6 months ago we jumped at TikTok Shop. We had previously played around on it, but once the new version rolled with the Shopify integration, we knew it was ‘go time’.
The first 2 months of the 6 were a major challenge. We had issue after issue with the Shopify integration. After continued frustrations with it, I became vocal online, and we immediately found out we were not alone and there were better connectors out there. TikTok connected us with Silk for the integration and we were quickly up and running how we envisioned.
The end of November, all of December, and pretty much all of January was filled with us consistently failing to crack any sort of success. We posted dozens of TikToks with linked shop products and saw a less-than-exciting amount of sales. Trying multiple types of approaches in videos, we tested just about everything. Lots of failures and little learnings.
At the end of January, we started to focus on affiliates. Credit where credit is due, the TikTok Seller Central platform makes it easy to find potential creator affiliates. We started to onboard creator affiliates and we hoped that February might be a month of success.
February was exactly what we had hoped for. About a third of the way into the month we had the first creator TikTok ‘pop’ and sales started to roll in. Within a few days, we had multiple creator affiliates posting content that was turning into sales. February ended with $29k in sales!. We knew it was time to lean in and see how scalable this channel was as it quickly became apparent this could be a 7 figure DTC channel for us.
March started HOT! We hit the ground running and were pacing to likely double February in sales. There was just one problem. We had a single SKU that was driving about 99% of our sales. We knew with certainty we needed more ‘hero’ products, but it was not an emergency as our supply chain for this one product was streamlined and efficient. Over time, we would find additional products that could have great sales velocity, and combining them all would be part of our strategy to sell over a million a year on TikTok.
But you have seen the March sales chart above so you know we did not double February. Halfway through the month, something bad happened. Our hero product, which represented almost all of our sales, got banned. Thanks to Brian at Completing the Puzzle making an introduction, we have open communication with ‘high ups’ in the TikTok Shop department. Even with their their help, their hands were tied. The product we were selling was not going to ever be allowed back. We spent about a week trying to get the product back with no real focus on a backup plan. This past week has been spent working on new products in hopes of getting some momentum back and finding some high-sales velocity again.
I am still 100% confident that TikTok Shop can be a 7 figure channel for BattlBox. To accomplish this, we need to:
- Continue to work on sourcing the right products for the channel.
- Continue finding new creator affiliates.
- Manage and Retain our existing creator affiliates.
- Continue iterations of our content for internal success sans outside creator affiliates.
In addition to growing the channel, part of our constantly evolving strategy is to figure out the best way to convert these customers from one-time purchasers to BattlBox members. More on that later.
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