In today’s fast-paced digital world, everyone seems to be buzzing about TikTok Shop as the next big thing in online selling. There is even a thought that TikTok is the best platform for online business. But while the hype is real, practical insights into how this platform works and the challenges sellers face are often missing.
In this blog, we explore the real use cases of our customers who use M2E Connect to successfully sell Magento products on the TikTok Shop marketplace. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the strategies that work. Whether you’re a seasoned seller or just starting out, this article will provide invaluable tips and inspiration for your TikTok Shop journey.
Top 4 Challenges To Selling On TikTok Shop
How to sell products on TikTok Shop correctly? It’s time to unveil the difficulties behind these marketplace opportunities. Ready to see how to deal with them? Dive in!
Case 1: What Are Product Description Requirements and Restrictions?
The first thing you should check is the TikTok Shop Content Policy. The main idea is that creators must adhere to the following guidelines to ensure a positive and compliant shopping experience for users:
- Compliance with Laws: Sellers must not create, post, upload, stream, or share any content related to goods that do not fully comply with the laws and regulations of the destination market. Ensuring legal compliance helps maintain the integrity of the platform and protects consumers.
- Truthful and Fair Content: All goods-related content must be honest and complete. Creators should avoid posting misleading, incomplete, or deceptive information about products. This is crucial for maintaining trust and fairness in consumer interactions.
- Quality and Originality: Sellers are expected to share original and high-quality content. Content that might negatively impact a user’s shopping experience, such as unoriginal, low-quality, or poorly presented, is prohibited. Providing engaging and authentic content enhances the overall user experience on TikTok Shop.
Restricted Products That Require Pre-Approval from TikTok Shop to Be Sold
There, you should know the difference between prohibited and restricted goods:
- Prohibited Products: These products are banned from sale on TikTok Shop due to various local, state, and federal regulations or because they pose a risk to TikTok Shop’s customers and users. Specific details about what constitutes prohibited products can be found in the TikTok Shop Prohibited Products Policy.
- Restricted Products: These are specific categories of products that require prior approval from TikTok Shop before they can be listed for sale. Sellers wishing to offer restricted products must complete the “Product Listing Approval Process.” This process involves submitting specific documents based on the product category. The approval process ensures that the products meet all necessary standards and regulations before being available to consumers on TikTok Shop.
There are several categories of such restricted products:
- Beauty and Personal Care Products Everything meant for cleaning, beautifying, or altering appearance requires sellers to submit specific qualification documents for approval. Products that treat or prevent disease or make medicinal claims are considered drugs. For approval, sellers must provide extra documents under the “Drugs and Medicinal Claims” category.
- Consumer Medical Devices: Sellers listing FDA-regulated consumer medical devices on TikTok Shop must submit specific documentation for product approval.
- Electrical Products: This includes all electronic products with wireless capabilities, such as Wi-Fi-enabled and Bluetooth devices.
- Knives and Survival Kits with Knives: Sellers intending to list permitted knives on TikTok Shop must provide specific documentation for product approval. This includes carpet knives, drawknives, fixed-blade knives, folded knives, and more.
- Packaged Foods and Beverage: Cross-border sellers cannot list food and beverage products on TikTok Shop. Packaged food and beverage products can be listed, including bottled, canned, cartooned, or securely wrapped items. However, items packaged in wrappers, carry-out boxes, or non-durable containers are excluded. Sellers must submit specific documentation for product approval.
- Pet Food: This includes animal feed intended for pets and commercial feed for dogs, cats, birds, fish, or reptiles.
- Products with CO₂ Cylinders: Sellers must be authorized by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to ship CO₂ cylinders. TikTok (FBT) is not responsible for shipping or returns of these cylinders. Sellers must ensure all CO₂ cylinders comply with applicable laws and regulations and obtain necessary product approvals. This includes items like soda makers.
- Mystery Goods: Surprise-based products, whose contents remain unknown until unboxed, can only be sold or promoted in the U.S. on TikTok Shop after meeting category qualifications through approval. This includes mystery boxes, golden eggs, mystery bundles, advent calendars, and mystery balloons.
- Children’s Products: Products designed for children 12 or older can only be listed, shared, or promoted if sellers meet the policy requirements.
- Jewelry, Watches, and Accessories: Fine jewelry, made from precious metals and genuine gemstones, is durable and easily repairable by a jeweler.
- Invite-Only Products: They require pre-approval from TikTok Shop before selling. Sellers must process rigorous approval, submitting certifications and testing reports as needed.
Description Requirements
It’s time to explore practical tips to boost sales on TikTok Shop. The most important thing is correct product listings, which involve mentioning the most crucial points.
Product Title: They must be accurate, concise, and include essential information for informed purchasing decisions. Sellers should incorporate brand (with proper authorization), product type, material, key features, characteristics, and quantity. Avoid including marketing, promotions, seller URLs, branding references without approval, or special characters. For instance, in the “Little Lamb Valley series pure cotton white tablecloth (150cm x 150cm), a pack of 2” is preferred over a “white tablecloth.” By the way, for convenience and quick listing on TikTok Shop, TikTok Magento (Adobe Commerce) integration by M2E can truncate the titles of your Adobe Commerce (Magento) products to 255 characters, so don’t hesitate to sell with us effortlessly.
Product Description: The product description should comprehensively detail the main features, functions, components, and quantities of the product. Each description must exceed 30 words, be written to aid customer decisions, and comply with all relevant laws. Sellers are accountable for including necessary product safety details, specifications, and warnings, especially for categories like food supplements.
Images and Videos: Product images and videos on TikTok Shop must meet specific criteria. Here is the list:
- They must accurately represent the product being sold.
- Images must be authentic and reflect what customers will receive.
- The minimum size requirement is 600 x 600 pixels.
- Products should not be obscured and must be shown in color.
- Images must be high-quality, not blurry or pixelated.
- Each image should display a different angle of the product.
- Sellers can upload up to 9 square images.
- One image must be designated as the primary product image, showing the front view.
- Additional images should display the side, back, and other relevant details, including accessories.
- The background of product images should be solid (white is recommended).
- The product should occupy at least 60% of the image frame.
- Images must show the entire product, not cropped.
- Sellers may include up to 1 video per product listing, not exceeding 5MB.
You can read more about optimizing images for TikTok Shop here. If you have more questions about how to start using TikTok Shop, you should check out our webinar.
Finally, if you are selling clothes or shoes don’t forget to include the correct size and an accurate and up-to-date size chart. How to do it correctly can be found in our M2E Pro Help Center.
Case 2: What Is Product Certification and Why Do You Need It?
Product certification for TikTok Shop refers to evaluating products to meet specific standards or regulatory requirements before being sold on the platform. This certification is necessary to guarantee that products are safe, reliable, and compliant with relevant laws and guidelines.
It serves several important purposes:
- Quality Assurance: Certification verifies that products meet predefined quality standards, ensuring customer consistency and reliability.
- Safety Compliance: It confirms that products adhere to safety regulations, minimizing consumer risks and promoting trust in the platform.
- Legal Requirements: Certain products may require certification to comply with local or international laws, such as health and environmental regulations.
- Market Access: Certification can facilitate access to global markets by demonstrating compliance with international standards and regulations.
- Consumer Confidence: It builds confidence among consumers by assuring them that products have been vetted and meet recognized standards for quality and safety.
In the table below, you can see the key requirements for the different product categories.
By the way, with M2E TikTok Shop Connect you can quickly set up mandatory certificates in the category settings where the products are listed. If the category where your products are listed requires certification, a specific TikTok Shop category attribute will be flagged as mandatory. You can easily assign a Magento product attribute that includes the URL for the relevant certificate image. You can read more about product certification requirements in our M2E Pro Help Center.
Case 3: What is Brand Authorization and How to Use It Right?
Brand authorization for TikTok Shop sellers refers to official permission granted by a brand owner for a seller to list and sell their products on the platform. This authorization typically involves the brand owner confirming that the seller is authorized to represent and sell their products.
Brand authorization helps maintain brand integrity, protects intellectual property rights, and assures consumers of the product’s authenticity.
For Trademark Owners:
- Provide an active and officially registered U.S. trademark certificate.
- Ensure the certificate includes accurate details: trademark number, name, application and expiry dates, classification, and registrant’s name.
For First-Level Authorized Sellers:
- Submit a letter of authorization from the brand owner allowing the sale of their products at TikTok Shop.
For Second-Level Authorized Sellers:
- Submit two Letters of Authorization: one from the first-level authorized seller and another from the trademark owner.
To submit a brand authorization request, follow these steps:
- Log in to your seller account on Seller Center.
- Click on “My Account” > “Account Settings”.
- Navigate to “Qualification Center” > “Brand Qualification”.
- Select “Add Brand Authorization” to initiate the request process.
About cases why your brand authorization is rejected, you can read here.
When listing products on TikTok Shop, M2E TikTok Shop Connect will automatically assign them to the corresponding brand registered on TikTok Shop based on the brand specified in Magento. This applies to both the platform’s built-in brands and custom brands created by sellers.
Case 4: What Are Platform Discounts in Orders?
The platform fully sponsors marketplace promotions on TikTok Shop to offer customers discounted prices during promotional events. These promotions are categorized into two types: Shipping-based and Product-based.
Shipping-based Promotions:
- Shipping Fee Voucher: These vouchers are available throughout the app to enhance customer experience by covering some or all shipping costs.
Product-based Promotions:
- Product Voucher: Offers customers a specific amount off their order when they reach a minimum purchase value.
- Fixed Product Discount: TikTok Shop provides exclusive discounts marked with a ‘Hot Deals’ icon. Additional tags like ‘Live Exclusive’ or ‘First order deal’ indicate limited-time offers specific to content or user types.
How is the final price for consumers determined when both TikTok Shop-funded and seller promotions are applied? TikTok Shop follows this logic during checkout:
- First, calculate the shipping fee using TikTok Shop’s shipping-based promotions. If any shipping costs remain after deducting these promotions, and the seller offers free shipping, the seller covers those costs. If there are still shipping costs after deductions from both promotions, consumers are responsible for them.
- When both TikTok Shop and seller promotions are present, the seller’s promotions are calculated first. The order of priority is Seller Campaign Price > Seller Flash Sale > Seller Discount. These promotions cannot be combined, so the price displayed reflects the effective priority.
Summary
Now you know how to sell products on TikTok Shop correctly. We hope our blog will help you navigate this new terrain. If you need more information about the requirements for opening a TikTok in the UK or USA, just check out our ultimate guide. By the way, do you agree that TikTok is the best platform for online business? Share your experience and thoughts in the comments below, and remember to check out other blogs.