TikTok’s unique marketing strategies, from the affiliate program to the shop tab, helped the TikTok Shop generate over $12.9 billion in sales, converting millions of users to buyers on the platform.
The TikTok Shop is an online marketplace within the TikTok platform, selling various products from beauty and kitchen products to unique and quirky finds. What sets the TikTok Shop apart from other online stores is its marketing methods.
The main marketing strategies to promote products in the shop are live shopping, shoppable videos, and the Shop tab itself found on the app. Creators who use live shopping and shoppable videos promote products and link the products from the TikTok Shop.
Another strategy is offering discounts, coupons, and flash sales on certain products. These offers make users more likely to purchase. These promotions bring more traffic and customers to the TikTok Shop.
Many of these creators are affiliates, meaning that they get a small commission from when someone buys the product through their video. Additionally, companies can also sell their products using the TikTok Shop just the same as TikTok creators.
How do individual companies and creators selling their products on the platform benefit TikTok?
TikTok can benefit from this creator-and-viewer relationship by charging commission fees and shipping costs. TikTok’s commission rates are only 1.9% for the first 90 days and 5% afterward. Compared to Amazon’s commission rate of 8-15%, this makes TikTok Shop more accessible to businesses and creators.
Although TikTok makes less per sale than Amazon, TikTok has the advantage of having 1.6 billion active users per month, with 150 million of them being from the United States alone. Each of these users are potential customers or sellers for the TikTok Shop.
With its vast number of users, TikTok Shop uses the success of short-form content to convert casual users into buyers. By integrating shopping with entertainment, TikTok allows people to watch videos from their favorite creators and buy their products directly from their videos.
Using these methods, TikTok has turned the TikTok Shop into a very successful e-commerce business for them, and benefits the people who promote their products on the TikTok Shop.
