PacSun's Casey low-rise baggy jeans went viral on TikTok in November 2023 through a creator with just 5,000 followers. The apparel brand wasn't prepared for what happened next: 11,000 pairs sold in 48 hours.
That single moment helped cement TikTok Shop as a serious sales channel for PacSun, which went on to generate more than $20 million in revenue on the platform in 2024.
Two years after its U.S. debut, TikTok Shop evolved from its bargain-bin reputation into a legitimate commerce channel for established brands like Crocs, Liquid IV, and Glossier. TikTok’s U.S. sales surged 120% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, and the number of larger brands with at least $30 million in annual revenue has grown 95% during the same period.
But to be successful on TikTok Shop, you need a different approach than traditional ecommerce. It's not just about listing products and waiting for sales to come in. Content creation, strategic pricing, and creator partnerships are the name of the game.
The new rules of social commerce
TikTok Shop collapsed the gap between “I saw it” and “I bought it.” With 1.58 billion monthly active users globally and 135 million in the U.S. alone, TikTok has become the fifth most popular social platform worldwide.
More importantly, 54% of users engage with brand content on TikTok at least once daily, using the platform to discover new products and track what's dropping next.
TikTok Shop’s commerce features resonate strongly, particularly with younger audiences. According to recent data, 82% of Gen Z have TikTok profiles, and 41% of users who say social media influences their clothing purchases have tried TikTok Shop and like it. Overall, 33% of Americans have used the marketplace, and 68% are open to purchasing through it.
“TikTok is a necessary part of our business now. We've got stores, we've got our website, and we've got social commerce,” said Richard Cox, PacSun's chief merchandising officer. TikTok now accounts for 10% of Pacsun's ecommerce business, up from 8% in 2024.
Further reading: How to use TikTok
What works on TikTok Shop
Forget everything you know about online retail. TikTok Shop rewards a completely different playbook. Newness beats best-sellers, volume trumps polish, and breaking even can mean winning big.
Products must be new, in-season, or niche.
TikTok videos need to be timely to go viral. For example, Simple Modern's kids products, a drinkware brand, take off during the back-to-school season and NFL campaigns in Q4, but languish out of season. New, eye-catching designs outperform the best-sellers the brand has carried for years. “We had a Winnie the Pooh design go viral striking a cord with a niche Pooh community,” said Simple Modern’s co-founder, Bryan Porter.
Speed and pricing are top concerns for buyers.
Lower-cost products ($60 or less) appear to sell best on TikTok Shop, but data shows the real sweet spot is between $20 to $30, especially for younger shoppers and impulse-friendly products. As part of this, brands need fast fulfillment to help shoppers capitalize on the impulse shopping behavior, with ordered items out the door in one to two days.
Volume is everything.
TikTok Shop has become significantly more competitive over the last year, with many creators now posting 10 videos per day. “To give your brand a real shot, aim for 200-300 videos per month across creators,” said Zain Ali, the founder of TikTok Shop agency Zainith Agency.
Brands that generate approximately $1 million monthly on TikTok Shop typically produce over 1,000 videos monthly. TikTok's own internal data shows a near-straight-line correlation between video volume and gross merchandise value.
Follower count doesn’t matter as much as you think.
Once TikTok affiliates have more than 50,000 followers, the revenue per video tends to level off. Affiliates with 50,000 followers perform essentially the same as those with 1 million followers, assuming you're not engaging multi-million follower accounts with highly engaged audiences like celebrities.
TikTok Shop: The halo effect brands can't ignore
The most surprising insight from brands succeeding on TikTok Shop is that achieving a break-even point on the platform can still be a massive win. The reason comes down to what marketers call the “halo effect” — when marketing on one channel drives measurable sales lift across other channels.
In TikTok Shop's case, a viral video selling your product on TikTok generates revenue not only on TikTok but also beyond it. It sparks immediate searches on Amazon, Google, and your own website. Consumers discover your product on TikTok, then buy it where they feel most comfortable checking out.
“Think of TikTok Shop as a demand creation that bleeds into Amazon's much larger daily volume. Those off-platform searches improve ranking and velocity. Many brands only break even or lose a bit on TikTok Shop but see major upside on Amazon and retail from the awareness lift,” Ali said.
The real magic happens when TikTok videos permanently boost Amazon listing placement. This creates a flywheel effect where visibility on one platform drives sustained performance on another. A single viral moment can elevate your product's search ranking for months, generating compounding returns long after the video stops circulating.
For omnichannel brands, this makes TikTok Shop particularly valuable. It functions simultaneously as a sales channel and a marketing engine.
Maëlys, the body-care brand that won the 2025 Glossy Pop Award for Best Use of TikTok Shop, exemplifies this approach. In 2024, it became the top-selling body-care brand on TikTok Shop, driving $108.5 million in total category sales.
The brand's success stems from women willingly sharing their before-and-after transformations for products addressing specific concerns, such as loose skin, stretch marks, and body firming. Maëlys also incentivized creators with prizes up to $275,000 based on sales thresholds.
“We've always believed that we should be where the shopper is, and more and more shoppers are coming to TikTok Shop,” said Mallory Goodman, Maëlys's Senior Vice President of brand.
Why successful brands act like creators on TikTok Shop
The brands that perform the best on TikTok Shop don't market like traditional brands. Instead, they create content similar to that of individual creators. Traditional advertising is about polished product shots, corporate messaging, and safe, sanitized storytelling. On TikTok, this approach fails spectacularly.
You need to shoot content that looks native to the platform, not like it was repurposed from an Instagram campaign. You need to move fast, stay culturally relevant, and encourage audience interaction to gather social proof.
Crocs is a great example. After joining TikTok Shop in the fall of 2024, the company swiftly became the platform's top footwear brand. Crocs ran a month-long "Croctober 2024" celebration, featuring exclusive product drops and engaging challenges.
It culminated with Super Brand Day on TikTok Shop, when Crocs generated $1 million in sales and saw a staggering 28,300% increase in live shopping sales versus pre-event levels.
What’s interesting to note is that Crocs had already been part of viral trends on TikTok, such as the Shaving Cream Challenge and the Crocs Shoe-Throwing Challenge, in which participants throw the shoe in the air to find it always lands flat on its sole.
These organic, user-generated challenges created buzz around the brand before Crocs officially launched on TikTok Shop, giving them built-in momentum and awareness when they entered the platform.
The brands winning on TikTok Shop don't just make content and hope it sells. They create content intentionally designed to drive purchases, while maintaining authenticity and avoiding an overtly promotional feel.
Lauren, founder of Lauren Labeled, a Meta and TikTok ad creative agency, demonstrated the power of this approach by growing TikTok Shop revenue 400x for We're Not Really Strangers in just 60 days.
Her strategy: shoot content like an individual creator rather than a brand, lean into trending pop culture moments relevant to the Gen Z audience, explain the product clearly for newcomers while creating insider jokes for existing fans, and encourage audience interaction that serves as social proof in the comments.
The product sold out from just two videos, with We're Not Really Strangers holding the top seven performing videos in the account. Most importantly, the success lifted performance across every channel, including Amazon, Target, and Walmart.
Brand-created content delivers multiple advantages that affiliate partnerships can't match. First, you avoid paying commission on every sale. That’s a significant margin improvement when affiliate rates typically range from 10-15%. Some creators even negotiate as high as 25-35%.
Second, affiliate videos drive transactions but rarely build brand equity. On the other hand, your own content grows followers and creates a sustainable flywheel. Third, you control the narrative and quality, eliminating the risk of misleading claims or off-brand messaging.
The winning formula? Create content for every stage of the buyer journey. From introducing your product to new audiences, to addressing specific objections, and sharing insider moments with existing fans.
On TikTok Shop, your brand's ability to think and act like a creator may be the biggest predictor of success.
TikTok Shop: The live shopping question
Across many TikTok Shop clients, approximately 13% of sales currently come from Lives. They matter, but brands should focus on creating short-form content first before investing in the steeper skill curve required for successful livestreaming.
TikTok has made clear it's pushing the format hard. The algorithm favors live content, and the company expects this to continue. Why is TikTok pushing lives so hard? It’s likely based on the success of Douyin, TikTok's Chinese counterpart, where livestreams drive most sales and account for a significant portion of the $200 billion live shopping industry.
In 2024, brands and creators hosted more than 8 million hours of live shopping sessions on TikTok Shop in the U.S. On Black Friday alone, the platform generated over $100 million in U.S. sales, with shoppers tuning in to more than 30,000 live-selling sessions.
However, American consumers haven't fully embraced the format to the degree TikTok hopes. According to ecommerce intelligence firm Charm.io, which tracks product sales on TikTok Shop, livestreaming has never accounted for more than 30% of the revenue share.
When TikTok Shop launched in September 2023, livestreams generated just under 14% of total sales. That share grew to 26% by July 2024 before declining to 18% by July 2025.
Pre-recorded creator videos, by contrast, have steadily grown to represent two-thirds of TikTok Shop's revenue. “Ultimately, livestreaming is a really big cultural shift for the U.S.,” said Charm.io CEO Alex Nisenzon.
That said, platform behaviors evolve. TikTok continues pushing live commerce aggressively, and cultural adoption curves can shift quickly. Brands shouldn't bet big on livestreaming yet, but they shouldn't ignore it either. The play is a small investment to understand the format, while short-form video does the heavy lifting.
Further reading: Streamers Who Could Turn Cyber Monday Into Massive Live Events
The creator economy at scale
To find and recruit creators at scale, systematic outreach is the most effective approach.
“Use outreach bots to send Target Collaborations on TTS, but expect a 1–2% hit rate. To land about 200 creators, you may need to message around 2,000, and new brands are capped at around 2,000/week. Having a network of creators you can tap is helpful, and part of what we do for clients,” said Ali.
The data on sample-sending reveals an uncomfortable truth: Affiliates who ask for four or more samples are likely taking advantage of you. Simple Modern sent 51 affiliates four or more samples, and only one generated a sale. In other words, 13% of their total samples went to grifters.
Strategic brands re-incentivize their top 10% of creators, who typically drive approximately 90% of revenue. Don't just send automated direct messages and ghost them. Maëlys created an incentive program with prizes valued at up to $275,000 based on affiliates' sales during a TikTok New Arrivals campaign.
Prizes included a Ritz-Carlton yacht collection experience and a designer handbag wardrobe for creators who hit certain gross merchandise value thresholds.
Not all TikTok Shop sales require paying creator commissions. Twenty-five percent of Simple Modern's revenue comes from "Product Card" purchases—when customers use TikTok Shop's search function to find products directly, bypassing creator content entirely. These commission-free sales deliver significantly better margins.
The control problem holding back major brands
Despite TikTok Shop's growth, many established brands remain hesitant to adopt it. The number one pushback is control.
TikTok Shop doesn't give brands pre-approval rights over creator content. Any creator can purchase a product and post a video about it without permission. Big brands dislike this because people sometimes make outlandish or misleading claims that damage brand credibility.
The good news, however, is that moderation has gotten much stricter. TikTok's governance team and AI now remove videos with faulty claims much faster than before. Between July and December 2024, TikTok Shop prevented more than 7.5 million products from being listed for Intellectual Property Rights violations.
The platform has also introduced operational improvements to smooth seller headaches. One important feature is an address pre-check tool to reduce rejections, along with step-by-step resources in its Seller Center.
TikTok states that it has invested more than $1 billion in tools, technologies, and personnel to safeguard customers, sellers, brands, and its marketplace from counterfeits, fraud, and abuse.
What it actually costs to succeed on TikTok Shop
Before diving into TikTok Shop, brands need realistic expectations about investment and timeline. This isn't a channel where you list products and watch sales roll in. It requires sustained financial commitment and patience.
The baseline investment
At minimum, plan to send 100-300 product samples per month to creators and set aside a dedicated budget for advertising. The specific ad spend varies significantly by brand, product category, and price point, but don't expect to run a successful TikTok Shop presence on a shoestring budget.
Timeline matters just as much as budget. Give the channel approximately three months before expecting profitability. You'll need that time to test creators, refine your content strategy, build momentum, and optimize your approach. If you need to be cash-flow positive immediately, TikTok Shop probably isn't the right fit.
How GMV Max Ads amplify creator content
One of TikTok Shop's most effective ad products is GMV Max (Gross Merchandise Value Maximization). Unlike traditional ads where you create and control the content, GMV Max finds videos that affiliates have already posted about your products and boosts their organic reach with paid media.
This approach offers multiple benefits beyond direct sales. First, it's typically more efficient than creating ads from scratch because you're amplifying content that's already proven to resonate. Second, brands consistently see significant increases in sample requests from high-quality affiliates once they start spending on GMV Max—creators notice when brands invest in promotion and want to be part of that momentum.
Pricing strategy for premium products
If your product sits above the TikTok Shop sweet spot of $20-30, strategic discounting becomes essential. For products priced at $48 or higher, start with timed Flash Sales to bring the effective price into the mid-$30s range, then gradually taper discounts as you build velocity and social proof.
TikTok's Flash Sale user interface works in your favor here. The countdown timers and prominent discount displays create urgency that's especially powerful when you're still building awareness. Once you've established product-market fit and accumulated reviews and user-generated content, you can afford to discount less aggressively.
The key is viewing these early discounts not as margin erosion, but as customer acquisition costs that pay dividends through repeat purchases, halo effects on other channels, and the long-term value of creator relationships and content assets.
TikTok Shop deserves a seat at the strategy table
TikTok Shop may not be for every brand. But dismissing it as a fad is a strategic mistake. 76% of consumers say social content influenced a purchase in the past six months. That includes 90% of Gen Z.
Social platforms are no longer limited to awareness or inspiration. Customers use them to discover, evaluate, and purchase products.
The brands that win on TikTok Shop are nimble and digital-first. They’re willing to experiment and understand the need to think like a creator rather than a traditional brand. They create hundreds of videos monthly, keeping content authentic rather than overly produced, strategically choose creator partners, and track how TikTok Shop impacts sales everywhere.
TikTok Shop deserves a strategic seat at the table with serious budget allocation and executive attention. It's not intern work or a soft add-on, but a data-backed marketing channel with stronger ROI potential than many traditional media options.
With sales up 120% year-over-year and major brands continuing to join the platform, the TikTok growth trajectory is clear.
Now, the question is this: Can your brand afford to wait another year while competitors build creator networks, refine their content strategies, and capture the halo effects that extend far beyond TikTok's platform?
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