#626 - Why YOU Should Be Selling on TikTok Shop
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What is the hottest marketplace in the world right now? TikTok shop. Today we bring one of the world's foremost experts on TikTok shop success to help you get started on the platform. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's a completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world.

And today we've got a special treat as we have a replay of a live workshop we did on TikTok shop, the steps that you need to take to get started on the platform, how you can advertise on there, some success stories. And then we took live a lot of your questions over 10 to 20 questions that

people who already are selling on TikTok shop had and people who hadn't sold on TikTok shop yet. So I'm sure you fall into one of those two categories, right? So make sure to listen all the way to the end to learn about how you could potentially even two or three X the sales that you are doing on Amazon. So Michelle and myself, take it away.

It's important that you guys get started on TikTok Shop. And today, we're going to talk about why it's important. What is the opportunity? And what are some steps that you guys can take to get started on TikTok Shop, as well as some tools that Helium 10 has for it. But before we get started, something that we don't need the screen for here is, I think the top question in the next few weeks that everybody seems to have about TikTok is, wait a minute, I heard that TikTok is about to be banned.

Are you or are you not worried about TikTok being bad?

I'm not worried. And I will tell you why. I have direct relationships with like probably hundreds of people at this point inside of TikTok and TikTok shop. And TikTok's not slowing down their growth. They're building buildings like crazy, hiring like crazy, expanding services and features and functionality like crazy. And so if TikTok's not slowing down, neither should you. So I think it's, I think, like I say, I take my cues from TikTok directly. All right. And then for me, like I just figure, hey, if it actually gets banned,

It's not going to be banned permanently. It's just going to be like sold to another company or something like that, that the government is OK with. So we are we are doing this webinar under the assumption that everything's going to be totally fine. What is the date? January 19th. Come January 19th, come February 19th, regardless of whenever you guys are going to be able to take advantage of selling on.

on tiktok shop now to get people excited i'm going to give one personal story you know not for myself but you know a helium 10 elite member then i'd like you to think of of some success story you can talk about but i knew of a couple husband and wife couple um they've been on the podcast before where they started like last year i believe or the year before on amazon but in their first year on amazon if i'm not mistaken they did very well they actually did uh i think it was about um

$1 million of gross sales on Amazon. What Amazon brand new seller wouldn't want to do that? Maybe for a first year. And then they started TikTok shop like in December or something. And from like December to March of this year,

I think they did something like two to $3 million on TikTok shop. Now, again, we're not going to try and say, hey, every single person is going to do 3X their sales on Amazon and TikTok shop. And I'm saying this as a real life example to show you what is possible as far as TikTok shop goes. And I guess was talking to them yesterday. Yesterday alone, they sold 1000 units on TikTok shop of their product in one day. All right. So...

That's my example of somebody I know personally who's doing well. Can you think of any examples too that you can talk about? Yeah, so many, so many. I have...

some sellers who are in who they got started in April, kind of April this year, just kind of lightly dabbling. And then I started working with them kind of consulting late May, kind of fix some product issues they were having their first month. They were at 13 K their next month, they were at 75 and previous, you know, their previous years in selling, you know, they were lucky if they hit like a

$15,000 a month. So this was to be able to expand channels, have new channels to sell in. We were just reviewing their Q4 numbers and they're like, look, we're happy with anything at this point because we were doing nothing Q4 of last year. So it's really inspiring to see how quickly brands can grow and really take off on the platform. We had another seller who...

And this is not all just like viral growth. This is like slow and steady. They have multiple bestsellers, which is really the way that you want to do it. And so that story has been repeated

over and over and over again this year across multiple different channels, lots of different types of products, lots of different types of audiences and demographics being targeted. So it definitely is one of those platforms that you can't ignore. - Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So now I'm gonna ask Michelle a couple more questions that I have about TikTok because I'm pretty new on this. I'm 100% full force going into it, but I'm pretty new. Like I don't have a lot of sales under my belt. So what I want you guys to do while I'm asking a couple more questions is right here in the comments,

What questions do you have about TikTok shop? I saw a couple of you already asked them. So that's good. We're going to get to as many questions, if not all the questions that we can today. And we're keeping it all about TikTok shop today. Want to check estimated sales for products you see on Amazon? Or maybe you want to instantly see how many listings on page one of a search term result have the actual search keyword in the title.

You can find all of these things out and more with the Helium 10 Chrome extension tool, X-Ray. More than 1 million people have used this tool. Find out what it can do for you by downloading it for free at h10.me forward slash X-Ray. h10.me forward slash X-Ray. So my first question is, who should be interested in selling a TikTok shop? Like, is it primarily me?

somebody who's already has physical products that they can sell, like be it on Amazon, Shopify, Walmart, or is TikTok shop a good place for brand new people to e-commerce who don't have a product yet to get started? What would you say? That's a good question.

So I think low-hanging fruit, sellers who are already selling product. Your inventory is already in the United States. You already have a marketplace that you're selling in, whether that's D2C, your own website, or Amazon. Obviously, I focus primarily on Amazon sellers because that's where my heart is. I love the Amazon sellers out there. So to me, it's like a no-brainer. You're already selling in these other marketplaces. So

just get started in selling in this new opportunity as well. I don't call TikTok a marketplace though. Okay. We'll come to that. It's a social media platform? I call it social commerce. Social commerce. Okay. Can we have a TikTok shop if we are based in Canada? So can Magali Bourgeois...

have a TikTok... Is that how you pronounce it? I don't speak French, guys. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Can we have a TikTok shop if we are based in Canada? Excellent question. So this is a good question for all of my international sellers. If you're wanting to sell in TikTok US. So there's two ways that you go that are basically the main kind of requirements at this point is that the more stricter route is that...

there has to be what's called a beneficial owner that owns like 25 that is and that person has to be us-based now recently the rules got loosened up um a lot more and so now all you need is a u.s contact what will be interesting to see though is and a lot of this people are like oh man why is tick tock so strict and it hasn't been tick tock that's being strict it's the um

The Inform Act in the United States was basically was all the sellers. It's an IRS law that's tried to identify who the beneficial owners are. So that law just was declared unconstitutional. Right.

You guys know what she's talking about? We all had to go through that last year as Amazon sellers and Walmart sellers and Etsy sellers where we got all these emails. We're going to shut your account down if you don't prove. Or $500 a day. Fine. If you don't. And now it's been declared unconstitutional. Right. So now it's voluntary.

It's voluntary with the IRS. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So it'll be interesting to see how things loosen up. But right now, no. Like unless she or he, no, it was Magali. Unless Magali has a... U.S. contact. Somebody with a social security number. Correct. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Let's see. We could go a whole hour about this topic that Monica says here. What are the steps to start? But just some basic, we actually just recorded a video that's going to be like the top 10 things on how to get started on TikTok shop. Be looking for that on our YouTube channel. But in a nutshell, just like what are some of the steps as far as what they need to prepare to get ready? What's the process like? Yeah. So business registration is the first step. It's its own form of

So prepare yourself for that. But it requires a bunch of different business documentation and personal identifying information. So business registration is the first step. Then setting up your product listings, then linking a TikTok social account if you already have one that exists.

Great. No worries. You can link that over. If you don't have one, it's very easy to create. You don't need a certain number of followers, et cetera, et cetera, to be able to do that. And then you need to set up your shipping or your fulfillment. And this is where already being a seller and already having your inventory and how you fulfill that inventory makes this so easy because you could fulfill with your existing Amazon inventory just with like an app that you use to connect to talk to Amazon or between TikTok and Shopify.

if you have a 3PL that you use. So that's the benefit to people who are already selling. Another great question by Lucas says, what's the commission?

Oh, interesting. So here's the thing is that you get to decide that question. So Lucas, what's the commission? Like what? I might think that he's talking. I can't read mine. He might be talking about. Yeah, he's not. He doesn't really mean commission, but but the referral fee like on Amazon, it's mainly 15%. What can they expect? So when you are just getting started on TikTok shop, they have a what's called a cold start period. The first 90 days, it's a 2% referral fee, after which it goes to 2%. Yes. For how long? First 90 days.

Good. Great. Why didn't I start earlier? I know, right? Come on over. Guys, you're paying seven times as much on Amazon right now. Did you hear what she said? 2%. All right. Continue, please. Then it goes up to 6%. And then I think that 6%, it's been locked out since July of this year. So it goes up to 6%. They've already kind of hinted at raising fees going into this next year. So a lot of things have been coming. And they raise it 40%. It's to be way under Amazon there.

Oh my goodness. That's music to my ears. I didn't say it. That's music to my ears. Warm up a purchased TikTok account so it doesn't get banned. So here's the thing. You don't need to warm up anything. Like I've taken over shop accounts, even though we're wearing our one clothes. I'm taking over shop accounts that have been basically abandoned.

And they were just fine. So as far as a social account goes, I think maybe you're referring to as well. Yeah, like I don't there's every single video on TikTok has the same opportunity to go viral. It doesn't matter. Follower account doesn't matter. Like social history, all of those things. Just just pay attention to kind of the the community guidelines that TikTok has in place to that they pay attention to and play by their rules. And you should be fine.

I got one I kind of know might know the answer to but how can I connect my Amazon store to TikTok shop so I'm not sure if you're talking about the listings let us know like is that something you would like Helium 10 to do like maybe we can you know obviously your listings are connected to Helium 10 maybe you want something where we can go ahead and import your listings or are you talking about the ship because correct me if I'm wrong but I know somebody who sells on TikTok shop and what they do is is they actually connected their Shopify to Amazon

which goes directly to like the multi-channel fulfillment, but then they use the app from TikTok to Shopify. So then TikTok, it makes an order, it's going through Shopify, but then it goes to the Amazon. So like really, they don't have anything to do. It pulls directly from their Amazon inventory. Is that like the only current way to do that? Or is there an easier way that you do it? There's multiple ways. There's a direct route. You could use an app like Aftership or WebB, and they have direct integrations between TikTok shop and Amazon. So...

Amazon MCF orders are being auto-generated there. But I do like the Shopify, the Amazon to Shopify to, or excuse me, the TikTok shop to Shopify to. If you've already got the Shopify, it's just like a no brainer. Because there's other things that you can do with a Shopify account as well, such as if you're using seller shipping and you're doing the TikTok to Shopify, you get all your customer data.

Aha, I did not think of that. That's another thing we don't get on Amazon that we used to, but that's absolutely right. With Shopify, you get all their data. That is a nugget. That is a nugget, you guys. You only heard it here. Dropping some knowledge bombs, guys. That's right. All right. Another question that I'm going to have an immediate response to is how can I force TikTok users to buy from Amazon shop? First of all, why would you want to when you're talking about 2% and 6% fees? However, that being said, back me up on this if I'm right, but I know a lot of people who their products will go... Not a lot of people.

10 people where they told me, hey, their products kind of went mini viral or full viral on TikTok shop. And without any connection to their Amazon store, their Amazon sales started taking off because there's people out there who are like, I don't know if I trust this TikTok shopping, but this product looks cool. Oh, is it on Amazon? Oh, there it is. Let me go ahead and order it. So is that? Absolutely. Absolutely. I had a seller who went viral right before Black Friday and he saw the halo effect on Amazon as well. So and those Amazon sales. So as far as forcing sales,

People, number one, just so you guys know, TikTok community guidelines are against TikTok.

like what we call CTAs, calls to action off platform. So get it on Amazon now, like that type of call to action. Creators can't even say that. So if you're working with creators or you're creating your own social content and you say that, either your content will get what's called shadow banned, i.e. not get much traction at all, or you could lose your account or that creator could lose their account. So people are not willing to do that anymore. So any kind of, and the main ways that people actually like shop and buy is from scrolling and discovering the product via videos. So-

People are probably not going to take you up on that if you're working with creators. Guys, this is great questions. We've had over 350 people watching live. So there's tons of great questions here. Daniela says, better to use FBT, Fulfilled by TikTok or Fulfilled by Seller? In the beginning, I know you had to use Fulfilled by Seller. Is that still the case where you have to have X number of just Fulfilled by yourself and then you qualify for Fulfilled by TikTok? Or how does that work? So a couple of different things. For one, we're recording this, what's the day today? December 12th.

So right now, FBT is closed to new inventory shipments. Like you can't even get into FBT until later this year. So just in general. Also, you have to qualify with a certain amount of GMB. So you have to have a certain level, hit a certain level of sales, certain levels, you know, getting started. You as a brand, I highly recommend that you start with your Amazon inventory and test the platform to start with and see, is this a good fit for what...

for my products, what we're doing. And that way you're not shipping your products willy nilly to a bunch of, you know, different warehouses if it's not a good fit. Right. So like what I tell people is the first 90 days,

like do all the steps that we recommend from building a momentum standpoint, test if this is opportunity. Then once you hit what we call graduation, that's at least hitting over $12,500, depending on the category that you sell in. Some it's 20,000, but you graduate in the eyes of TikTok. That's when all sorts of things open up to you, including FBT. And that's when I recommend you start sending into FBT your best sellers.

Excellent. Denise and Marta kind of have a similar question here. So I'm just going to combine it. Denise says, do you have to record videos to sell or they're ready videos you can use? And Marta is like, is it necessary to make a video viral to have success? Okay. So as far as content creation goes, I know you guys would rather chew off your arm than create content. I get it. And that's the beauty of TikTok is that they have 170 million US users who actually love to create content. Crazy people.

So so TikTok shop basically has a matchmaking platform for you to introduce you to these creators who you can then, you know, send samples of your product and they will be the ones to create the content for your brand. As far as do I have to be viral to succeed on the platform? Absolutely not. In fact, virality is actually a really painful thing sometimes because you can forecast all day long, but you can never forecast for going viral.

It's kind of crazy. So it's definitely one of those things where you want to have converting content, but not necessarily viral content. And converting content, you can scale up and you know you can plan on it and those types of things. But viral, viral is actually a little scary. Claudia has a good question. Does it need to be a physical product or can it be digital? Yeah.

So yes, it has to be physical. Digital products just in and of themselves, like selling PDFs or something like that is not an option. However, TikTok shop integrates with several print on demand platforms. So let's say it is a PDF or it could be an ebook or something like that. Then you could essentially create a digital product that then turns into a physical product.

product. And I love the idea of the print on demand products because it's a great way for you to test something out before you go deep in inventory. So if you are a product designer or maybe a graphic designer or something like that, you have some cool graphics that you're developing.

print on like Printify and other print on the mail platforms have like huge catalogs of products that you could essentially sell the products on. Monica says, how much does it cost to open an account on TikTok? So I'm assuming maybe she's talking about the, is there a monthly fee at all? No. Zero? Free 99. Man.

And this is my point. Like to the point about the ban where people are like, oh, is it worth it? I'm like, it literally costs you nothing. Yeah, right. It literally costs you nothing to try. There's like no cost, no reason not to. Now we have an existing TikTok shop seller who is asking a question. Joseph says, why are my TikTok ads spending very little? I'm using GMV. I've also had trouble getting the influencers to work with us. And he happens to be very successful on Amazon and Instagram. Congratulations on your success.

So here's the thing with DMV Max. I don't recommend that you start using DMV Max until you have over 50 pieces of content and have at least 10 of those being converting content. A lot of people...

don't understand what this terminology is using. I know you just explained to me a little bit ago and that was the first time I heard it. Can you explain what this GMB Max is? So GMB Max is an ads optimization platform. So the name of the game on TikTok is content. The more content, the better. And if anybody's ever tried to run ads in the past, it can be a lot to manually be like constantly testing new creatives and these types of things. So GMB Max, what it does is it takes all the shoppable posts

that your products are tagged in and it will take your what's called your roi target like what is what you're willing to your budget and your roi target and say okay well we're going to test all of these creatives and anything new that comes in to see what converts we're going to test it against like like you don't have to even create audiences it's so easy to use um however it doesn't work unless you already have contents working so i would dial it back joseph

And start with what I call PSAs, product shopping ads, which is basically PPC Lite and use the new keyword expansion tool. We'll talk about that in the training that we're releasing shortly and video shopping ads. So take those creatives that you have in GMV Max and

take the best performing one, probably like your top five and create video shopping ads because then you're actually going to A, spend your budget and be able to actually put that, put those dollars to work for your ads and be able to test your,

Add a lower amount. And then as you start to build up that those affiliates who are willing to work with you, then once you have at least 50 pieces of content with probably at least 10% of those actually being converting content, then I would switch over to GMB Max. You need kind of a snowball of content effect going on. Otherwise, GMB Max is a waste of time and money.

Another, keeping it with people who are already on TikTok shop. We're on TikTok shop. I have not had much luck. Oh, I know this Laura. She's a lead member, I think. My theory is our product, and I know her products too. They're actually very, in my opinion, TikTokable. My theory is our product might be too niche. We sell, yep, it is what I thought it was. We sell collegiate jewelry for about 30 colleges. It's like they have like Penn State earrings. Oh, nice.

and Ohio State necklaces. It's very giftable this time of year. We've got UGC for each university. I've done local university area spark ads. There's another term that I think you'll have to explain to everybody else on UGC and state ads. Nothing seems to convert perform any suggestions.

Okay. So once again, this is, it's all about content and content play. And also sometimes UGC can come across as a little high production or force. I wouldn't know unless I like saw your, saw your content, Laura. But I would try to recruit affiliates specific to each college or university. Find those cute girls,

and put them to work and guaranteed. I mean, like his daughter, she's a cute girl. So, but like those college and universities, those people are like prime. Not only are they using TikTok, they're probably already content creators. Plus they're selling to their

friends and neighbors, you know, there as well. So I would focus more on affiliate recruitment as opposed to stage to GC for each brand and focus less on ads and more on that affiliate recruitment. And here's the thing I would focus on like

Because if there's over 30 colleges, like pick your top five. Pick your top five and focus there and then grow from here. It's not the Steve Black. He says, I'm not the Steve Black that you know. Dang it. I purchased an account that was advertised as US-based, but all the comments are in another language. So I'm wondering if I should... Okay, yeah. Well, you're going to have to, you know, however you bought an account, you're going to have to deal with that. But hopefully...

Nobody from outside the US is going to have to do those kind of things. Bring it back. Bring that question back. Okay. Here's the thing, guys. It's really important for you to know that follower count on TikTok does not matter. Okay. What matters is that TikTok is geo locked for where the account was created and where content is created from in the account. So when you said that all the comments are in another language, that tells me that this account was created live.

not in the U.S. by a U.S. user. And that is one of the hardest things because guess what? Any social content that you post is not going to go to U.S.,

TikTok users, they're going to go to the country. So if you want to see what country your account is in, you go on the profile, the upper right, upper right hand corner. There's like three little lines. Click on that settings and privacy, user information, account or account information, user information. And then you'll see your geo. So Steve, do that. And I want you to comment what the geo location is for your TikTok account. If it says anything besides the United States, you're going to have a heck of a time changing your region. I just went through this. It took us four

four months to change a region. And at the end of the day, we would have been better served just to start with a fresh new account. And like I was saying, every single TikTok video has the same opportunity to go viral. So follower count does not matter. Wow.

And it doesn't matter anyways because those followers are all garbage. Yeah. They're like TikTok thinks that your account literally is in another country. And so it's going to keep showing that content not to U.S. citizens. Diego says, do you think that TikTok shop is a good platform with the right audience to sell niche products with a high price point? So here's the thing. Let's understand kind of the nature of buying on this platform. And to do that, I need you to think about pizza. Okay. Yeah.

So you're watching the big game, right? You're watching the big game on the show. All your friends are there, all these things. And then all of a sudden on the screen comes a pizza commercial and the cheese is bubbly and the pepperoni looks crispy and the crust is like, you know, all the things, the buttery crust, everything. All of a sudden you feel what? Starving. Right? So you have an impulse to do, go make yourself a peanut butter sandwich? No, unless it tastes like pizza. Yeah.

Right. You have an impulse that can only be satisfied by doing what? Going out and buying a pizza. Right. Right. And probably that pizza that you see right there on that screen. So from the brand that you're seeing. So that's exactly what we're doing on TikTok shop is we're creating impulse. Now, what hurts impulse buying is if that pizza was suddenly $70.

It was Giuliana's Pizza in Brooklyn Bridge in New York, maybe. But other than that, no. Well, and that's going to cost you a flight. Yes. And you got to really want that pizza, right? So what if the deal was two for $12.99? Little Caesar's Pizza Pizza. Yeah.

You're like, hold me back. I'm already in the car. I'm already on my way or better yet, they're in the car coming to me and delivering it to me. Right. So so it's not that it's not that higher priced items can't work on TikTok. It's that the way that people are discovering product is that they want to see that video and they want to buy it right then. And typically price is one of those areas that slows people down from from taking action and and satisfying an impulse. Right.

higher price points and lend itself to shopping right and that's why it's good that's when they go and search on google that's when they go search on amazon and maybe do some like window shopping or price comparison it did it at all these things and we want to avoid that on tiktok we want to take advantage of that impulse and get them back to scrolling like just give us your money and be on your way you know uh naomi another tiktok shop sell why aren't our vsa's doing well so please uh first of all explain what the acronym is we have spent over three thousand dollars with only a few orders

Only been on TikTok shop for less than three months, but still. Yes. So Naomi, my question is, are you using content that is converting organically? So I don't believe in running ads until I have organically converting content.

content. Because then I'm not just like throwing money at a wall and seeing what sticks. Obviously, it's a way that you can, you know, if you're posting your own content or you're working with affiliates and you're just getting started, like number one, I would want to know how many pieces of content you're testing. If any of it was organically producing prior to testing, you know, that kind of a thing. But that's where I would start is

Sounds like you need more content, testing more content and making sure that it's converting organically before you start running ads to it. Another existing TikTok shop. I'm surprised at how many existing TikTok shop sellers there are on this call here. Alba says, I sent 30 requests to affiliates for TikTok shop and none accepted. What could be the reason? Well, I think you're laughing at the number. I mean, I'm sorry, Alba. But yeah, unless that is 30 per second, you really need to be sending upwards of 1,000 per day requests.

which I mean might be startling but I've seen the inboxes of creator my creator friends and they are inundated with offers constantly so you need to be the standard is at least sending out a hundred requests per day I would up that to at least a thousand get some bots to work I have some relationships with Yuka with the Reacher app all these things it really is a numbers game so this is what I tell people I'm like date before you get married okay

So, so have like, have a, uh, a lot of, uh, requests going out, a lot of, um, people that you're messaging about your products. And then once you start getting sample requests in, that's when you get picky about who you want a relationship with. Okay. Don't get picky on the front end, get picky in the filtering. On the same lines. Um, Laura, who was the collegiate hearing, uh, stuff, uh, she followed up here. It says we do have local, uh,

college students as affiliates. So maybe it's just a matter of it's a numbers game. So at least 50 pieces of video content per product per month is the name of the game on TikTok. Do you guys hear that? 50 pieces of video content, not 50 samples, not 50 creators. It is 50 pieces of video content, either brand produced or affiliate produced.

per product per month. Wow. So those were all the profit or all that extra fees. Because imagine if a TikTok shop had Amazon fees and you needed to be able to do that. Well, don't get too scared about that. Because remember, especially in your first 90 days, what did she say? The commission was 2%, guys. So you've got some money to play with. And that's also why focus is so critical.

important. If you're sending out like a million samples across 30 different products, you're going to, that's just, it's too much. It's too much. So focus just on like maybe the most popular. So, so is I'm, I'm not like, I'm not a football or basketball or college person at all. But aren't the bowl games coming up? Yes, they are. Okay. So,

focus on the the um the universities that are going to the bowls you know how many is how many would that be like it's like 100 uh there's 100 there's 50 there's 50 bowl games and there's like 100 100 teams it's like insane like everybody qualifies for bowls with the national like the national although the bcs uh championship there's 12 teams uh in the bcs okay

I think it's called BCS. So the top team is in the BCS then. All right. Cece with a comment of the day. Bradley, just to say you have good hair. Thank you, Cece. With that being said, we're going to give everybody a discount on Helium 10 right now. Throw out the discount, please. Thanks to Cece. Let's go ahead and reward everybody for such a great comment. All right. Go to Helium10.com, guys, and use the coupon 24HOLIDAY15 to get 15% off. What is this, May? Is this for a year or for...

Up to one year. Wow, 15%. So it's not just like a one-month thing. 15% off for a year of Helium 10. Guys, go to helium10.com, 24 holiday 15. Thanks, CeCe, for liking my hair, for allowing us to put this discount. Let's go ahead and get that off the screen there, Francis. Thank you. Mike says, I already know the answer. He's like, I'm a Helium 10 elite member. Throw me a bone. Is it possible to have a successful TikTok shop with just rain ads and little to no organic content?

Can we throw a Helium 10 member a bone? I don't think we can, but go ahead. Well, like I said, content is king on TikTok. Here's the good news is that once you get performing content, you can run ads to that and it will live on and it will perform on. So for example, I have a seller who is like he went, um,

viral last Black Friday summer, so 2023. He had a performing video that just crushed it. He ran ads to it all year long. It continued to crush it for him all year long. So that's the beauty of creating content on TikTok. Once you get something that actually performs, either branded content or affiliate content that performs,

it can live on and continue to develop to to drive traffic that's what i was going to ask because it's not a matter of i the brand owner have to create this content and then that's what i can run ads one of my affiliates or influencers they might have made a video i can send ad traffic to their yeah yeah via via what what was previous brought up spark ads or ad authorizations

For the record, Spark ads are kind of going away, if you know what I'm talking about. And ad authorizations are the new sexy thing. So you don't even have to necessarily ask creators for Spark codes. You can just add them to authorize ads for all shoppable content on their website.

that they create. Naomi says, we've got a dedicated VA for TikTok affiliate outreach. They send personalized message. They use bots. She says she reaches out to like thousands of affiliates. So like, you know, when it is a numbers game and it's trying to scale, is this kind of like the way to go? Like, hey, you need to have a dedicated VA to be handling this number. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, the,

VAs can only reach out to so many people per day. Like just the human element of it just can't keep up with bots. So use bots for the initial outreach and then use VAs for basically the relationship management. So from sample to like sample filtering to the post-sample follow-up, like that creator education on, on,

like your creative briefs and making sure that the content is being produced, you know, all of the follow-up and having the VA do that. Good question from Imran. Do we have to pay content creators per video or do they get a percentage from a sale? Yeah, good question. So this is where the original like commission question kind of came in. So this is the beauty of TikTok shop. So

prior to TikTok shop, working with creators was like kind of this pedestal style relationship where it was like, oh, can I have the honor of working with you? And I will pay you for that, like pay you for that post or that honor, right? The beauty of TikTok shop now is that you can set a commission and that creator can see the actual, you know, money that they're making, the opportunity to make money, you know, with your product. So,

based on your category, it could be, you know, anywhere from 10% to 20% commission that you're, that you offer to affiliates. So,

So it's really percentage of sale. And then it's more of like a joint venture relationship because they know once if they if sales are taking off for them, then they know like, hey, I'm going to go create a bunch of content for them because I know it converts. So, for example, I had a seller that went that went viral for Black Friday, Cyber Monday on a piece of content that the creator created like November 2nd. Like and it hit on November 21st or something like that.

And all of a sudden, and all of a sudden that creator was like, whoa, whoa, what's going on? And, and then his whole feed, he was just posting video after video, just featuring that product because he could see the benefit in doing so. There you have it. Um,

Some people might be kind of overwhelmed with some of these numbers talking about hiring VAs and contacting thousands of affiliates. So Guillaume has a very relevant question. How can I start out reaching out to affiliates? So I'm brand new, loading my first product. What's the first step? It's probably not hiring a VA and contacting 10,000 affiliates. How can you get started? Yeah, so the first step is to...

is to define your creator strategy. So just like your product has a target audience, you need to think about your ideal creators that you want to work with. Like what type of content are they producing? What is their demographic profile? What kind of content, you know, like keywords or style or different things like that, are they that ideal kind of person look like? Now, you might have that ideal in mind. And then you're going to create what's called an open-open plan. And inside of

TikTok shops affiliate center, you set up the plans that are basically are what are called open collaborations. That's where you define your commission by your product and where you can offer free samples. And then if affiliates want to work with you, then they'll request samples and can create content or shoppable posts, those types of things. However,

Being found organically is not typically how that works when you're just getting started. So the creator that went viral, as soon as he started going viral, he had a ton of sample requests for that product because other affiliates would see, oh, this is a hot product right now. And so now I want to sell it. It's called the affiliate snowball. I call it the affiliate snowball. But when you're first getting started, you really have to do that outreach. And that's where bots help you do that. The Yuka app is really good. E-U-K-A.com.

AI is a good one. And as well as the Reacher app, they're both, they have some AI functionality in them that really helps with the outreach there. And they handle that, you know, reaching out to thousands of people a day. So you don't have to. Kyle says, how can Helium 10 help me with my TikTok shop? I know you guys are killer for Amazon, but how can signing up help my TikTok shop? Well, first of all, we're going to have a lot of educational content.

with somebody here with me that's going to help you with that. But also, we already have tools for TikTok shop. I can't do it on this computer here. But guys, everybody in here probably has access to our Helium 10 Chrome extension. If you have a product on Amazon, go to your product. I want everybody to do that right now, unless you're driving or something like that. But go on your product, your own product on Amazon right now. Once you're there, hit X-ray.

Run X-Ray like you would, and then hit the profit. I said hit X-Ray. Hit the Chrome extension and then hit profitability calculator. Don't hit X-Ray. I don't know what I'm talking about. Hit the profitability calculator and you'll see there's three tabs. Hit the tab that says TikTok shop. From there, you can instantly see a rough estimate, you know, based on TikTok shop fees, based on the dimensions of your product and the weight and, and,

and things like that, what your profit margin could be on TikTok. You put in like how much commission even you want to give affiliates and how much you're going to spend on affiliate marketing, et cetera. It's going to go ahead and calculate all that out for you so that you can see what your profitability would be on your own product on TikTok shop or do it on your competitor product. So you can do that right now. That's not like coming soon. That's now. For the rest of you, I am shocked at how many people are already selling on TikTok shop in this chat.

send us a message, please. Support at Helium10.com or go into the Helium 10 dashboard. There's like a little AI symbol on the top. Hit that AI symbol and then there's a button that says submit ideas. Put it to attention, Bradley, because I'm checking every single message that comes in from Helium 10 users about what you want

Helium 10 to do to make your life easier to sell on TikTok shop. We talked already about perhaps something that can redesign your listings, take it from Amazon directly to TikTok shop. Maybe you want us to be able to tie your inventory to MCF so that you can instantly start fulfilling. Maybe you want us to create something that helps connect you to influencers. Whatever it might be, let us know and

Just like we have been doing for years for Amazon sellers, whatever you guys, the most, what most of you ask for, that's what we're going to prioritize. What do you consider to be a good benchmark of content that performs well based on views or based on views? Oh, question.

Based on views or based on conversions. I mean, like a good benchmark content is less about views and it's more about engagement and it's more about conversions. Right. So if I'm going to spend money to accelerate the performance of content, I want to know that it's going to actually like be an ATM that pays me back.

Right. So I would keep producing organic content until you get organic content to actually convert. And then I would turn on ads for that. Okay.

But I would then say as well, this is kind of one of the crazy things about TikTok is that it automatically retargets you. So if you have all this content that's built up, even non-converting content, like even crap content, we'll say, that people turn in, it actually benefits you. So if you have content that does hit and you start driving ads to that, as well as if you're running like a GMB Max campaign,

So all of a sudden it will feel like, sound like, look like everybody on your feed is talking about that product. I urge you guys to try this. Like go on the platform, interact with a product detail page, you know, shoppable content, and then don't buy it. And then see what happens to your feed because guaranteed you're going to get inundated with content about that product. Asmesa's creator commission is the percentage fixed for a certain period or could it be variable?

So you set the commission and you set the time period. But I will tell you, if you start off with like, hey, we want to really be attractive to creators and we're going to have a high percentage, like 18 to 20%. And then once you get going, you drop that to like 15 to 10%. All of those creators who basically have content that got produced with...

with that commission plan are going to get notified and you're going to get a whole lot of pissed off people.

people who are probably going to pull their content that featured your product. So tread lightly, my friend. In the meantime, how can people find you on the interwebs if they want to reach out or dim on from what you do? Yeah. So my website is ttshopsellers.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn under Michelle Burnham Smith. And I do have a TikTok course as well as do consulting. And we do have an agency too. We're just full for Q4. So feel free to reach out and I'd love to chat.

more with you guys. Awesome. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for joining. We're doing lots of content on TikTok shop. As a matter of fact, in a few minutes, somebody's coming here. We're going to try and get him like literally started on TikTok shop. He has never sold. And he was like saying, hey, go ahead and record the whole process of the business registration. A lot of you guys were asking that in the chat today. What's that registration like? Well, we're literally in a few minutes and be recording the video, not live. We'll show it to you afterwards.

about how you can get started because we want everybody in, don't wait till 2025. We want everybody in 2025 to be selling on TikTok shop, but start now, you know, get started now. I hope you guys are super excited about this opportunity. Thanks to what Michelle was talking about here. So get started right now and let us know how can Helium 10 help you? And we'll go ahead and get it done. So thank you, Michelle. Once again, we'll see everybody later. Bye-bye now.