2 Ways to Sell Products on Tiktok Shop Explained...
1. Sell your own products (if you already have an established brand)
You can obviously list and sell your own products on tiktok shop if you’d like. To do this you just list them manually in the backend of your shop and then fulfill the orders when they come.
You wouldn’t have to change anything in your shipping settings because you would just be using the tiktok shop labels they give you.
2. Dropshipping
Now, if you want to dropship items (like I do). There’s 2 approaches you could use. And some VITALLY important info you need to understand to avoid shop bans and issues.
The first method is called Dropship arbitrage. It essentially involves using a supplier with fast shipping times (like Amazon prime or Walmart Plus) to deliver products to you quickly.
Once received, you ship them out with the TikTok label to your customers. And tiktok is none the wiser that you didn’t have the items in stock when you listed them.
This is the safer route b/c you won’t run into any tracking number issues (since you’re using tiktok labels). You also won’t run into customers claiming they didn’t receive orders and tiktok simply charging you for the “missing” product (even if it was delivered to the customer)…again, because you’re using their labels and they can see that.
It's also safer in case tiktok changes it’s terms of service to either ban…or disincentivize dropshipping in the future (which may or may not happen – no one knows).
The downside obviously is that you need to do some leg work in collecting products to your house or apartment…and then putting them in a new package…or at least relabeling them.
If you go this route, you can reuse the same box…just put a new tiktok label on. You can also get cheap poly mailers from somewhere like amazon (for like 10 cents a mailer).
…or you could dropship directly to customers. I've used both approaches.
I still use dropship arbitrage on several platforms that require that method…and it does work well. But on tiktok now I dropship directly.
Dropshipping, for those of you that don’t know…is simply facilitating the sale from the manufacturer or supplier to the customer. You never touch the product or store any inventory. You just mark the price up and essentially pocket some profit for it.
To do this you need to change the shipping settings in the backend of your tiktok shop so you can use your own seller labels.
Then you’ll be able to see customer addresses and you can then order the products from your supplier directly to that customer (hence the dropshipping).
Then when the tracking number gets emailed to you from your supplier, you simply input that tracking number into the corresponding tiktok order.
To do this go to your tiktok shop dashboard on a computer. Then go to the orders tab > shipping options > and make sure seller shipping is selected.
You’ll also need to setup your shipping template. To do this go to your tiktok shop dashboard on a computer. Then go to the orders tab again > shipping templates > and create a shipping template that ships everywhere (and make sure to select economy shipping – that’ll give you 11 days to get it delivered to the customer – which is the longest currently allowed on tiktok).
That brings me to the next point…
DON’T dropship from aliexpress or any overseas suppliers.
On tiktok your products need to ship out in 3 days. And (assuming you changed your shipping template to economy shipping) they need to be delivered in 11 days.
Otherwise, tiktok can cancel your order and you can run into issues (not to mention you’ll lose money on that order. So ONLY use suppliers that ship out in 3 days or less and delivered in 11 days or less.
If you do that, you’ll be fine.
It's a massive opportunity right now though. So stop reading this and get after it!
Bryan