How To Sell On TikTok

Many TikTok users make good money on the social media platform, and it’s not just influencers with sponsorship deals that earn a nice living. There are other ways to monetize a TikTok account; selling products in the TikTok Shop, or promoting products that others sell there, is a very attractive option.

The TikTok Shop is a full-featured e-commerce platform with hundreds of millions of items available at any one time. The offerings lean more toward impulse buys than, for example, the enormous range of traditional products sold on Amazon. However, many retailers use TikTok to sell home goods, beauty products, electronics, and other mainstream goods as well.

Popular users who create high-quality or trendy products and direct their TikTok followers to the shop find that they can do enormous sales volume and make lots of money, since almost two-thirds of users visit the TikTok Shop at one time or another. Others, though, can take advantage of the Shop’s affiliate program to score a nice paycheck.

Here’s how it works.

Becoming a TikTok Seller

You’ll have to jump through some hoops before you can sell products in the TikTok Shop.

For starters, you’ll need a TikTok business account to take advantage of most of the available features. You won’t be able to do things like use TikTok sounds that are only licensed for non-commercial use (or create Duets with other people who use them), but the advantages for sellers clearly outweigh those negatives. (You can run TikTok ads with a business account, too.)

Fortunately, it’s simple to change a personal account to a business one.

Just visit your TikTok profile (accessible from the “Profile” icon at the bottom right of the screen), open the menu by tapping the icon with three horizontal lines at the upper right of your profile, and then go to Settings and privacy > Manage account > Switch to Business Account. Choose your type of business, follow the prompts that follow, and you’re all set.

Next, you have to register as a TikTok seller.

1. Visit your TikTok profile, click the menu icon, and then navigate to Settings and privacy > Account > TikTok Shop for Seller. You can visit seller.tiktok.com online if you prefer.
2. You’ll have to sign up; just having a TikTok account login isn’t enough. You can register as a seller using your existing account details on the app, or with your email and phone number).
3. You’ll be asked a series of questions about your business, including location, tax information, and so on, and will then have to agree to the Shop’s terms and conditions. After that, click “Start your Business.”
4. Now return to the Seller Center main page, where you’ll upload the personal or business documents the platform has requested during signup, and choose a name for your Shop. Once that process is complete, your application will be reviewed and (hopefully) approved. You’ll receive a notification when that happens.
5. Finally, you’ll need to link a bank account to your Seller account (so you can get paid).

After the signup process is complete, you’re all set and can start stocking your TikTok shop with products. You’ll receive a link to your store, along with instructions on how to set up your storefront, create product descriptions and upload images, and take care of the other details required to operate your shop properly.

It’s time to start selling! Be sure to promote your products as widely as possible to generate the greatest possible revenue; create videos with product tags, run TikTok Live streams, partner with influencers, create an affiliate program, buy TikTok ads, sign up affiliates to push your products — the possibilities are endless.

One important fact to remember: TikTok takes a commission for every sale, so you won’t receive all of the money your customers spend. The commission varies depending on the product category and where a referral might come from (e.g. there are lower fees for sales generated by Live streams than short videos), but it’s usually between 5% and 9% of the sale price.

Becoming a TikTok Shop Affiliate

You don’t have to sell your own products to make money from the TikTok shop. You can become an affiliate instead. (Of course, you can do both to earn even more.) You’ll need at least 1,000 followers, you must have posted in the last 28 days, and you must be 18 or older to qualify.

The first step is signing up as an affiliate. If you already have a seller account, just visit the Seller Center home page and go to Affiliate Marketing > Get Started. If not:

1. Visit your TikTok profile, click on the menu icon, and choose “Creator Tools.”
2. Scroll down until you find the “TikTok Shop for Creators” option and tap it.
3. You’ll have to fill out a brief affiliate application, which is usually approved in just a few hours.

Once you’ve been accepted to the program, you’ll have access to the affiliate Product Marketplace, where you can choose products that you want to promote and get your affiliate links (the code you need to include in promotions, so you get credit for the sale when one of your followers or viewers clicks on the link). Some sellers may even send you free samples.

Pro tip: If you haven’t been convinced to change to a TikTok business account yet, you can’t include product links in your profile with a personal account.

It’s now all up to you. Create engaging TikTok videos that showcase the product to the best advantage, host Live streams promoting it, use any other imaginative approaches you can think of — and always be sure to tag the videos with your affiliate link. Be sure the link is in your TikTok bio, too, once you have a business account.

As with seller accounts, there are commissions to understand.

Affiliates receive a set amount for each sale they make through the affiliate program, and the math can get complicated. Sellers set the commissions that affiliates receive, within a structure created by the TikTok Shop Affiliate Plan. They can range from 1% to 80% and average around 10%.

Always check the commissions that a seller offers before signing up to promote their products; some have both a “standard” commission and a “Shop Ads” commission (which is paid if a buyer purchases the product after clicking on an affiliate ad).

This may all sound complicated, but once you start receiving deposits into your bank account from TikTok, it will all be worth it.