Learn why TikTok Shop took the eCommerce and social commerce industry by storm, including how it’s unique from marketplaces and other social platforms, common reasons merchants fail, and the logistics behind fulfillment. You can also check out Michelle’s free TikTok Shop training here.

Transcript below.

Michelle’s background

Rachel Andrea Go: Thank you again, Michelle, for joining the MyFBAPrep interview series and coming on to talk about TikTok, your very interesting expertise. So, to kick things off, can you share a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are today?

Michelle Barnum Smith: Oh man, that’s a big question. So, I’ve been doing marketing for 24 years and I’ve been—basically, like, I’ve had a whole corporate career for 12 years, you know, in my early—once I graduated from college, I did high-tech marketing for various of the Fortune 100 for 12 years and then got married and started a family and wanted, like a lot of people, more flexibility and freedom and to be able to work when I wanted to work and to be able to be there for my family and so started my own kind of marketing agency at that point.

That was back in 2012, so we’re basically, like, half and half; I had a whole half corporate career, half entrepreneurial career. And it’s definitely, like any kind of entrepreneurial journey, it’s had its twists and turns, lots of different iterations, which, you know, sometimes my family members call me “The queen of the pivot,” because sometimes, if something’s not working out, you just got to, you know, change course and try something else.

So, yeah, since 2017, I have been kind of—I discovered Amazon FBA and sellers in that space and had several clients who were Amazon sellers and quickly realized that I love these people. They’re scrappy, they’re hardworking; it’s very opposite of what I experienced in the corporate world. And so I loved that ability to help them and to be able to quickly see how anything that I was doing was affecting their business, their lives, you know? And I had the pleasure and the opportunity to work with and discover kind of these Amazon sellers, and I really haven’t looked back. That’s been my focus since 2017.

Rachel Andrea Go: You have such a strong professional background. I’m curious, what are the most impactful roles and lessons you’ve had in your career?

Michelle Barnum Smith: So many! There’s a lot to learn in corporate, and I think it’s really understanding how corporate entities are structured and how people in their jobs think about their jobs. It’s not that entrepreneurial hat where you are basically playing every single role, you know, as a business owner. In corporate, it’s very siloed, and so you as a business owner, you might care about aspects of your business, but when you’re trying to work with people in corporate, they don’t care. They only care about showing up, doing their job, and going home. It’s very much that kind of, like, corporate mentality. It’s very different.

And most recently, in my journey with TikTok Shop, my previous kind of professional life was I was over different partner corporate programs for the corporations that I worked for, and so I knew that TikTok was going to have their own partner program. And when TikTok Shop kind of opened in September of 2023, I was like, “I know that they have a partner program. I’m going to jump on this immediately.”

I was able to track down the operations manager, the person responsible. I called her in her offices in New York City. I’m just like, “I live in—I work in my basement in Utah,” you know? But I’m calling the big director of partnerships for TikTok and TikTok Shop, and she’s like, “Yeah, we’d love to have you [as] part of our partner program.”

So, I was one of the very first TikTok Shop partners, and it’s really served me well because, like most things, it’s all about who you know, but it’s also understanding, “What do they care about?” Because they’re getting that top-down direction and if they’re asking me for something, then there’s a reason why.

Corporate wants something from them, their leadership wants something from them. So, it’s really important to understand whoever you’re talking to within TikTok or Amazon. This is true for any corporate entity. It’s really important to understand what their business objectives are because, if you can give them what they want, they will give you what you want, right?

And so, anybody that I work with and have connections within TikTok Shop — at this point, I have several hundred internal connections at this point — it’s really critical to understand kind of what their business role is and what they’re measured by. It’s called OKRs. They’re—those are called their OKRs. Don’t ask me what that stands for, but that’s what they call them. And I’m always like, “Okay, what are your OKRs? How are you measured? What’s important? What are you guys working on this quarter?” You know, those kinds of things. I speak corporate to them, right? And they love it because they’re like, “Oh, you get it! You get it,” you know? And so I feel like—that I’ve reached a point in my career where this is, like, the culmination of everything that I’ve done and learned and the lessons along the way. Now I’m like, “Okay, these are how these apply right now to this situation.”

Rachel Andrea Go: You mentioned that you have spent half your life in the corporate world and half your life running your own business. What caused the switch?

Michelle Barnum Smith: Well, I mean, honestly, starting a family. Like, when—in my corporate career, I really saw a lot of women have to juggle that—those two worlds, you know? Their careers and their family life. And even though I was working for the Fortune 100 that has great maternity benefits or anything like that, the politics of the situation were really terrible, you know? It was a classic situation where, you know, if a father left work early to go watch his son’s soccer game, everybody’s like, “Oh, what a good dad.” And if a mom did the same thing, her commitment to her career was questioned, right? It’s just the nature of the situation. I can’t say that it’s improved much, honestly.

And I was like, “You know, having a family is really important to me.” Being a wife and a mother is something that I really wanted, and I didn’t want to have to choose. So, I really have focused my career around being both and having both. And do I do it well? No. Sometimes it’s out of whack, out of balance, you know, but I feel like I’ve done my hardest to create a life where I can serve what’s important to me. And I think that that’s important for other business owners. Like, why did you start this? Is it really about the money, or is it about, like, what that money can bring you, you know? Like, what is it that motivates you? Because then that’s going to drive your actions, your behaviors, your choices, and what you’re pursuing in your business.

Closing the demand generation loop with TikTok Shop

Rachel Andrea Go: I’d love to hear why you decided to jump into TikTok in particular and go deep with TikTok.

Michelle Barnum Smith: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, because my background is marketing, and having done both corporate marketing as well as B2C marketing (what we call DTC marketing, direct to consumer), and working with Amazon sellers, I know that Amazon sellers are always looking for the next big thing, you know? And rightly so, because they don’t want to be just referred to or stuck as Amazon sellers, they want to build brands. And the best way to build a brand is to be able to have multiple platforms that you sell through.

So, for a couple years, I took on a role as VP of marketing for an Amazon aggregator, and I was responsible for testing all the different kind of marketing strategies, external marketing strategies for Amazon, for their, like, 30-plus brands: hundreds of products, multiple categories across all the different things.

And obviously, we chased every shiny object, like, all the shiny objects there were. We—our team had the headcount and the budget to just, like—and the permission to just chase it all, you know? So, if somebody was talking about “Hey, influencers! Working with influencers is the thing.” Okay, well, let’s go chase that. Let’s go down that rabbit hole and let’s see. Is this, you know, if this chance or is this scalable? Is this, like, luck that this other seller did really well, or is this something that there’s, like, a formula to it, you know?

And so, we had that permission to basically test influencer marketing, TikTok ads, you know, any ads, any social media, you know, building out a social media presence, all of these things. And as a marketer, your job is to basically—it’s kind of like art and science mixed together; you put out your best effort, but you need that attribution of, like, What happened? We did this, and then what happened?” And so often with Amazon sellers and brands in general is that they hear about something happening and somebody getting results and then they try it and they’re like, “Okay, well, I just spent, like, $2,500 for this influencer to make a post about me or about our brand. What happened?” There’s no way to, like, attribute it or to close those loops and to have that kind of definitive answer, like, “We spent this money, and this was our return on investment,” right?

And marketing has to be held accountable in that way. Otherwise, it’s just this, like, money-spending machine, and you’re not being able to accurately attribute what money is being brought back in, you know? And this was my frustration as well. Like, while I had these reigns to do these things, I still was being held accountable and being—and saying, “Okay, well, what—you did these things, you spent this money — what’d you get from it?” And what we found was a number of things: First and foremost was that Amazon attribution via brand referral links or any kind of Amazon attribution was 45% accurate at best at this time. This was, like, 2022, 2021. And it was so frustrating. It was so frustrating because it was like, “Okay, well, we can see that we got this many clicks on this ad, but then Amazon’s only measuring this many clicks that actually came through the brand referral link.” Like, this is a joke. This crap. This is not accurate at all.

We also found that, like, when we were doing activities that were, like, top of funnel, what we call, like, kind of “demand generation” — so, there’s two types of marketing: There’s demand response, and then there’s demand generation. Demand response is what most Amazon sellers are familiar with because that’s the world of Amazon. So, a customer is already aware that they have a need and then they’re going to go search for a solution to that need, and that’s how the Amazon system works, right? (That’s also how Google works, for the record.) So, it’s lower funnel and it’s demand response and it’s very close to somebody—you know, it’s lower in that sales cycle, and there’s, like, a higher propensity for conversions and for spend.

But when you go up the funnel into demand generation — we’re talking about social media, we’re talking about ads, we’re talking about influencers — those are demand generation and, generally speaking, are run on platforms such as social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc., all of those types of platforms. And generally, those types of forms of marketing are also interruptive. So, somebody is on those platforms because they are there to be entertained, right? You think about your own consumer experience: You’re doom scrolling on Instagram or TikTok, and all of a sudden, an ad pops up and you’re like, “Am I going to keep scrolling, or am I going to stop and watch this?” You know, that kind of thing. It’s interruptive, and the whole kind of idea behind it is demand generation.

And the reality is that, like, when we were trying to do that from TikTok to Amazon, because of the attribution issues, it was, like, we were just finding that any type of demand generation activities from any platform to Amazon was just kind of like burning a pile of money. Like, it was just like, “Oh, we’re doing these things. Let’s hire a social media manager, let’s post stuff, let’s generate a ton of UGC content and create video content and do all these things.” But what were we getting from it? It was so difficult to measure. It was so difficult to close those loops.

So, when TikTok Shop opened, the opportunity to close those loops became, like, instant. And to be able to see exactly the social posts that were converting and exactly the influencer content that was converting down to the exact post so that we can then run ads to expand the reach of those converting posts was so much better. And, you know, as soon as we started having conversions on TikTok Shop, we saw complimentary conversions on Amazon as well.

We saw that spillover, that halo effect because TikTok is a marketing platform first and foremost. It is not a demand response platform, it is a marketing platform. It’s a place for discovery and entertainment and education and connection and all of these things. And so I knew immediately that it was going to be that TikTok Shop — not just TikTok to Amazon, but specifically TikTok Shop — was going to be the next big thing for Amazon sellers. And I immediately got, for that aggregator, all their brands adopted onto the platform and started, you know—I quit that aggregator shortly thereafter just to focus on TikTok Shop because I was over everything, I had this huge team and…all sorts of things. And I was like, “Okay, somebody else can do email marketing and all that fun stuff. I’m just going to focus on TikTok Shop, and moving forward, I’m just going to, you know, help empower and educate and help Amazon sellers and DTC sellers get on the platform and understand the value of it very quickly.”  So, since 2023, that has been my focus.

Fast conversions through social commerce

Rachel Andrea Go: Amazing. So, talking more about TikTok Shop and the logistics of it, how exactly does TikTok Shop work? And what are the big differences between TikTok and other social media channels or sales platforms?

Michelle Barnum Smith: Yeah, yeah, that’s a great question. So, the great thing about TikTok is that it is all, like—TikTok and TikTok Shop, it’s like—I tell people it’s like Amazon Seller Central and Facebook’s Meta Business Manager, Instagram, [and] Facebook had a baby, and that is TikTok Shop, because you have—it’s not just a marketplace; it is social commerce, and it’s that whole idea of being able to discover and check out all in one platform.

And other social media platforms have attempted this, like, Meta has various versions of this on Instagram and Facebook, but it’s creepy. It’s weird. The checkout is super friction-full. Like, every time I speak, I ask anybody, I’m like, “Have you ever bought anything off of Instagram native inside of the platform?” Like, crickets. And nobody’s like, “Heck no. Like, maybe if an ad took me to somebody’s website, but not inside the platform,” right? And so, that’s one of the big things that TikTok Shop has really done very well is build up the credibility, build up the creators themselves, also incentivizing—creating and incentivized relationships between creators and brands — that is all managed by the platform directly.

And so then the creators, who are the ones not only influencing buying the product but also influencing the use of the platform, like, “Hey you can trust—like, I’m not going to lead you astray. This is a great deal right now on the platform, like, get it now. And so when TikTok Shop was first rolled out last Q4, there were a ton of incentives both for sellers and for buyers. Like, first-time buyers were getting 40% coupons directly from TikTok Shop, you know, so it really kind of incentivized and helped people, like, overcome some of that fear of using it and kind of hesitancy and now it’s an everyday shopping experience, you know? Almost every demographic uses TikTok Shop, has bought something off TikTok Shop, has been influenced by something from TikTok Shop — like, the data and the statistics are so strong, and it’s such an easy, frictionless platform to use. And as a marketer, we love frictionless experiences.

So, to be able to go from discovery to checkout and back to scrolling in seconds versus Instagram, where, you know, even if you were to not be buying on the platform, if that Instagram creator that you’re following is recommending, you know, something, and you have to go through their link in their bio, and maybe there’s a link to their LikeItToKnow.It or maybe their Amazon storefront, and then you have to scroll for a while. Like, one time, I actually did that. I, like, recorded the process because I was like, “I want to measure how long it takes me to actually find the product that I was just influenced to buy on Instagram.” And it took me over a minute and a half, and I was pushing through; I would have dropped off multiple times. Like, they would have lost me multiple times. If this wasn’t done for science and for the education of the community, I would have done it. They would have lost me a million times over. But, yeah, it took me over a minute and a half to eventually find the product, and it was such this, like, friction-full experience. So, obviously, like, the TikTok Shop discovery to purchase is so much more, you know, easy for consumers to use and that’s a huge benefit to the platform.

Rachel Andrea Go: Did you measure how long it takes to get from discovery to purchase on TikTok?

Michelle Barnum Smith: Yeah, 15 seconds.

Michelle Barnum Smith: And that’s back to scrolling. So, everything—it was from, like, watching the video and having that, like, “I need it” [sensation], clicking the button, the product shopping button, and getting through checkout. And because TikTok is primarily a mobile platform, like—yeah, you can watch it on a browser, you can’t check out on TikTok Shop on a browser though. So, because it’s primarily a mobile platform, then TikTok and TikTok Shop were really smart and they integrated with Apple Pay, you know, Google Pay, all of those things so you can just tap your button on the side of your phone and, you know, your payment details are automatically entered and you’re on your way, you know? You’re back to watching your TikTok videos.

From “cold start” to “hot commodity”

Rachel Andrea Go: How do you know what level of management commerce brands need when it comes to their TikTok shop?

Michelle Barnum Smith: That is a good question. So, most brands at this point are just getting started, right? And the first 90 days of getting started is called the “cold start period.” And that’s TikTok’s term, that’s TikTok Shop’s term is a cold start period. And so, during that time period, a brand needs to get registered. They need to get their products up and live and selling and their shipping oriented, and do some of the other things that I teach in my course about — you know, optimizing your listings for traffic and all those things. You also then need to start, you know, content creation, and most Amazon sellers do not want to create their own content. They don’t want to be the face of their brand.

So, that’s where we start to teach them how to collaborate with creators because that’s—TikTok has millions of creators who would love to represent your brand and create content for you—your products. So, these are all things that have to be done kind of in a cold start period. Now, once you start generating revenue or GMB — that’s the main KPI that TikTok Shop measures — over $20,000 in a single month in a single, kind of, time period, then you get moved into kind of, like, the “real” opportunities on TikTok Shop. That’s where, like, the fun stuff starts to get unlocked in TikTok. You get an account manager, somebody who’s dedicated to your brand and helping you fix issues. There’s always issues, there’s always stuff that pops up, there’s always weirdness that you’re like, “What is this? What’s going on?”

And so having that direct contact within TikTok to help you navigate what’s going on is really critical. But then you get invited to exclusive campaigns, opportunities for specific coupons, qualifying for, you know, vouchers for special affiliate or creator programs — all sorts of, like, “goodies” kind of a thing. And so, my goal with Amazon sellers—with TikTok Shop sellers is to build momentum during that cold start period to do the things that are step-by-step to get you that momentum, that growth, that action so that you can then start to scale your brand once you hit those revenue targets, those GMB targets.

So, that’s what I really focus on when I’m consulting with brands. Now, obviously, if they’ve already hit—if I’m already working with them and they’ve already hit those kind of targets, cool. Let’s make sure you know everything that’s available to you, and let’s start, you know, locking down and building out workflows for every one of these opportunities to leverage, as well as—you know, sometimes sellers are accidentally successful, right? And so sometimes we have to go back to the foundational basics and make sure some of those things are put in place, workloads are put in place for, you know, for growing and not having accidental success. That’s a part of this as well. Anybody can be lucky, right? But when you can be consistent, consistently driving income and GMB on TikTok Shop, that’s when you know you have a system and you have a process that’s actually helping people win.

Rachel Andrea Go: Amazing. So, you mentioned that, within that 90-day period, that is when merchants start to set up their shipping as well. I’d love to hear what you’ve seen TikTok sellers have success with when it comes to logistics and fulfillment.

Michelle Barnum Smith: Yeah, so, most of the time, Amazon sellers are selling primarily on Amazon, right? So, their inventory is going to be in FBA or AWD or, you know, on its way, right? And during that first 90-day period, I’m trying to help sellers answer the question, like, is TikTok Shop right for my brand? Is it right for my products? Those kinds of things. And while TikTok does have their version of FBA, called FBT, Fulfilled by TikTok, I don’t recommend that people start there. I don’t recommend that they tie up their inventory straight out the gate. You know it’s one thing if you don’t have a 3PL or if you’re not in Amazon, but if you are in Amazon, just utilize your existing inventory in Amazon. There’s lots of apps like Webb AfterShip. You can even—if you already have Shopify connected for MCF fulfillment of Shopify orders, you can connect TikTok Shop to the Shopify app. But there’s lots of ways to leverage your Amazon inventory for TikTok Shop orders.

So, the first 90 days, that’s what I recommend. It’s expensive, it’s not, you know, as profitable as if you would do FBT, but it’s kind of the fastest way to fulfill and the easiest for sellers to set up without a huge waiting period of, you know, getting your stuff into FBT. And at the time that we record this, on December 6th, the FBT is closed until after Christmas anyway. New sellers can’t get their inventory into FBT even if they wanted to. So, it’s definitely one of those things that there’s various restrictions. TikTok also wants to see that you’re driving revenue and making sales. So, sometimes new sellers aren’t even eligible for FBT. So, that’s one of the things that, from a scaling standpoint, then unlocks once you hit those GMB targets and you can start to look at, you know, profitability drivers. And one of those profitability drivers is getting your—fulfilling your inventory with FBT instead of Amazon MCF, basically. But short term, that first 90 days, that cold start period, absolutely just connect your Amazon inventory to TikTok and easily fulfill with those MCF orders.

Rachel Andrea Go: I was really interested in your experience with that because, as you know, with MyFBAPrep, we prep things for Amazon FBA, and that also includes staying compliant for MCF, and, you know, I assume Fulfilled by TikTok as well since Amazon really sets the gold standard for prep. So, I wanted to know if MCF was, like, a long-term strategy, or if there was any merchant that you’ve worked with that has been really happy with their own 3PL into TikTok or anything like that?

Michelle Barnum Smith: There are some that use their own 3PLs and there’s lots in, like, you know, food and beverage. Like, I work with a seller who makes freeze-dried candy. They produce their own product and they ship it out themselves, you know? So, there’s lots of, you know, different scenarios that sellers might be in, but yeah, short term, MCF is the best solution for sure. If they already have the inventory in there, it keeps that inventory amount healthy as well. It can really help, you know, especially if sellers have maybe a product that isn’t converting really well on Amazon and it’s causing them storage fees. Sometimes using TikTok Shop to help liquidate product is a really great strategy as well.

Common struggles when selling on TikTok

Rachel Andrea Go: Amazing tip. So, I heard that you have a full list of things to check if TikTok is not working for you as a channel. So, what are some of the most common reasons that brands are not doing well on TikTok?

Michelle Barnum Smith: Yeah. The first is that their listings are not optimized for TikTok. So, a lot of times, what happens is that sellers will just, like, slurp over their listings, word for word, from Amazon to TikTok, and TikTok buyers don’t buy the way that Amazon buyers do. So, the majority of the time, TikTok buyers are buying because they have seen a video recommending the product and they’re taking action and, quite frankly, impulse. They’re satisfying an impulse. And if they go to your PDP and your product detail page is just, like, your title is just keyword loaded and super long and really cluegy and your bullet points and description are just like they are for Amazon, it really slows things down.

So—and sometimes, even just the images are not set up correctly. They’re just bringing over their exact same images from Amazon to TikTok, and there’s different size ratios on TikTok. And so then their listing looks like garbage. It’s not optimized. And you guys know this as Amazon sellers; like, you’re not going to turn on, you know, your traffic strategy, whatever traffic you’re wanting to drive, until you have an optimized listing. You’re going to just throw something together. And what I’m seeing most Amazon sellers do is they just throw something out there and then are like, “TikTok doesn’t work for us.” Okay, yeah, because the process is different, the audience is different, how they buy is different. And so, less is best first and foremost.

Also, I find that the pricing model is completely out of whack for TikTok. And before you guys come at me, no, Amazon cannot see your TikTok Shop pricing. So, you’re not going to lose your buy box because of your TikTok Shop pricing. That being said, most of the time, your TikTok Shop pricing should actually be higher than your Amazon pricing initially, because you need to layer in different offers — the first offer being free shipping. Because of Amazon, the consumer behavior is, “If I don’t get free shipping, I don’t want to buy this product,” right? So, TikTok has a baseline co-funded shipping program where, if you buy anything from a brand where that cost is over $30, then free shipping is automatically applied to that order.

You know how many times I’m seeing sellers sell a product at $29.99 and wonder why their conversions stink? It’s because they are missing that free shipping by a cent. And their buyers are like, “Just raise your price to $30, my friends.” Just get it over that. Don’t play the marketing game of the $27.97 or whatever it might, just make it that flat amount and—so it qualifies for the free shipping program. And if you’re not willing to do that, then you can set up your own free shipping offer where the minimum spend can be less than that, less than $30 as well. So, that’s kind of, like, the first, you know—the second thing. I guess the first thing is, like, optimize your listing for TikTok Shop, not for Amazon. Don’t just copy and paste from Amazon. The second is, have free shipping. The third is promotional pricing.

So, just like on Amazon, we have strikethroughs, we have things that make it appear like they’re getting a good deal, right? Strikethrough pricing, flash deals, those types of things. Those things actually, like, change the retail value of the product directly. The customer doesn’t have to do anything to claim that discounted price. Those go a long way. So, let’s say that you’re—as you are pricing your product for TikTok, you have to keep these things in mind, that you need to be offering free shipping, you need to be running a promotion, and then the third thing that you need to be running is a coupon. And coupons layer on top of promotions. So, you need to understand that first. But coupons require action on the part of the customer to claim, just like on Amazon. But it helps with conversions, and sometimes people forget to claim those coupons. Sometimes people forget to claim those deals, but you still benefit from having all those conversion actions on your listing.

I was teaching this—I teach this in my course, but I also have, like, a TikTok Tuesdays for my group members and my students, and I reminded them of this, and the very next week, somebody’s like, “Hey, I got 80 orders by making changes and applying those three levels of conversion to our listing.” And I’m like, “Good job. Good job. This is what it’s all about.” And managing those ongoing, because there’s different time frame[s], you know. Just like on Amazon, they can expire, they need to be updated — those types of things.

So, always looking at that as a strategy and looking at, before I start driving traffic, what do I need to do to make my listing, you know, most optimized for conversions? Most sellers totally skip past it. They just get their listings up. They start, you know, trying to work with creators and are driving traffic to an unoptimized product detail page. It’s heartbreaking, truly heartbreaking.

Rachel Andrea Go: So, how can you protect your brand from counterfeits on TikTok?

Michelle Barnum Smith: Yeah, so, TikTok has brand authorization, and they have IP protection processes. So, just like with Amazon, if you have a trademark, you can submit that through the brand registration process on TikTok. And then if there’s any issues that pop up, there’s ways to escalate that and get those counterfeits removed.

A wealth of incredible features

Rachel Andrea Go: Amazing. So, speaking of things that I didn’t know, what are some amazing features of TikTok that you’re surprised that brands don’t already know?

Michelle Barnum Smith: Oh my gosh, well, there’s new things all the time. So, something that kind of stands out to me is that, if you are not, like, following me or somebody like me who’s got their finger on the pulse constantly, you are going to miss new stuff that pops up. Just like this last week, back order functionality was just added to TikTok. So, as a seller, if you are going out of stock but you’re able to resupply within a 15- to 30-day period, you can keep selling. You don’t have to just go out of stock. So, it’s—that’s really critical, especially for my friends in, like, the fashion space, where—or, the supplement space, where you’re getting things in, you know, from the states and can refresh your inventory fairly quickly. That’s huge. That’s huge. You’re not going to—because everything with TikTok is about the algorithm. It’s about momentum with the algorithm, and you don’t want to lose that momentum. And so, to be able to turn on back order capabilities and functionality, that’s huge for brands. And I see that, you know, playing a huge part for brands now and in the future. Yeah, that’s a new, sexy capability that just got unlocked.

I was looking at another brand’s account this last week. They are definitely, like, a huge seller doing really well, but they don’t know about customer marketing, and the customer marketing side of TikTok [is] one of the things that really makes TikTok different from Amazon. Amazon does not allow sellers access to customer data. It’s very Amazon brand forward, you know? In the customer’s mind, they don’t even know that they’re buying your product or brand; they just know that they’re buying stuff on Amazon, right?

Well, TikTok is [the] opposite. TikTok really pushes and makes it a brand-forward experience. So, customer support — who’s managing customer support? It’s you. It’s your brand, it’s your customer support team. Who’s fulfilling? You. Your brand, your team, you know? Like, all of those things. And so, in addition to that, TikTok Shop is making it possible for you to message and market as a brand directly to the customer. So, there’s functionality like abandoned cart messages, order fulfillment messages, and then, you know, the ability to reach potential clients and repeat customers with additional offers and benefits, and post-purchase review reminders. And these are automations. They’re built into the system. And so few people actually leverage those and utilize those once they’re really popping on TikTok.

They’re just like—there’s so many different things that unlock that people just don’t know that they have access to. And it’s like, “Look, there’s so much else you can be doing!” It’s such a huge opportunity, and there’s so much to be done. And the true benefit is because TikTok is a marketing platform first. It’s not a search marketplace, it is a marketing platform, and so there’s so much more that you can do from a marketing standpoint across all of these channels and truly build campaigns that are cross-functional and hitting TikTok users at different angles. It’s brilliant. It’s so great. I love it.

Rachel Andrea Go: It’s great that you’ve described TikTok in such a unique way because, before our conversation, I would not have realized that there are reviews on TikTok. I assumed that you are going to research a product on TikTok and the TikTok video you see, that kind of gets you to purchase the item, is the review. But of course, when you get to the product page, there will be more reviews. So, that’s just a—it’s a good insight from, like—that I think a lot of our listeners will take away from this call as well—or this chat.

Michelle Barnum Smith: Yeah, absolutely. And TikTok allows you to import your existing reviews from your website. So, [for] my Amazon selling friends, I build this into my course, a training on how to export your Amazon reviews to your website, and then how to import those reviews into TikTok as well so that you are, you know, starting off with a good collection of reviews — not ratings, but reviews — to start with on your product detail page. And that absolutely helps with conversions.

TikTok Shop success depends on product validation

Rachel Andrea Go: What is your advice for established brands that are looking to branch into TikTok as a new sales channel?

Michelle Barnum Smith: Yeah, so, just like you would with Amazon, you want to validate the product opportunity first, because not every product is TikTok-able. I was talking to a gentleman last week, they do very well on Amazon selling hangers for clothing. And I’m like, unless there’s something really special about it, really unique about it, really just, like, groundbreaking or aesthetic or something very unique, that’s not a TikTok opportunity, right? So, first and foremost, I have a whole training that I make available for free — it’s on my website — that’s all about how to validate the opportunity for TikTok Shop and find out, is TikTok Shop right for your products right now? That being said, sellers absolutely need to be thinking about TikTok as a launch platform moving forward and doing product development specifically for TikTok, because you can test faster at a lower inventory amount to start with.

So, if something hits, then you can go deeper in your ordering. You can go broad first and then go deep. So, it’s a really great platform for testing. But in the short term, if you’re trying to figure out, “Hey, is TikTok right for what I’m currently selling?” By all means, please check out, you know, my free training on the five keys to TikTok ability, as well as the other steps you can take to validate, “Is this—are similar products being bought? Are similar products being sold? Are we missing out? Is this right for our brand?”