With Tiktok exploding over the past few years and taking up a significant share of the social media market and is positioning itself at the front of the social eCommerce market. This combined with the ever eCommerce market in general makes it a key platform to sell on for eCommerce brands and businesses going forward. TikTok Shop allows eCommerce brands and merchants to sell to the TikTok audiences via short video, in-app store fronts and even through live stream shopping events.
If you want your eCommerce brand access a new audience and grow your sales, then TikTok Shop is a great way to get more eyes on your products, as TikTok videos are viewed over a billion times daily.
If you would like to make the next step towards selling on TikTok this is how you get your business started:
1. Register your account on TikTok Shop UK with TikTok. You can do this by visiting the TikTok Shop Seller Center.
2. Create a shipping fee template (Seller Center > Shipping > Shipping fee template and you can add products to sell on TikTok)
If you are fulfilling the orders yourself or through a 3PL such as UK Fulfilment, you would then need to set “shipped by seller” as your default shipping method.
3. Link your bank details for payment methods, and scanned ID verification will be needed to complete your account.
TikTok Shop Order Fulfilment
When your eCommerce business’s orders start coming though, you will need to start fulfilling them. Either by yourself or by using an outsourced fulfilment provider like UK Fulfilment.
Warehouse
UK Fulfilment have a warehouse operation based in a central location in the UK, near East Midlands Airport to allowing your business’s orders to reach your customers as fast as possible.
Price
UK Fulfilment have a Pay-As-You-Go payment structure, so you only pay for what you use and have a fully transparent pricing system, with no account management or set-up fees.
Services You need to ensure the provider can handle the specific needs of your business such as customised packaging, returns and shipping. With UK Fulfilment you have a range of services offered from rework and contract packaging to picking, packing, returns and shipping both B2C and B2B. For any additional activity UK Fulfilment have a flexible operation which can be tailored to your eCommerce business’s needs.
Scalability
A fulfilment warehouse should be able to assist your business in growing and be able to handle your current and future business’s needs as well as respond to market demands, such as peak season.
Whether you’re starting out or an established eCommerce business, UK Fulfilment is able to accommodate to your changes in demand and forecasts staffing in advance, so you don’t need to.
Integration As an eCommerce business you need to make sure your fulfilment partner can integrate with your eCommerce marketplaces and platforms. With UK Fulfilment you are able to integrate a number of platforms like Amazon, eBay, TikTok, Shopify, Etsy and many more.
Communication
When it comes to using a fulfilment partner you need to make sure you and your business will be able to have easy communication lines with them in case you have any questions or problems which need resolving immediately. Unlike the larger fulfilment providers like Amazon, UK Fulfilment prides itself on having great communication with their customers, and you will have access to customer service, account and a finance manager, to get your questions or issues resolved quickly.
Reputation
When it comes to deciding a fulfilment partner to work with you need to check the fulfilment houses reviews from who they have worked with.
UK Fulfilment pride themselves on having some of the best reviews in the market, which can be found here on TrustPilot.
Taking all the above factors into consideration, you and your eCommerce business will be able to find a fulfilment provider that will assist you in the picking, packing, and dispatching of your orders, leaving you more time to focus on growing your business and ultimately your sales on TikTok Shop. In order to grow your eCommerce business’s sales on TikTok Shop, you will need to make successful listings.
How To Make a Great Listing on TikTok Shop
Like many other marketplaces TikTok Shop only wants authentic products, and any ‘fake’ branded products could result in your product listings being removed.
Key Points When Uploading Products:
1. Essential that you list your products under the correct category, if done incorrectly then the product could be removed.
2. Product Titles must include certain information like materials, characteristics, and key features, whilst remaining concise.
3. Product Descriptions need to be as informative as possible and contain size, colour, material, etc. Descriptions should be over 30 words, and if starting out it is worth looking at descriptions of your competitors.
4. Product Images & Videos need to fully depict and represent every aspect of your product, and there are some guidelines which need to be followed during this and some products require additional certification. Not complying can effect you Shop Health rating, which can be found in your TikTok Seller account.
Maintaining TikTok Shop Health
Your business’s performance will be assessed in TikTok Shop, called shop health. Your Shop Health page is found in the Seller Centre where you’ll see an overview of your shops risk level against the requirements. The range, from low risk, which means your business is complying with the shop requirements, to high risk where violations have been issued. This could mean you are no longer able to share promotions, result in temporary suspension, or even permanently removed. Violations are recorded in the record page.
Shop performance is categorised into 4 sections of violation:
1. Policy compliance of TikTok Guidelines
2. Order fulfilment of product orders
3. Service Metrics such as number of defective orders
4. Risk Control of the number of violations issued.
Your business wants to ensure its shop health is in good health as it will have a knock on effect on your sales.
All new sellers have a probation period of 60 days when they first join TikTok Shop UK to assist with order fulfilment.
There are 2 options when it comes to TikTok Shop shipping
1. Ship via platform where you use TikTok Shop’s logistics service to fulfil orders.
2. Shipped by seller where you fulfil orders either by yourself or utilise a trusted fulfilment partner such as UK Fulfilment, to ship orders with any selected courier.
Shipped via Platform
As the default shipping option when you set up your store, this is a great solution for sellers that do the majority of their order volume through TikTok Shop and don’t have an existing contract with a courier or fulfilment provider. It is important to remember that you will still be required to package the orders before arranging collection by TikTok’s courier.
Shipping subsides are often provided. For example, TikTok Shop UK previously offered a weight dependant shipping subsidy policy for standard shipping. This meant that when the Shipped via Platform option was used, and the parcel weight was under 1kg the platform would cover the entire shipping cost. The shipping subsidy policies are updated regularly so contact your account manager for the latest information.
Shipped by Seller
If your eCommerce business already operates with a fulfilment provider that has a TikTok Shop integration, like UK Fulfilment, this will enable you to fulfil these orders in the same way as your orders from other marketplaces or platforms, with no need for additional contracts or agreements, and completely outsource the picking and packing function.
UK Fulfilment’s integration with TikTok Shop includes StoreFeeder which automatically updates the inventory for each listing when stock levels increase or decrease, to ensure you never oversell or have excess stock not available on this channel.
· Make sure your products are always in stock.
· If a product is no longer available, remove it from your shop.
· Monitor all pending orders through the Seller Centre under manage orders.
· For Shipped via Platform option the order status needs to be set as ready to ship in 72 hours and shipped within 120 hours after the order is placed.
· In Shipped by Seller option the order status needs to be updates to shipped with 120 hours
If you are an eCommerce business starting out or more established and are looking to utilise and sell on TikTok’s Shop and would like your orders picked, packaged and shipped and managed by a third-party, then please reach out to UK Fulfilment here for a free quote.
