There was a dark time when TikTok creators with a merch line or a referral link had to send their viewers to another platform to buy products. With TikTok Shop, that’s a thing of the past.
Now, you can create Shoppable Videos, meaning that your audience can tap through a TikTok and go right to a product’s page. You can also use TikTok LIVEs to advertise specific products — your audience will see small pop-ups at the bottom of their screen, allowing them to buy a product in just a few taps. Checkout and fulfillment are handled right in TikTok, meaning you don’t have to do anything beyond creating your product and promoting it.
How to sell products on TikTok Shop
Since there’s some administrative stuff to take care of before you start (like tax information), you should make sure you’re eligible for TikTok Shop before you start selling. Here are the requirements:
- At least 18 years old.
- At least 5,000 followers.
- Not a Government, Politician, or Political Party Account (GPPPA).
- Comply with the TikTok Shop Content Policy andTikTok Community Guidelines, and all other TikTok Shop policies.
- Have no record of TikTok Shop permissions being revoked or associating with accounts that had TikTok Shop permissions revoked.
As part of the signup process, you’ll also need to provide ID or other official personal information to verify your identity. That might be a driver’s license, a passport, or the last four digits of your social security number if you’re selling as an individual. If you’re selling through a corporation, it’ll need to be registered in the U.S. and your warehouse will need to be in the U.S., too.
Now here’s how you can set up your own Tiktok Shop.
Step 1: Make sure you have a TikTok account
To sell products through TikTok Shop, you’ll need to have a TikTok account. If you don’t have a TikTok account already, here’s how to create one easily.
Step 2: Sign up for TikTok Shop
You can sign up for TikTok Shop through TikTok’s Seller Center, as long as you’re based in one of the territories where TikTok Shop is currently available:
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Indonesia
- Malaysia
- Thailand
- The Philippines
- Vietnam
- Singapore
Enter the email address you want to use and you’ll see the Verification Code box pop up. You’ll be prompted to do a quick CAPTCHA-style test. Then, TikTok will send you an email with a verification code. Finally, you can choose a password and finish your initial signup.
Step 3: Fill out your TikTok Shop application
Now that you’ve created a TikTok Shop account, you’ll need to give TikTok some information about you and your business. If you’re signing up as a corporation, you’ll need to supply a business registration number and a registered business address. If you’re running a sole proprietorship, you’ll just have to give your TikTok Shop a name.
You’ll also have to supply some kind of identification at this stage. For a corporation, you’ll need to provide a U.S. company registration document, and the passport or driver’s license of the company owner. If you’re not running a corporation, a passport or driver’s license will do.
The last part of your application will be giving TikTok the banking information it needs to pay you. Corporations have to provide a significant amount of information, including an Employer Identification Number (EIN), a Merchant Category Code (MCC), and details about any related persons. Individual sellers only need to provide a social security number or individual taxpayer identification number — as well as an MCC.
Both corporations and individual sellers will need to provide TikTok with tax information, too.
After you’ve finished and submitted your application, you’ll have to wait a day or two for your store to be approved — assuming there aren’t any issues.
Step 4: Link your TikTok account with your store
Once your TikTok Shop account has been approved, you can link it to your TikTok handle to create a consistent identity throughout all TikTok services. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to the TikTok Shop Seller Center, then hit My Account.
- You’ll see an option called Seller Profile. Select that, and find the heading called Login Accounts.
- Hit the Sign in with TikTok Account link to connect your TikTok account with your seller profile.
Step 5: Upload your first product
When your application is accepted, you’ll be able to access the TikTok Shop Seller Central, which is your one-stop shop for managing every aspect of your store — including uploading your first product. At first, the Seller Central should look something like the above screenshot.
This is TikTok’s introductory guide, and you can upload your product by hitting the purple Upload now button. You’ll have to fill out your product’s information, like the type of product it is, sizes, etc. Additionally, you’ll want add product images at this stage.
You’ll then be asked to provide a pickup address for your product through the form below. That’s because TikTok will handle every aspect of the fulfillment process, meaning you can focus on making the best product you can and promoting it through TikTok.
Step 6: Promote your product with content
With TikTok taking care of getting your products to your customers, you can put a lot more focus into promoting them. Since TikTok Shop allows you to put direct links to a product in any TikTok or TikTok LIVE, you have a ton of options for promotion. Here are just a few ideas:
- Unboxing videos: These videos are a great way to show your potential customers what they’re getting for their money.
- Product demos: No matter what you sell, you can probably find a way to show it off in a TikTok. This kind of content is great for partnering with creators and other sellers, too.
- Product comparisons: If you’re feeling particularly bold, you can feature your competitor’s product and compare it to what you’re offering. You can also use this kind of video to compare multiple tiers of your own products.
- Q&As: TikToks are great for answering questions about your products. You can also go LIVE and answer a bunch of them all at once.
No matter how you choose to promote your products, make sure you’re creating consistently and responding to your audience. If some types of content are performing better, try creating more of that.
How does TikTok Shop really work?
At its simplest, TikTok Shop does two things. First, it allows sellers to sell their products directly on TikTok, meaning they don’t need a separate storefront or fulfillment services. Second, it allows TikTok users to tap through product links on content or ads and buy products without leaving TikTok.
It’s a win-win, really. Sellers get their products in front of customers more easily and users can let their shopping impulse win more easily. As a content creator, you’ll fall on the seller side of this, whether you make your own products or promote someone else’s. Here’s where creators can insert product links through TikTok Shop.
LIVE Shopping
Ever seen one of those ads from the Home Shopping Network? Maybe while you were at a grandparent’s house? LIVE Shopping brings that back, just on your phone. Just go LIVE the way you would for any other live stream, except you can add pins that represent any product you’re showing off. Viewers can tap through that pin and go right to a product page where they can buy your product.
This is a great way to show off brand-new products, announce sales, or even share a how-to for using a more complex product.
Shoppable videos
Shoppable videos are exactly what they sound like; TikTok videos with links to a TikTok Shop product. You can turn any new video into a Shoppable video by hitting Add Link and Product just before you publish it, the same way you’d make any other edits or add any other links.
You can add multiple products to a single video, customize their name, and a lot more. There’s a full guide to doing that from TikTok here.
Shop page
A TikTok Shop page lists all the products TikTok Shop sellers have for sale. TikTok users can navigate to this page — usually through a link in another piece of content — and buy a product without leaving the app. It looks a lot like browsing through something like Amazon, but it’s all products from a single account.
As a creator, you can design your own Shop page with a simple drag-and-drop designer, decorate it so it fits your brand, and keep all your products in one place!
4 tips for selling products on TikTok Shop
So now that you know how to get started with TikTok Shop, how do you actually sell something? Up until this point, you’ve probably focused a lot of your strategy on making the best content you can, growing your audience, and getting engagement. Once you start selling products, things get a little different. All of a sudden, you’re like an individually-owned business. You have customers, you need a marketing strategy, and more.
Here are some tips for selling your products.
Choose the right product
No matter how much work you put into a product and the content promoting it, it’s probably not going to do well if it’s not the right fit for your audience.
What kind of product does your audience absolutely need? What can you easily create with your current skillset or a minimum amount of training? Whatever exists at the intersection of those two questions is what you should be looking to sell.
For example, Miss Excel is a creator educator who went viral with her dynamic, entertaining tutorials for mastering Excel spreadsheets. So, naturally, she started creating and selling Excel courses online.
Set up a sales funnel
Marketers use the term “sales funnel” to describe the path a potential customer follows from first hearing about you (or your product) to eventually buying something from you. While individual marketers might set it up a little differently, it generally follows this pattern:
- TOFU (Top of Funnel): At this stage of the sales funnel, a potential customer has probably never heard of you or anything you’re selling. They might come across some of your content as they’re scrolling through their feed, then stick around and swipe through some more.
- MOFU (Middle of Funnel): Here, a potential customer knows about you or what you sell, and they’re looking for information about what you’ve got. If you sell daily planners, for example, they might want to know how planners work, what their benefits are, and how they compare with other options.
- BOFU (Bottom of Funnel): Now, potential customers are ready to buy and they’re just looking for the perfect option. They’ll compare what you’re selling to the competition, make sure they can get the best price, and filter out low-quality equivalents. At this stage, it’s about being the best option out there.
When you sell products on TikTok Shop, you need to put some thought into your own sales funnel. How do you get your audience from the top of the funnel to the bottom? What about someone who doesn’t follow you yet? When creating content, you should generally have most of it fall near the top of the funnel, with less in the middle and even less at the bottom.
That’s why you should make sure you…
Don’t make all your content shoppable
When you’ve just launched a new product, there’s a temptation to make all of your content talk about that product in one way or another. And now, with TikTok Shop, you could potentially put shoppable links in every single video.
Avoid doing that.
How much of your content is geared towards selling something right now? Probably not a lot, right? If you start selling with every TikTok for the next few weeks, your followers will be bombarded with messaging asking them to buy something. It’ll make them feel like you’ve sold out.
While you’ll want at least some of your content to promote what you’re selling, most of it should do exactly what you’ve always done, whether that’s educating people or entertaining them.
Getting that ratio of selling and not selling can take some getting used to. Generally, though, you should have at least three to five pieces that don’t do any selling for every one piece promoting a product.
Look into paid ads
Along with Shop, TikTok has launched Shop Ads, which you can use to promote your products.
Instead of taking a potential customer to a different website, Shop Ads will open a tab that’ll show your product right in the video. From there, they can go straight to a TikTok Shop cart and buy your product in just a few taps.
Whether these ads are worth the investment or not will depend on your niche, the average cost of your products, and the number of sales you can expect to make from a single ad.
Can you sell digital products on Tiktok Shop?
In short? No. TikTok Shop is just for selling physical products. If you wanted to start selling ebooks, online courses, or exclusive videos, TikTok Shop is going to leave you hanging.
Know where you can sell those, though?
The Leap. It’s part AI-powered product builder and part online store. You can use it like a link in bio tool, putting all your social and other links in one place, but it’s at its best when you use it to sell digital products.
You can start building and selling products for free, get analytics that tell you how your products are doing, and even get a little bit of email marketing going. Tons of creators are already building, selling, and making bank from their digital products on The Leap.
Build, market, and sell digital products all in one spot with The Leap!
Want to sell products on TikTok?
TikTok Shop is a fantastic feature for creators who hope to diversify their income with physical products, like merch or beauty products. Since TikTok takes care of fulfillment and processing payments, you can focus on making the best product possible and promoting it on TikTok. It’s never been easier for content creators to start their own product line.
And if you want to make it even easier? Create digital products! While you can’t sell them directly through TikTok Shop, fulfillment and payment processing for digital products are way simpler than physical goods, making them a valuable addition to your income.
FAQ
How can I get set up on TikTok Shop as a seller?
You can get set up on TikTok Shop in just four steps. Here’s what you need to do:
- Make sure you have a TikTok account: Before you can get set up as a seller, you need a TikTok account. Here’s how to create one.
- Create your TikTok Shop seller account: Go to the TikTok Shop Seller Center and create your account with an email and password. You’ll also need to submit a verification code that TikTok will send to your email.
- Fill out the TikTok Shop application: You’ll go through a few forms that’ll ask you for your business’ identifying information, government-issued ID, tax information, and more. Once you’ve completed the application, it can take a day or two for TikTok to approve it.
- Link your TikTok account with TikTok Shop: When your application is approved, you’ll have access to the full Seller Center dashboard, and you can link any number of TikTok accounts to your TikTok Shop account. This will help streamline the creation of promotional content for your products.
How can I sell my products on TikTok Shop?
Once your application is approved, you can start selling your products through TikTok Shop. Follow these steps to get started:
- Upload your first product: When you’re first given access to the TikTok Shop Seller Center, you’ll see a purple Upload now button. Hit that to add your first product to your shop.
- Set up a pickup address: Since TikTok handles every part of the fulfillment process, from storage to shipping, you’ll need to give them an address where they can pick up your products.
- Promote your products: With TikTok Shop, you can promote products directly in your content, whether that’s through a shoppable video with a built-in link to your product or a TikTok LIVE. Your audience can tap on a product link and be taken right to your product’s page without leaving TikTok.
- Try paid ads: TikTok Shopproducts are eligible for paid ads, meaning you can capture customers beyond your audience and get them to a checkout screen all in TikTok.
TikTok Shop takes care of a huge chunk of the actual distribution and selling process. To maximize sales, brainstorm creative ways to promote your product. And, of course, make sure you have the best product around!
Is selling on TikTok Shop worth it?
When you sell products through TikTok Shop, you’ll be charged two fees:
- A marketplace commission fee: TikTok takes a percentage of every sale you make, the exact amount varying based on the kind of product you’re selling, ranging from about 4.5% to 10.5%.
- A transaction fee: A 3.5% fee charged by payment processors.
So is it worth it? Unless you can find a way to market, sell, and fulfill (i.e. ship) your physical products that costs less than 14% of their total price, selling on TikTok Shop is worth it. The costs of selling physical products can get pretty high, and TikTok Shop helps you save on them significantly.
Can you sell digital products on TikTok?
No. TikTok Shop currently only supports the sale of physical products, meaning you won’t be able to use any of its features with your digital products.
While you can’t sell digital products directly through TikTok, you can still use TikTok to promote any digital products you’ve created — and use your link in bio tool to direct your audience to your online storefront.
The best way to do that? Use The Leap, our free AI-powered digital product builder, and online storefront. Build a product, post it, and sell it all in one place.
Follow The Leap on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for more monetization tips for creators. We also make a newsletter.
