TikTok Shop May Not Work, But You Should Still Be There Soon

The fact that many consumers are getting the same slate of strange viral TikTok products is actually good news for brands. Especially those willing to experiment.

No one would deny these two things:

* TikTok's personalization and matching algorithm is great and scary all at the same time.

* The fact that so many consumers are getting the same viral products is a symptom of undersupply, due to a new program with inexperienced brands.

Add this up and I believe that TikTok Shop could be the most underinvested eCommerce "test and learn" opportunity to come along in the next 3 years. Number two could end up being Shein Marketplace, if they play their cards right.

Both have great risks, but also huge potential. The perfect kind of investment for a challenger brand.

It's likely most of TikTok eCommerce transaction volume will come from influencers and not brands. This is still not widely understood in the market, and many brands will not take TikTok's silly micro-creators seriously.

That would be a mistake.

Brands Look to Take Advantage Need To Do The Following:

* Integrate TikTok Shop into Their eCommerce Platforms

* Sign up for TikTok Shop's Affiliate Program, which just launched this year in the US.

* Start Thinking About "Info-tainment" with regards to your brand's products, and which influencers best represents that.

Keep This In Mind:

* Most (at least mainstream) brands would not be well-served to create their own videos. The corporate environment often does not lend itself to the level of creativity and whimsy needed for the medium.

* TikTok is clearly boosting videos that contain products right now, and has announced it will be subsidizing deals on an ongoing basis. This means, these videos will have outsized algorithmic importance while TikTok tries to build the program.

What's the Downside?

If the whole thing fails in a couple of years, the only thing you have done is gained your product more exposure, and learned something about what entertains and informs the next generation of consumers.

In a channel with increasing relevance and influence, but few sales, the brands that invest and learn will be the winners. A lot of "alpha" in eCommerce is from new channels that are not hyper-competitive. (i.e. Google, Amazon, Meta are often too competitive for many challenger brands). (An example on the B2B side that I saw 5 years ago was LinkedIn -- obviously super-important, but few B2B marketers realized how important).

Going where your established competition is not, is more appropriate. There is of course an existential risk it all doesn't work out, but the discovery and consideration benefits could make it worth your while anyway.

Sounds like relatively little downside to me. And this is from an overall social commerce skeptic.