How to Sell on TikTok Shop

Before you start selling on TikTok – before you even create an account on it – you’ll need to first find your niche.

Your niche, in TikTok terms, is a subsection of a wider market. A niche is a group of users interested in a similar thing. The larger niches, or subcultures, on TikTok have huge, close-knit communities and are often identified through their names ending in “Tok”. BookTok, MomTok, and FitTok are some of the largest, but for pretty much any hobby, lifestyle, or aesthetic choice you can think of, there’s a high chance you’ll find like minded people on TikTok.

If you can find a TikTok business idea that fits into one of these groups and provide a product that adds value, you’ll find there are plenty of opportunities for making money.

So while you’re learning how to sell on TikTok Shop, identify your target market and think about which niche these people, and therefore your business, would operate in. Follow this line of thinking, and use it to understand a bit more about your audience.

How old are they? Where are they based? What gender do they identify as?

Knowing these kinds of things, understanding your niche – and, more importantly, understanding how your content will fit into that niche – will help you successfully  market your product by producing content that resonates with your audience.

With the groundwork of your audience and niche well and truly laid, it’s time to start building your TikTok empire. And it all starts with a single brick – creating aTikTok Shop account. Mine was set up and in under 5 minutes, let’s get into how I did it!

When I first got to the TikTok Shop signup page, I was prompted to input my phone number or email address for verification purposes.

You’ll then be asked which type of business you’re going to be running. Individual and sole proprietorship will most likely be suited to you if you’ve just started out selling.

Their main difference is that an individual sells under their own name and a sole proprietorship means you’re selling under a separate business name, but still as yourself. Corporation will be the right choice if you’ve taken steps to legally separate your business from yourself, such as an LLC, and a partnership is for businesses with more than one owner.

There’s a few types of identification you’ll need to hand at this stage. I selected individual as my business type and was required to provide:

• My US passport or US driver’s license
• My Social Security Number (SSN) Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)

For all other options, you’ll be expected to provide some basic details about your business and your Employer Identification Number (EIN).

The final step to set up a TikTok Shop is to set up your shop preferences, so now’s the time to come up with a business name if you haven’t already. Although rest assured, TikTok allows you to easily change this at a later date if you so wish. The same can be said for your primary product selection too, so don’t worry if the finer details aren’t set in stone yet!

After verifying my phone number and submitting, I was able to review the information I’d provided before getting started with the fun stuff.

Adding a new product was easier than I expected. Simply select the products tab and you’ll be guided to upload your first item. You’ll be asked to fill out basic information about the product and guided with prompts throughout.

Before adding any products, you need to add a pickup and return address within your seller center so your customers can receive your products!

To add this, select the profile icon that looks like a house in the top right hand corner of your dashboard, go to “my account,” “account settings,” then to “warehouse settings.”

Once you’re onto adding your product, basic information like product pictures, description, materials is required.

There are also AI integrations aimed to help you with the wordier parts, but I found them to be slightly glitchy.

While the product description was accurate and engaging, the suggested product name of “Hat with Adjustable Strap and Sweatband” was completely wrong. After regenerating, I was given a title in Vietnamese, so be sure you check over them first!

TikTok Shop automatically displays legal product regulations for your country, which helps you make sure you’re sticking to the rule book! It also asks for weight and dimensions to provide you with an estimated shipping cost.

Once everything is filled out, you can submit your product for review in the top right-hand corner. If you’re anything like me and realize you don’t have all the necessary product information to hand straight away, you’ll appreciate the option to save as a draft!

It’s as simple as that! Now all you have to do is wait for your product to be given the green light and you’ll be well on your way to making sales.

After putting in all your hard work to find your audience, niche, and add your inventory, knowing how to sell on TikTok Shop and target the right people is important. This is where promoting comes into play, so if you master it, everyone and their dog will have heard of your products!

There are two methods of promotion you can use. It’s important to use a mix of these to encourage a wider audience and create a balance of content types.

Option 1: Creating Original Content

If your business is already on other social media platforms, create TikTok posts announcing your new platform and share them on this page.

For brands just starting out, it’s even more important to have a small backlog of posts on your account.

Put yourself in the shoes of the buyer – you probably wouldn’t feel comfortable buying on TikTok Shop if the account had no posts showing their personality and product information.

For the content of these posts, think about what your audience would like to see. Follow content creators in your niche and get inspiration from them, as well as your For You Page to see general trends and templates.

While important to utilize trends, your personality will make your content and products stand out. Whether you’re camera shy or made for Hollywood, it doesn’t matter – reflect your brand in a way that’s authentic.

You should aim to post content daily as TikTok prioritizes its most frequent posters. And posting at least once per day boosts your chances of getting noticed. Or better – appearing in your audiences’ “For You” feeds. (The TikTok Holy Grail!)

Option 2: Working With Influencers

Having a clear influencer marketing strategy is growing more important in the internet age. Sourcing influencers is easier than it’s ever been if your products are on TikTok Shop; the app has been set up as much for the financial gain of influencers as it has for sellers.

Influencers are paid commission per amount of sales they make through their link to your product. This makes it a type of affiliate marketing, and one you should take advantage of!

TikTok Shop suggests and supports four main strategies to affiliate marketing:

• The Open Plan allows any creator to link your product, and you can toggle whether they need your approval.
• Creator Connect allows you to find influencers that will be most suited to your products based on data about their previous sales and video quality.
• Targeted Outreach involves directly reaching out to the influencers that you personally select to represent your brand.
• Platform Promotions involves registering your products in TikTok Shop’s selling campaigns to increase visibility.

While targeted outreach will take you more research and time than the open strategies, you’ll have the opportunity to target TikTok micro influencers (creators with small followings), who will often take lower influencer rates.

Commission aside, finding the right influencer to represent your brand is key to reinforcing your brand image and resonating with your target audience. Sustainable grocery store Thrive Market does a great job of targeting trusted TikTok influencers that post about sustainability and clean living. When searching their name on TikTok, I was presented with loads of video reviews by these trusted micro-influencers which help to build trust and credibility around their brand.

Studies show that micro influencers actually have 60% higher engagement than macro influencers because they feel authentic and relatable to their audience.

TikTok Academy is a great resource with tons of detailed guides on social media strategy and understanding affiliate programs.

In a market saturated with content, you’ll need to go the extra mile to make sure your shop gets noticed and stays relevant. Here’s some tips to stand out:

Optimize Your Products For TikTok Shop

TikTok explains that there are three ways to shop, meaning three different ways for your product to be seen:

• Live shopping
• Shoppable video
• Store Page

TikTok is known for its rapid fire short videos made to grab attention quickly, and TikTok Shop is no exception to this rule. When you’re learning how to sell on TikTok Shop, you should never underestimate the power of images; 65% of the population are visual learners! If you know how to take product photos that catch the eye, you’re onto a winner!

Luckily, this is all laid out for you when you initially upload your products. Even on the desktop website, the right sidebar shows how your product is displayed in each of the  different mobile phone shopping methods.

This is my favorite aspect of the product upload process because it highlights areas you wouldn’t consider. In my example, I could see that my product looked good in the shop view, but the caption was cut off in the Live shopping and search results page view, which I was easily able to change.

Engage With Your Audience

As humans, we all sometimes need a reminder – it’s not all about you! So don’t simply focus on your own TikTok profile and videos, but on the wider ecosystem of content that sustains the social media platform.

So start viewing, liking, and commenting on other accounts’ videos. It’ll boost your chances of ending up on their feeds, and encourage them to view and like your videos in turn. Through that lens, interacting with your fellow TikTok users is one of the best digital marketing tips we can offer!

Be sure to engage with your audience – the people you identified in your niche with an interest in your brand, product, or service. These are the people following and liking the videos of similar accounts – or even your own.

A great way to do this is through  “pack an order with me” videos and livestreams. These videos not only show your appreciation for your TikTok Shop buyers, but encourage comments and orders with the chance to be featured in the videos.

As well as this, encourage reviews on your Shop products and set aside time to reply to them to show your gratitude.

The more you do this, the more you present not only as a business, but as the relatable human behind that business. As a creator of good vibes, rather than commerce alone!

It’s important to remember that not all seller journeys will be the same; your business identity is unique and your TikTok should reflect this! Just remember to keep authentic and consistent, foster good relationships with influencers, and prioritize engaging visuals over wordy item descriptions.

You may not go viral overnight, but – if you follow the steps above, our TikTok  tips and tricks, and keep your audience’s needs at the forefront of your mind – you will eventually!