Online marketplaces have revolutionized the shopping experience for consumers and sellers alike. For consumers, they can now make sense of millions of product listings through a combination of category indexing and algorithmic recommendations available on multiple platforms. For sellers, they can now reach millions of shoppers through simply listing their products and facilitating order fulfillment.
Each of the top marketplaces offer significant opportunities for sellers through their own specific strengths and specialties. This blog post will explore the advantages and areas to consider when selling on Amazon and TikTok Shop, to help you understand how to optimize your sales channel offerings.
Amazon Marketplace Strengths
Amazon is the market leader of e-commerce marketplaces, meaning there is a massive customer base to tap into. Large parts of their customer loyalty has to do with their Prime membership that gives access to fast, free shipping for a yearly fee, as well as their forgiving customer support policies and easy returns. Amazon provides shoppers with extensive search and filtering options, making it easy to sift through thousands of listings based on their needs (ex. same day delivery or available in your local Whole Foods).
In addition to Amazon’s huge demographic of shoppers, they also allow sellers to showcase their brand on product listings through A+ content as well as through their own dedicated storefront. Lastly, Amazon offers a Multi-Channel Fulfillment service where sellers can use their FBA inventory to fulfill orders from other channels like TikTok. With this program, sellers can offload components of their operational process to focus on product development, marketing, and sales. Amazon MCF even allows shipments to go out in blank boxes (vs Amazon branded) and without using Amazon Logistics.
Amazon Marketplace Considerations
While Amazon has ample selling opportunities, one of the drawbacks for sellers (as with any successful marketplace) is competition. Ranking high in the search results typically requires a competitive fulfillment offering, positive product reviews, and the best price. Additionally, it’s harder to interact with your customers beyond Q&As and reviews since Amazon doesn’t release the buyer contact information.
TikTok Shop Strengths
TikTok launched their marketplace TikTok Shop in September of 2023, so it’s a very new marketplace in comparison to Amazon, who has been around since 1995. Despite being not even a year old, the marketplace has attracted hundreds of thousands of sellers and has already surpassed billions of dollars in GMV since launch. Before TikTok launched their marketplace, they were a distinctly social media app where users could upload short-form videos and consume content through a personalized algorithm based on user interests like sports, comedy, beauty, and more. TikTok excels at connecting users with content that interests them through their For You Page (a feed of recommended videos and photos). One of the main strengths of TikTok Shop is providing an extension of those recommendations, where shoppable product listings are tagged on the content served to consumers. 70% of TikTok users discover new brands and products on the platform, whether that’s through branded content, or peer-to-peer recommendation or demo videos. TikTok Shop even provides a built-in affiliate program where you can provide creators with your products to create content with, in exchange for a commission of sales. Brands who invest in creating their own social media content on TikTok get the added benefit of being able to have a conversation with their customers by teaching them about the product features and learning about their questions & needs through comments & direct messages.
In an effort to build trust with their new marketplace offering, TikTok has also imposed a number of requirements and regulations to ensure listings are of good quality and orders will be fulfilled on time. For example, shoppers are given a 1 hour grace period to cancel their orders and can chat with the seller for order support directly through the app. Marketplace Management makes it easy to upload required product certification documents to listings and to ensure inventory is accounted for but unshippable during the cancellation grace period.
TikTok Shop Considerations
Similar to Amazon, as TikTok Shop increases in popularity, competition for the attention of consumers has risen. Some users have complained about the increase in product related ads and promotional videos. As a result, it’s best to create quality content that’s educational or entertaining to provide value to consumers. Additionally, make sure your product is listed in the appropriate category so that shoppers can find it in the dedicated Shop tab of the TikTok app.
Optimize your Setup on Amazon and TikTok Shop through Marketplace Management
Based on what you’ve learned about the strengths and considerations of both Amazon and TikTok Shop, you are now ready to optimize your listings for each marketplace:
-
For both marketplaces, there’s no harm in listing as many of your products as possible. Be aware that for TikTok Shop, there is a probation period where you can only list 100 products per day until you reach certain marketplace success criteria. Start with your best selling products that you can guarantee will ship out within 3 days (to meet TikTok Shop’s fulfillment SLA).
-
Be sure to include all the recommended product properties in your Amazon and TikTok Shop listings so that they appear through relevant search filters like Color, Occasion, and more.
-
Your Amazon listings should be using repricing strategies so that you can win the Buy-Box and your TikTok Shop listings can mirror those price updates through our Price Mirroring strategy.
-
Offload your fulfillment operations to Amazon through their MCF service, which can fulfill orders placed on TikTok Shop.
-
If you sell your own branded products, invest in creating a social media profile on TikTok Shop so that you can connect with your customers and differentiate from your competition. Test working with creators to see if their product reviews and demos are a viable marketing strategy.
Both marketplaces provide shoppers and sellers with tools to connect the right products with the right people. Connect your sales channels and 3rd party fulfillment centers to Marketplace Management today to manage multi-channel selling and expand your online reach.
