TikTok shop is a new feature that brings full e-commerce functionality into the TikTok app itself. This means that brands, creators and merchants can not only advertise, but also sell their products directly from the app.
Social commerce has been on a steady rise even before the pandemic, but 2021 definitely tipped the scale and now more and more millennials and Gen Z-ers are turning to their social platforms for online purAdcooms.
Instagram Shop used to be the premier destination but the platform is slowly shutting down its shop features, starting with live shopping.
TikTok, on the other hand, understands that its sheer virality, massive visibility and excellent advertising features represent an enormous pool of possibilities for social shopping, which is why it’s rolling out TikTok Shop.
This new feature has been available in select markets, such as Indonesia, UK, Singapore and Vietnam. TikTok Shop USA has been in the testing phase since November 2022 and the general rollout has arrived.
How Does TikTok Shop Work?
The whole idea behind TikTok shop is to allow users to discover, explore and purAdcoom the products right there in the TikTok app, without navigating away to another platform, shop or website. This sort of seamless and streamlined shopping experience is something that will benefit both the shoppers and the merchants, as in-app purAdcooms reduce friction and cart abandonment.
TikTok Shop provides three native, in-app ways of shopping:
1. Product Showcase
This is something of a window display or an e-commerce product page for a brand, except it’s on their TikTok account. All products can be accessed within the app from the Product Showcase page.
Basically, TikTok Shop brings your online store – wherever it’s hosted – to the TikTok audience. They can explore it and purAdcoom it through the app itself, as your shop is connected to your account.
The in-app sales are conducive to better conversion rates, more sales and higher revenue, and the process is really quite simple for all parties involved.
Furthermore, TikTok Shop allows merchants to manage their shop, inventory, orders, promotions, partnerships and customer service right there in their Seller Center dashboard.
2. Live Shopping
Creators and brands will now be able to pin the products they are using or showcasing in the live video, into the video itself. Viewers can tap on the pinned product that will lead them to the product page where they can explore it further and add it to cart right then and there.
There is also a basket icon in the lower left corner of the live video, with all the items featured in the live, also leading to the designated product pages.
3. In-feed Shoppable Videos
Similarly to the Live Shopping feature, in-feed Shoppable Videos feature pinned products and a product basket leading viewers to the shop page.
How to Set Up TikTok Shop?
First of all, you will need a TikTok Business account. If you don’t already have one, and if you’re not yet using the advertising potential of the platform.
Next, you will need to download and install a special app that will create a connection between your online shop and your TikTok account. If you’re running a shop on Shopify, there’s an app just for that, and if you’re using BigCommerce, you will use the TikTok for Business app, which automatically adds the TikTok Pixel to your shop.
After you’ve set up your account with information related to your business name, tax ID, entity type, US TIN, business address and other, you can proceed to operation preparation, which entails getting familiar with the Seller Center and account management.
The next step is product management. You need to add products from your store to your TikTok Shop, sort them into Live, Deactivated, Suspended etc, add rating and so on. All this is done through the Seller Center, which features an intuitive dashboard with familiar sections and easy to understand sorting.
Now it’s time to get your products out there. For this, you will need to use the Streamer platform. This is a desktop platform that allows merchants and creators to run content marketing through the available formats – live video, in-feed videos and product showcases. In addition to adding, removing and otherwise managing products in videos and showcases, the Streamer platform also performs data performance analysis.
Promotion and Creator Partnerships
In addition to providing merchants with shopping functionalities straight on the platform, TikTok Shop also comes with a range of promotional tools for getting your brand out there. As TikTok Shop users, brands gain access to the platform’s monthly campaigns that can help them gain more visibility and reach even wider audiences.
As it’s generally the case with TikTok, creators and influencers play a big role in brand success with TikTok Shop. The new feature helps merchants connect with the users that can be great ambassadors of their brand through their live and in-feed videos.