If you’re thinking about starting a TikTok Shop because you’ve heard it can blow up fast, you’ll want to read this. This is a real case study of what actually happens when you launch one.
So, I started a TikTok Shop thinking it would be straightforward. My plan was simple: invite a ton of creators (like a telemarketing numbers game), let them post, one video goes viral, and boomsales.
Here’s how it really went:
You can only invite 1,000 creators in your first week.
Most of them ignore the invite.
If you don’t hit $2,000 in sales that week, TikTok disables your invite function. You’re stuck.
That’s the $2,000 GMV trap I landed in.
To get out of it, I hired an agency in Miami that already works with trusted creators. They actually deliver and get videos live fast.
I also signed up for EUKA’s $1,000/month package for 30 videos.
They create and post daily content for my brand. No clue how it’ll perform, but hey, you live and learn.
Instead of spending time learning it all myself, I listened to Dora and just hired experts.
Running a TikTok Shop isn’t like affiliate marketing with paid ads.
There’s a huge human element… networking, pitching, getting rejected.
It’s wild. We even tested emailing creators directly using a scraping tool. We offered paid collabs, and some of the rates were crazylike $500 for one post from someone with 1,300 followers. Total nonsense. This is why I love affiliate marketing: no people, no drama.
The saying “they should come to you, not the other way around” holds true here. If your product isn’t already selling, most creators won’t carev no matter how much commission you offer. That 1,000-invite limit makes it worse.
As a long time aff marketer, I’ve seen every tactic under the sun… bots to mass DM creators, scraping emails from profiles and Linktrees, building outreach databases, cold-emailing offers to collaborate. It’s a numbers game, but it’s messy.
The journey’s still unfolding. If you’re in the TikTok Shop game and want to share tips or swap stories, hit me up on Telegram: @iamattila
