6 TikTok Shop Features Businesses Should Know About

TikTok started as a social media platform for short videos. Now, it’s also become a sales channel that lets businesses of all sizes sell directly to TikTok users. TikTok Shop features include a dedicated product showcase tab, shoppable videos, LIVE shopping events, in-app checkout, affiliate programs, ads powered by AI, and a bulletin board for direct communication with followers.

These features allow brands to bridge the gap between searching and purchasing. Research from GlobalData found that 83% of shoppers have discovered a new product on TikTok Shop and 70% have discovered a new brand. The research shows that TikTok Shop is helping create new revenue streams for small businesses, with over a third of purchases made in 2024 going to them.

This guide explains what TikTok Shop entails, how it differs from traditional ecommerce, and how to use TikTok’s shopping tools to grow sales inside the app.

What is TikTok Shop?

TikTok Shop is a social commerce platform built directly into the TikTok app that allows brands to sell products directly to TikTok’s vast user base within the social media platform. With more than one billion active users worldwide, it has also become one of the revenue streams small businesses use to grow their brand’s presence. Once you set up your TikTok Shop through the TikTok Seller Center, your TikTok account will have a dedicated Shop tab where people can browse, discover, and make purchases within the app.

A TikTok Shop storefront immediately gives customers an overview of the brand including: 

• The brand name

• A star rating

• TikTok verification

• Number of followers

• How many products sold

• Number of videos created

• Number of repeat customers

In this example from Barebells, the customer can see they’re TikTok verified, with a high star rating with thousands of reviews and nearly 10,000 repeat customers.

How TikTok Shop differs from traditional ecommerce stores

A PYMNTS-AWS study found that 43% of consumers browse social media to find goods and services. Kevin Gould, cofounder of Glamnetic, said on Shopify Masters that TikTok Shop is one of the most underrated growth channels available to brands right now. 

“I think most brands still don’t understand the opportunity that’s on TikTok Shop right now and the brand halo that funnels over to retail and every other channel of the business,” he says.

Shopping happens directly inside the platform and inside TikTok creator videos. Features like LIVE Shopping, shoppable videos, and Product Showcase create a shopping experience that doesn’t interrupt the buyer’s journey within the app.

How sellers get paid for TikTok Shop orders

To receive payouts, you’ll need to connect a bank account through your TikTok Seller Center, which is also where you manage your shop sales activity.

How quickly you receive money from each purchase, known as a settlement period, depends on factors like if you are just starting out and how successful your shop is. TikTok assigns shops a Shop Performance Score (SPS), which is one of the metrics used to evaluate where you land in the payout settlement tier. 

New accounts enter a probation period and have a settlement period of 31 days. Established accounts with high SPS scores can have a settlement period as short as one day from the date of a product being delivered.

TikTok also takes a cut of each sale through what it calls a referral fee, which covers all TikTok Shop charges other than shipping and tax. As of April 1, 2024, that referral fee is 6% per order.

6 TikTok Shop features for sellers

• Product showcase tab
• Shoppable videos
• LIVE shopping events
• In-app checkout
• Creator and affiliate programs
• TikTok Shop ads

TikTok Shop has a lot of features that make it different from other shopping platforms. Here are the main ones to experiment with:

Product showcase tab

The Product Showcase tab is a dedicated shop tab that lives right on your brand’s TikTok profile. For official TikTok accounts, it’s where you can display all of that brand’s products in easy-to-navigate categories for customers, like “Creator’s Choice” and “Recommended.” Affiliate creators can also use Showcase to display various products they are promoting from various brands.

Shoppable videos

TikTok lets sellers tag products directly inside their short videos, turning in-feed videos into a shoppable experience. As someone scrolls through your video, a shopping bag icon lets them tap a product link and buy it right from the video.

Both affiliates and sellers can create shoppable videos, allowing each to combine compelling storytelling directly with being able to make a purchase. In this example from Fishwife, the video continues playing at the top of the screen while the customer can shop below. 

LIVE shopping events

TikTok Shop allows you to livestream product promotions and engage with potential customers directly. Creators can promote products and earn commissions by linking items in their videos, which helps turn viewers into potential buyers.

During livestreams, you can pin products so they are easily visible and visually display important selling points, which attracts more viewers and improves watch duration. Shoppers can then make purchases directly in the livestream.

In this example from Javvy Coffee, they pinned their Javvy Berry lemonade package, bringing attention to the 20% off deal.

In-app checkout

In addition to being convenient for shoppers to simply buy products from within the app, TikTok ensures privacy protection. It also works with trusted third-party payment platforms to power checkout on TikTok Shop.

Creator and affiliate programs

TikTok Shop allows you to leverage creators who’ll promote your products, as well as allows creators to become TikTok Shop partners as affiliates. The affiliate program also gives you sales data and performance metrics, and lets you choose how you work with creators.

Choose from open collaboration, where any affiliate partner can find and promote your products, or targeted collaboration, where you hand-pick creators to make authentic content for your brand.

TikTok Shop ads

TikTok has moved on from its original TikTok Ads setup. As of July 2025, GMV Max, the platform’s AI-driven campaign automation system, powers TikTok Shop Ads. TikTok is moving sellers in the direction of Product GMV Max and LIVE GMV Max, both of which automatically optimize your livestream and ads to drive sales and traffic. 

Tools for managing your TikTok Shop with Shopify

If you’re running an online store through Shopify, a few built-in tools make it easier to manage TikTok Shop:

TikTok app for Shopify

Connecting TikTok Shop to your Shopify store lets you tap into TikTok’s audience while managing your orders from one central place, creating a seamless integration between the two platforms. You can set this up through the TikTok app in the Shopify App Store. Once connected, you can also manage your TikTok Shop orders and inventory through your Shopify admin dashboard.

If you’re an existing Seller Center user, you’ll need to map your current TikTok products to their Shopify SKUs before setup is complete. After that, any updates you make to price, inventory, or orders in Shopify sync automatically to TikTok Shop.

Shopify sales reports

Inside Shopify admin, you can pull up sales reports by channel to see exactly how your TikTok Shop is performing alongside your other channels. For a closer look, the Total Sales by Sales Channel and Net Sales by Channel reports break down sales figures for each channel you sell through. You can manage products and orders, and view messages from customers.

Viewing TikTok Shop performance alongside your other sales channels makes it easier to understand where your revenue is coming from. For example, you might discover that TikTok Shop drives more first-time customers while your online store generates more repeat purchases. 

Those insights can help you decide where to spend your marketing budget, which products to feature on TikTok, and whether to expand live shopping or focus on another sales channel. Seeing all your channels in one place also helps you identify broader sales trends instead of evaluating TikTok in isolation.

TikTok Shop analytics

While TikTok has its own analytics dashboard, it can be helpful to review alongside your sales reports from Shopify. It surfaces key metrics like your shop ranking, which is key in TikTok’s tiered pay settlement period, and breaks down your GMV ads by content type, like in-feed videos or livestreams. Looking at these metrics together can help you identify which content formats drive sales, not just views or engagement. 

For example, you might find that livestreams generate fewer impressions than short-form videos but produce a higher conversion rate and average order value. This makes them a better candidate for future investment. Compare TikTok Shop analytics with Shopify sales data to see which campaigns are generating purchases, spot high-performing products, and decide where to spend your budget and content efforts.