Shop Creators.
- Customize Commission Rates: Set commission rates based on your preferences.
- Enable “Require Approval” Mode (Optional): If desired, enable “require approval” to curate the participating Creators.
- Monitor and Optimize: Regularly review Open Collaboration performance and adjust your strategy as needed. If you want to start running ads and use a creator’s video, you can reach out to them and ask for a spark code.
What Do I Post Organically On TikTok?
So you’re set up on TikTok Shop wondering what kind of content you should post aside from videos of your product. Right now, since TikTok Shop is a newer feature, we’ve been seeing videos getting pushed more to the For You Page when the product is linked. You shouldn’t make every video heavily product or sales-focused. You can still do funny and entertaining trendy videos that involve the product in an organic way and link it.
Our best advice is to do both product-focused videos with products tagged as well as videos that don’t have a product linked and are just for the sake of increasing reach, building community, and engaging with your audience. Keep in mind that when a product is linked, you can only use commercial sounds. If there’s no product linked, you can use other sounds!
Here are some other videos you should consider:
1. Behind the scenes: show you designing or making the product all the way up until the final result
2. Pack an order with me
3. Comment response to an FAQ
4. Relatable trending video with text on the screen
5. Product demo (make this as non-salesy as possible!)
6. Duet and stitches to relevant viral videos
