Mastering Tiktok Commerce

Can a #socialmedia app originally launched as a 15-second amateur video platform, be the next big thing in #payments? Let’s take a look.   TikTok is the first Chinese app to have taken off in the west. Launched in 2016 as Douyin by ByteDance, it now has more than 1.5 billion monthly active users in 160 countries.   A few days ago, it became the first non-game app to reach $10bn in consumer spending and among just 5 apps to achieve this. The number could even be much higher as China is not included (Google is banned in China, but around 2/3 of smartphones use Android via hundreds of third-party app stores).   But where does this spending come from?   —     TikTok has created TikTok coins, a virtual currency within TikTok that users can buy and spend on gifts for creators on TikTok   —     The feature is called Tips and allows users to reward creators for their content   —     TikTok coins can be eventually converted to normal money (via PayPal or bank account), but with TikTok keeping a 50% commission!   —     Behind TikTok’s tipping feature is Stripe Connect, integrated in 2021   —     Stripe Connect is an API that enables embedded payments with Stripe dealing with all the back-office work needed (handling transactions, AML, KYC, etc)   Why is this important?   In-app purchases are a thing of video game apps. Non-video-game apps rely on subscriptions to make money. TikTok is the only app to have reverse-engineered this model via this reward set-up and makes billions of dollars without the need for subscriptions.   But this is not the only payments’ aspect in TikTok’s game.   On #ecommerce:   —     TikTok has launched in various geographies live shops on user profiles so that users can make direct purchases. In China, TikTok now generates most of its revenue from direct in-app sales and is rapidly taking away market share from e-com giants like JD and Alibaba   —     In Aug 2021 TikTok rolled out (US, UK) TikTok shop, which are digital e-shops directly integrated in the platform enabling merchants and creators to sell products directly to the TikTok community. The tool was powered by Shopify and let sellers make available product catalogs to TikTok so that they can be purchased then on Shopify   However, TikTok has as of late changed #strategy:   —     In Sep 23 it sunset the Shopify partnership and started pushing merchants to switch to its own e-commerce tool   —     TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has been working with JP Morgan to build a real-time payments infrastructure   TikTok is sitting on a massive opportunity: billions of dollars are moved every year on the platform. Phasing out all third-party providers and moving to an in-house payments set-up is already under way, with payment processing as a likely next step. TikTok will not be becoming a payments’ company, but it will be sourcing an ever-larger portion of its revenue via payments.   Opinions: my own, Graphic sources: data ai, Business Model Toolbox, FXC Intelligence

80k orders into TikTok Shop, here's what I've been surprised to learn.   1. Samples have only driven 7% of our TikTok Shop sales.   40% of orders come from product card. Of the 60% are driven by videos.   Product card: Customers organically finding our product on TikTok. These orders aren't charged commission. 🤌   Video: Most video sales are from affiliates who already have our product or they show our product image. On samples sent to affiliates, we get a 3 ROAS. Factoring halo sales on Amazon & DTC, it's a 6 ROAS (more in point 3). Half of our revenue from samples are from one affiliate. If you remove them, omni-channel ROAS is closer to a 3.   Product drop video posts from our own account can really work. Without commission owed, we can afford to put ad spend behind them.   2. TikTok Shop sales haven’t driven meaningful Simple Modern TikTok followers.   In the 6 months we sold 80k units on TikTok Shop, Simple Modern's TikTok follower count grew less than the previous 6 months.   Surprising to me considering we've driven 186m product impressions.   3. Over 100% halo effect between Amazon and Website.   When a product has a successful video driving TikTok Shop revenue, the bump on other eComm channels is clear. Typically we see more sales driven by TikTok videos on Amazon + DTC than TikTok Shop.   Customer trust is higher on Amazon and brand's websites.   The real magic is when TikTok videos goose Amazon listing placement permanently.   4. Revenue/video is flat once affiliates have more than 50k followers.   Followers: Revenue/video 0-1K: $13 1k-5k: $25 5k-10k: $40 10k-50k: $75 50+: $100   Affiliates with 50k followers have performed the same as 1m follower accounts. We have not engaged multi-million follower accounts with highly engaged audiences (celebrities).   5. Amazon best sellers don't drive our TikTok Shop business.   Products that have worked have had at least one of these qualities:  - Interesting  - New  - Relevant to culture or season  - Niche cult following (ex: Winnie the Pooh)   Our best sellers in retail typically don't have these qualities. These factors make inventory planning for TikTok Shop challenging.   6. Affiliates asking for 4+ samples are taking advantage of you.   We've sent 51 affiliates 4+ samples. Only one generated a sale.   13% of our total samples have been sent to grifters. 🙃   ************* TikTok Shop is a uniquely valuable channel since it's also a marketing engine.   It has required a different strategy from us and has been fun to learn.   I'd love to read what others have learned in the comments.

I’ve been watching brands like GRÜNS and Duolingo absolutely crush it, not just in sales, but in building real communities that genuinely love them. The most interesting part? They’re doing it without relying on the “old playbook” of huge ad buys and perfectly polished campaigns. Instead, they’ve built their success on authenticity, relatability, and community. Creator-first marketing They’ve mastered the power of micro-influencers. Instead of putting all their budget into one big celebrity endorsement, they work with hundreds of smaller creators who speak directly to niche audiences. These aren’t scripted ads, but rather authentic moments and personal recommendations. Their creators actually use and love the products, and as a result their audiences trust them. Community-first branding Fans don’t just buy the product; they feel like they’re part of something bigger. From reposting user-generated content to running rewards programs that incentivize sharing, every touchpoint is about building belonging. It’s the difference between a customer base and a community. Culture-led product design They make products that look and feel like they’re meant to be shared. Think pastel energy drink cans that pop in a selfie, or candy-like gummy vitamins that break the mold of what “wellness” products usually look like. Every design choice is intentional and it turns customers into free brand ambassadors. TikTok-native campaigns These brands don’t try to force traditional ads into TikTok. They create short, snackable videos that match the tone of the platform, relatable, quick, and unpolished in the best way possible. That’s why their content gets watched, shared, and remembered. The biggest lesson for me? You don’t have to chase perfection to win. The real power comes from knowing your audience, speaking their language, and giving them the tools and reasons to tell your story for you. In a world of massive ad budgets, authenticity and cultural relevance are still the most powerful currencies. #BrookeMonk #TikTok #BrandMarketing #CreatorEconomy

If live commerce isn’t in your 2025 strategy, you’re already losing market share. ✨ RM 3.8mil in GMV. 34.7mil product views. 60,406 items sold, in 30 days. The previous year, I did RM1.2mil in 30 days; this Yang Riang Raya campaign was a game-changer for us. We experimented, pushed boundaries, and most importantly, delivered results. 🚀 Here’s what made it work: 🎥 Trying Something New We uploaded pre-hype videos before the event and went full cinematic drama. Filming with cameras, crafting engaging storytelling, and negotiating prices live kept audiences hooked. We also filmed the videos with Dato Sri Siti Nurhaliza and Dato Sri Meer Habib, with views > 1mil each. 🌤️ Taking the Livestream Outdoors 99.9% of live-selling is done indoors on TikTok. The whole viewing experience are different for the viewers, the average viewing duration improved by 200%. Big thank you for Perbandanan Putrajaya, and Canon's team set up. 💸 Boosting with Ads Investing in ad boosting was another key factor in our success. By strategically running ads during the live sessions, we managed to attract more targeted audiences for the products we were selling. The result? A return on spend (ROS) of 5-10 times our ad investment. ⏰ Timing Matters We discovered that the sahur period (3am - 7am) and night hours (8pm-12am) were peak times for product demand, leading to higher engagement and sales. Knowing when your audience is most active can make a huge difference. 🤝 Brand Collaboration We also found that the brands that performed the best were those that actively supported us throughout the campaign. Brands that showed up, engaged with the process, and collaborated closely saw significantly better results. ⚡ Turning Viewers into Buyers—The FOMO Formula We didn’t just sell—we made people feel the rush of securing a deal before it was gone. Here’s how: 🔥 Build Anticipation Before the Drop – Instead of instantly adding products to the stream, we hyped them up. For example, before launching the viral Beg Kuning, we got viewers to comment “1” if they were ready. Only when we hit 100 comments then we release the link — but not before a suspenseful countdown! ⏳ Limited Quantity Sells – “Only 100 units available!” When people saw the stock count drop in real-time, it triggered instant action. No one wanted to be the one who missed out. 🎯 Educate, Then Convert – We made sure people fully understood the product before dropping the link. This meant that the moment it became available, they were ready to buy—no second-guessing, just instant conversion. 📊 Understanding Market Trends We sold what people wanted. By monitoring TikTok Shop rankings, product reviews, and audience sentiment, we identified the best Raya-related products and crafted strong narratives to make them irresistible. Is live-selling your next 8 months strategy? Let me know!

TikTok Shop is not messing around. At Spree, we're building a shoppable video platform, but also a studio where we help brands and creators onboard, market, and sell through social platforms. Think of it like influencer marketing in a post-cookie world: full funnel from awareness to purchase, but all in one short-form video. Recently, our TikTok Shop partnership has been getting a lot of love. A few interesting learnings from this holiday season: 1. 'Viral' products are a shortcut. We uploaded one 'viral product' into the system and started getting sales before we posted our first video. Naturally, we ordered a few hundred more ASAP. 2. TikTok Shop success aligns closely with the rules of great influencer marketing. Get a creator with an engaged, lean-in audience. Find a product they actually like that their audience will actually like. Sell by telling a story, not by telling viewers to buy. 3. Most brands want to be on TikTok Shop but don't know how. It's complex. But once you've done it dozens of times (per day, in our case) it moves fast. I don't care if you're a mom and pop stationary shop, a creator merch brand, or a Fortune 500: you want to experiment here with a team who knows this market. 4. Live is great, but don't sleep on shoppable VOD. A perfect 30 second video of a product can do the work of a one hour live stream. Both are valuable, but too many people are talking about live shoppable and not enough are talking about shoppable shortform. 5. Trends + Product = Sales. Wednesday Addams' dance is popping? Sell the costume. King Bach flashlight dance is trending? Sell the flashlight. Spotify Wrapped is everywhere? Sell headphones. 6. Creators beware: not all audiences want this. If you make gold digger prank content, don't start selling The Feminine Mystique hardcover. If you are a creator and want to try it, make great content first and let a brand ride along. 7. Create like a creator. This is the rule for every brand on every social platform, but certainly pertains here. Don't do one tentpole shoppable live stream on TikTok and judge TT Shop on that. You need to habituate your audience, build a format, and keep it entertaining. In case you can't tell, this is addicting for a social media wonk like me. Smart influencer marketers are already testing this market understanding it will be a huge part of their ecommerce future. And those who haven't need to start today. #ecommerce #creatoreconomy #tiktok https://lnkd.in/e926z8zm

I asked David Protein co-founders Peter Rahal and Zach Ranen for their TikTok Shop playbook. Here’s what I learned: They’ve sold over 50K products through TikTok Shop and received over 60M impressions on the platform. They launched nine months ago. TikTok Shop is not just a sales tool, it’s an awareness tool. “Beyond the actual product sold, we believe most of the value from our TikTok presence is the awareness it generates for David.” A big piece of their success has been creating an affiliate flywheel. “Initial creators gain traction when they post videos featuring David, which leads to more creators wanting to copy that success, so on and so forth.” They go live on TikTok twice a week (sometimes more). “TikTok’s algorithm seems to reward creators and brands that supplement traditional video posting with Lives.” They’ve embedded TikTok Lives into their new hire onboarding. “Every employee goes live in their first week on the job.” One insight they’ve discovered is that variety packs and smaller-ticket items consistently perform best. “This reinforces how important TikTok is for us as a discovery channel, not just a sales channel.” There are some data limitations when selling on TikTok Shop. “Email addresses are hashed, so it's harder to build direct relationships with contact like follow-up emails checking in on order satisfaction.” Storytelling and selling don’t have to be opposites. “It’s a hyper-direct and hyper-real form of storytelling. The result of that authenticity is that we sell on the platform.”

TikTok Shop just did $500,000,000 in US sales over Black Friday–Cyber Monday. Half. A. Billion. In four days. And here’s the real story everyone is missing: This wasn’t a “marketing win.” This was a distribution win. Because TikTok Shop isn’t scaling ads. It’s scaling creators-as-channels. The Big Unlock: For the first time in US commerce history, content, culture, and checkout all lived in one motion: • You saw the creator • You trusted the creator • You bought through the creator No tab switching. No Google searching. No Amazon comparing. Just swipe → watch → buy. Creators aren’t talent anymore, they’re storefronts with built-in traffic, trust, and now, SKU-level attribution. And this weekend proved it at scale. But here’s the part most marketers will get wrong: Everyone will focus on the $500M number. But that’s a tiny sliver of the real market: US e-comm over the same four days = $44.2B Amazon US annual sales = $500B+ TikTok Shop US 2024 = $15.8B projected TikTok Shop is still small compared to Amazon. But its growth curve is what matters: ⬆️ Half a billion in year 2.5 ⬆️ Major brands (Disney, Samsung, Ralph Lauren) joining the platform ⬆️ Social-driven shopping up 56.5% YoY This is the shift we’ve been talking about. We’re watching ecomm dollars migrate from Amazon → to content → to creators → to social-first retail. Why this matters for brands in 2025 Most brands still treat creators like vendors: PDFs, One-off briefs, Manual tracking... “Let’s hope this performs” energy But that model breaks instantly at scale. And scale is exactly where TikTok Shop is forcing everyone next. Creators are becoming a performance channel. Not in theory... in practice. You don’t scale Facebook Ads with interns. And you won’t scale social commerce with spreadsheets. The brands who win in 2025 will be the ones who build: • Creator CRM • Attribution → iteration loops • Predictive ROI models • Always-on creator networks • Infrastructure built for 100 creators a month, not 10 $500M isn’t the headline. The headline is this: A platform that didn’t exist ~24 months ago just turned creators into one of the fastest-growing retail channels in America. And we’re still early.

The TikTok Shop is now the UK’s 4th largest beauty retailer by sales. In 2025, TTS beauty sales grew 60% YOY. One beauty product sells every second. That places TTS behind Boots, Amazon, LookFantastic; ahead of a long tail of established players This is in a £30billion UK beauty market that is already crowded, promotion heavy, intensely competitive. Growth is hard won. Volume is patchy. New brands have struggled to break in. Against that, TTS has scaled quickly by changing how we get to a purchase Shopping behaviour on the platform rarely starts with a brand. It starts with a skin concern, an ingredient or a routine. Content first. The data reflects that. In Q4 2025, posts tagged #DrySkin increased 20%. Posts tagged #MatureSkin rose 75%. Searches increasingly follow a search-learn-buy pattern rather than browse-compare-buy K beauty has ridden this best. Searches for K beauty on TTS rose 125% in 2025. Brands such as Medicube, Mixsoon, Dr Melaxin, Bioheal all launched in the UK via TTS. Glass skin routines moved from niche to mainstream. Ingredient led layering became normal. As a result, average baskets for K brands are 35% higher than the average, driven by multi step routines. Searches for Medicube Zero Pore Pads alone rose 400% as shoppers looked for specific, outcome led solutions British brands are not being displaced, many are scaling faster in fact. The Ordinary, e.l.f. Cosmetics, The Beauty Crop are using shoppable video and LIVE formats to explain routines, answer questions, personalise recommendations. Searches for The Beauty Crop grew more than 270% in the most recent quarter. Almost like a beauty counter conversation than traditional ecom LIVE commerce underpins much of the momentum. Beauty focused LIVE shopping sessions grew 90% in 2025. TTS now hosts more than 6,000 LIVE shopping sessions every day in the UK. Brands use them to test routines, create bundles in real time, respond directly to customer feedback. Product development, merchandising, conversion are happening in the one moment There is a spillover into physical retail. Products that gain traction on TTS increasingly appear on the high street. The Beauty Crop secured a Boots listing following demand generated on the platform. The Ordinary used a TikTok exclusive launch to seed demand across other retailers once exclusivity ended. Mixsoon’s Bean Essence attracted interest from UK stockists after proving scale and repeat purchase behaviour online Creators sit at the centre of this system. The number of active creators on TTS UK rose more than 72% YOY. Many now earn more than the UK average salary of £39k through commission alone. Many focus on practical advice, routine building, ingredient education rather than brand led promotion. Trust is built in public; monetised directly This is not simply another route to market. It is a reworking of how beauty is discovered, learned, bought. Faster. More conversational. Less controlled

Your TikTok traffic might be the reason your Amazon sales just tanked. But before you start changing bids or rewriting your listings… let’s zoom out. We’ve seen this pattern across multiple clients lately, and it’s worth understanding why this happens before you start tweaking your ads or listings. One client we reviewed recently had a strong DTC and TikTok presence. But as organic reach declined over the last few months, their Amazon sessions fell too. That’s not a coincidence. When your top-of-funnel dries up off Amazon, your traffic on Amazon usually suffers too. Interestingly, conversion rates were up meaning their buyers were still there, but fewer new ones are entering the funnel. Here’s how we diagnosed it: - We identified which products saw the session drops. - Cross-checked with inventory or seasonality. - Zoomed out beyond Amazon to see what was happening upstream. Too often, I see brands rush to tweak ads or pricing without asking the bigger questions first. And when you do that, you risk optimizing the wrong part of the funnel. Your product pages might be fine. But if your TOFU traffic is coming from social and that social channel is cooling, that’s where you need to intervene. We’ve seen this same upstream/downstream effect in three different brands this quarter. Sometimes the fix is on Amazon. Sometimes it’s outside of it. Understand the ecosystem before you pull a lever.

Goli hit $6.36M in sales on TikTok Shop in just one month. Here’s how they nailed their affiliate strategy and smashed the TikTok Shop Playbook: → Trained creators & proven frameworks One video alone brought in $350k, using a tight formula: ↳ Curiosity hook ↳ 3rd-party social proof ↳ Unique angle (KSM 6) on a known product → Smart incentive structure Affiliates earned serious rewards: ↳ iPhones for $4k sales ↳ Miami retreats for $25k ↳ BMWs for $250k (Plus, a 20% base commission (boosted to 25% past $5k)) → Creator volume ↳ Goli worked with 6,902 creators, generating 25,900 videos. ↳ 7 creators alone pulled in $1.3M (20% of the total revenue). → Irresistible offer ↳ Goli’s gummies retail at $45, but TikTok Shop offered them for $31 — a 31% discount that drove virality. → Network effect ↳ Goli was TikTok’s #1 ad spender in August. ↳ This led to a spike in search and sales — Google Trends had them up 75% from Q2. It's a masterclass in affiliate strategy.