What Is Tiktok Shop? Is It Legal To Buy From It?

TikTok continues to grow bigger with the amazing foresight of the teams behind it. Following the tradition of rolling out business-first features that appealed to most brands, the Chinese-origin social platform has finally made public, its highly anticipated feature - TikTok shop. In its home country, China, social commerce sales on TikTok reached $671.9 billion in 2023. With eMarketer forecasting social eCommerce in the United States to cross $68.92 billion by the end of 2023, social buying is only going to rise exponentially with 29.8% growth compared to 2022.

Table of Contents

• What is a TikTok shop?
• Who can do TikTok shopping?
• Is it legal to buy from a TikTok shop?
• How to set up TikTok shopping?
• How to link products?
• Tips To Increase Sales Of Your TikTok Shop
• Branded Hashtags

What Is a TikTok Shop?

It is a feature on the mega-hit social app, TikTok, that allows people to showcase and sell products on the platform. Content creators, brands, and businesses use the feature to generate sales and grow their brands. Influencers and brands use In-feed videos, product showcase tabs, and LIVEs to sell their products.

If you can grow engagement on your posts, you can reach a wider user base on TikTok and make more sales with the TikTok shopping feature.

Who Can Do TikTok Shopping?

Initially, the TikTok shop feature was available to selected Shopify-based retail accounts in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. The idea was to run a beta test before releasing it worldwide. Now, the feature is accessible to everyone across the globe.

The app has been building integration partnerships with some of the leading platforms out there; Prestashop, Base, Square, BigCommerce, OpenCart, Ecwid, Shopline, and counting.

You have to be in these four categories to be able to access the feature; seller, creator, partner, and affiliate.

• Sellers should be from the Chinese mainland, Indonesia, Hong Kong, US or the UK. You should also possess a certificate of business incorporation, a phone number of that region, and a document of identification.
• Creators should have 1000 followers or more, should have posted a video in the last 28 days, be 18 years or older, and have attracted more than 50 video views in the last 28 days.
• Partners should have a registered business in one of these countries; China, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, UK, and Vietnam.
• Affiliates have to be registered as TikTok shop sellers from the United Kingdom, Chinese mainland, and the Hong Kong SAR Seller (cross-border only), Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, or Singapore.

Creating a TikTok shop can be a valuable opportunity for many sellers to use social commerce and make sales, including those in the UK.

Is It Legal To Buy From A TikTok Shop?

With the lot of buzz around the booming social eCommerce, a lot of people wonder: Is TikTok shop safe?

While others ask: Is TikTok shop legit? The simple answer is, yes TikTok shopping is a legit way to buy stuff on the app and there is absolutely nothing suspicious.

This is an official TikTok feature for merchants, brands, and influencers to market their products and make sales.

TikTok users are conveniently making purchases on the platform using this amazing feature while brands are tapping into a new world of opportunities.

Are you looking to boost engagement on your TikTok videos? Purchase few as 20 TikTok comments UK and fast-track your success on the platform.

How To Set Up TikTok Shopping?

How does TikTok shop work? This is a question that gets asked quite often. First of all, you need to have a TikTok for business account.

You should visit TikTok Seller Center and sign up. You have to upload all your documents, add products, and link your bank account. Now, you are an official TikTok merchant. You can continue to add more products, manage inventory, run promotions, and provide customer support; all from one convenient spot or app.

For Shopify businesses, they should download the TikTok Shopify app. The app allows users to create ads, monitor ads’ performance, and manage orders within the Shopify app.

TikTok integrates seamlessly with the BigCommerce stores as well. You can download its TikTok for business app to automatically install the TikTok pixel to your BigCommerce store.

This way you can track the performance of your ads. If you connect your TikTok account with your BigCommerce catalog of products, you will be able to create dynamic ads that are of interest to a specific audience. Adding a Shopping tab on your TikTok profile will allow you to add product links and take users directly to your BigCommerce store and make purchases.

This gives the answer to a hot question; Is the TikTok shop legit? It is. This feature is setting new standards in social buying and influencer marketing. TikTok is surely leading the social media game today and it is expected to continue its run in the years to come.

How To Link Products?

TikTok allows brands and content creators to add product tags with clickable links in their TikTok videos. Viewers can tap on the tags and view more information about the products on product pages.

Here you can either take them to the product pages within TikTok app or redirect them to your online store. Real-time product demos, live-streamed product reviews, and live shopping offers are smart ways to inspire more purchases with your TikTok shop.

Tips To Increase Sales Of Your TikTok Shop

1. Optimize product catalog

The shopping tab on your TikTok profile is your storefront and you should optimize it to attract more buyers. A well-planned and optimized store can be a huge turnaround for your business.

High-quality and appealing product images will attract potential buyers to check your products. A clean product gallery that represents your brand can inspire a lot of purchases. You should avoid using merchant-provided images and instead tweak them according to your brand’s aesthetics.

Also, you should try to keep the product titles under 34 characters to keep complete text visible to the users. Your title should include basic information about the product. All other details can be provided in the description.

2. Tell your audience

Nobody will ever know about your TikTok shop if you don’t tell them. So, you should talk about it in your TikTok videos, so that your audience knows about your Shopping tab and check it out.

Also, you can ask them to share the news with their friends and family to bring in more users to your Shopping tab and close more sales. Tell them where your Shopping tab is located and how they can buy your products.

If you are looking to sell your products to a UK-based audience, then setting up a TikTok shop UK can help you win big by driving more sales. 

3. Promote your products

Marketing never hurts, right? After you have set up your TikTok shop, you should promote your products in your live streams, regular TikTok videos, and in your profile bio. 

Smart marketing is all about getting creative in showcasing the best features of your products that can be useful for your audience. Many brands do a great job in doing a fusion of information and humor to entice the attention of users and inspire more action.

Engaging the audience with wit and fun is a winning strategy to spark engagement and get the noticed on the platform. The TikTok algorithm works to promote engaging content. And if you can trigger likes and comments, then your posts can reach a wider audience on the network.

4. Collaborate with influencers

TikTok is not just another random social app for teens to dance and lipsync. It’s a leader in trendsetting and fueling the creativity of the content creators on the platform.

No matter what you do or what you sell, there will be an audience actively seeking the content you produce on the network. Product and service brands, local eCommerce stores, digital products, and anything under the sun can find and target their intended audience.
Using influencer marketing is one of the most valuable TikTok content strategies to attract a unique audience interested in a specific topic or product line.

TikTok provides multiple avenues to maximize the gains with influencer shoutsouts, branded hashtag campaigns, and product reviews.
The best thing about TikTok influencer marketing is the wild engagement of the audience and the odds of getting branded campaigns going viral. These TikTok celebrities enjoy an authority in their respective niche and can influence opinions and can inspire actions like a charm.

We have seen a lot of money being spent by global brands and organizations in influencer marketing campaigns to achieve their campaign goals and get the word out.

Depending on your marketing budget and your target audience, you can find the right collaboration partner for you with a little bit of research. There are tons of creators making a decent living off TikTok.

You can drive a massive traffic to your TikTok store and close more sales if you pick the right influencer for your campaigns.

Branded Hashtags

Hashtag challenges are super popular on TikTok. They benefit in two ways;

1. They engage your existing audience.
2. They attract new users to your profile and grow your brand awareness.

You can also giveaway your signature offer using branded hashtags. People can’t resist the temptation to take part in these challenges and win free stuff.

Even leading brands and businesses run these challenges to boost engagement around their brand and attract new customers.
These challenges generally involve tagging friends, leave comments, and follow the brand’s profile as a prerequisite to be considered in the draw. This triggers a great hype and activity around their profile and grow their account.

The best part? They doesn’t cost a fortune and the rewards are absolutely insane. You will be able to grow your following, inspire more engagement, and close more sales with your TikTok videos, product reviews, and attract more users with giveaways.

As your account grows with more people following you, your reach will dramatically increase and you will be able to grow at a much faster pace compared to traditional organic strategies that take forever to get some tractio on the network.

As a business account, using branded hashtags magically improves the visibility of your brand. As more and more people come across these hashtags, they are very likely to share them with their friends and tell them about your brand. So, your brand becomes recognized and get more eyeballs to your content, as well.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is TikTok Shop an official platform from TikTok?

Yes, it is. TikTok has introduced this feature to capitalize on the growing social commerce trend and get the maximum share of global purchases on social media. People are now used to buying products on social networks and more people are joining this norm.

How can I access TikTok Shop?

You need to log in to your TikTok account. Tap on the search icon. Now you can type in the search bar to find a specific product. You need to scroll through until you find the Store tab. This is the TikTok store you are looking for.

What countries are eligible for TikTok shop?

TikTok Shop is currently available in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

How do I pay for items on TikTok Shop?

Here is how to pay for items on the TikTok shop;

1. Log in to your TikTok account.
2. Search for a product you want to buy and tap on the Store tab
3. Tap the "Shop" icon (bag image).
4. Browse products and select the one you want.
5. Tap "Buy Now".
6. Complete your address, quantity, and choose a payment method.
7. Confirm your order and enjoy your purchase

You can pay using various payment methods, such as Ovo, GoPay, Bank Transfer, Funds, Credit Card, Indomaret, Alfamart, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Alipay.