How to Start TikTok Dropshipping? Everything You Need to Know

Let’s face it: The eCommerce business model is on the rise due to the high sales and profits it brings to businesses. However, production, storage, and distribution make the businesses struggle to sell online. That’s where the dropshipping model turns out to be a lucrative prospect, eliminating the need to store products anywhere. With no need to maintain a physical inventory, businesses can make their online business up and running quickly.

Establishing a dropshipping business is a good idea as it’s continuously growing, and the market size of the dropshipping business is expected to grow to $476.1 by 2026. However, as third-party suppliers are selling products directly to the customers- it requires getting the word out about your business.

Social media marketing is vital to make the brand stand out, and it is the best friend of dropshipping businesses to improve brand exposure at reduced time and money investment. Dropshipping using social media advertising and active social profiles generates 32% higher revenue.

Initially, dropshipping businesses started harnessing the power of SMM with Facebook and Instagram platforms. TikTok emerged as an influential platform for generating sales due to its growing popularity among the generation of younger Millennials and Gen Z.

In this blog, We will talk about TikTok dropshipping, covering TikTok’s strengths and weaknesses of dropshipping along with statistics, how the platform works, how you can advertise on TikTok dropshipping, and how to set TikTok dropshipping to enjoy the bunch of benefits.

What is TikTok Dropshipping?

TikTok dropshipping is a business model that allows drop shippers to leverage the TikTok platform to advertise the products that they are selling through dropshipping stores. Using the TikTok platform for dropshipping business marketing purposes helps dropshipper extend their reach to a broad spectrum of userbases. Dropshippers can sell products without holding inventory costs and increase their sales by marketing products through TikTok dropshipping.

It’s a great help to SMBs looking to start and promote a business with a shoestring budget. TikTok dropshipping businesses can opt for paid ads and collaboration with marketing influencers to add wings to their marketing campaign. While product marketing, businesses must ensure that the terms and conditions of the TikTok platform are strictly adhered to. Otherwise, the account is banned by the TikTok platform.

Top Trending TikTok Dropshipping Products to Sell in 2024

Not all types of products perform well on TikTok dropshipping. It requires businesses to research and identify which products are trending on TikTok, and selling them at what cost helps businesses increase sales and profit. TikTok product selling trends fad faster requires businesses to capitalize on TikTok dropshipping immediately.

To find out trending products on TikTok, identify your target audience and what they are buying the most, how much they readily spend for niche products, and your business’ capability to source those products. Popular hashtags on TikTok also give a clue to the businesses for the trending product. Generally, some products are sold at scale on TikTok dropshipping.

• Sunglasses
• Clothes
• LED products
• Jewellery
• Beauty and Cosmetic products
• Phone cases
• Seasonal items
• Health-related equipment
• Pet-related products
• kitchen appliances
• Cleaning products

Market Overview of TikTok Dropshipping

According to Statista, TikTok dropshipping will help businesses gain access to around 900.7 million users in 2024 which is expected to increase by more than 50 million in 2025. The continuous rise in the number of users ensures more people will be there to buy products on the TikTok platform.

Dropshipping businesses can leverage TikTok dropshipping as an opportunity to sell and earn people from the 58.4 minutes that they spend in a day on TikTok. 75% of TikTok users in the USA are generally aged 20 years or above. It indicates dropshippers can promote those products on TikTok that this generation is more interested in. The interesting data for industry niche searches will help you know what to advertise on TikTok to gain user traction accordingly.

• Fitness/sports – 57 billion
• Home reno/D.I.Y. – 39 billion
• Beauty/skincare – 33 billion
• Fashion – 27 billion
• Recipes/cooking – 18 billion
• Life hacks/advice – 13 billion
• Pets – 10 billion
• Outdoors – 2 billion

Pros and Cons of Dropshipping: A Comprehensive Guide

Leveraging the TikTok platform for dropshipping business is advantageous and disadvantageous in different cases. Let us know in detail.

Pros of Using TikTok Dropshipping

Require less investment

TikTok dropshipping eliminates the physical inventory maintenance needs and reduces storage and distribution costs. Hence, dropshipping businesses don’t need to spend much money setting up stores and can get started quickly.

Avail of the TikTok userbase

TikTok has a user base of over 900 million active users. It ranks third among the five most prominent social media platforms, indicating a large user base using the platform in their leisure time. It provides a massive user base for businesses that can tap into and sell their offerings.

Improve engagement

A large share of the user base on TikTok is younger and actively views and responds to content and ads as they see them. Conversion with ads is higher due to outbound clicks and longer view times. Studies have also proven that the TikTok platform drives 15% better engagement than other social platforms.

Market distinctively

TikTok is well-known for video creation, but dropshipping businesses can use the platform distinctively for marketing purposes by hiring the best TikTok marketing agency. TikTok advertising is also popular to increase CPM and CTR, but it works only when the right products are offered to the right audience.

Cons of Using TikTok Dropshipping

Limited user base

Divisions created by the TikTok platform have limited product marketing efforts to regions. Say advertising in the US is possible only when your dropshipping business operates in the USA. This way, reaching out to the global audience is impossible with TikTok. However, businesses tackle the challenge by making a local person living in a specific country create a TikTok business account and market the products. After account verification, dropshippers can access and use the platform for product marketing.

Fierce competition

As video is found to be the most liked multimedia content that engages and converts users well, creative people moved to TikTok to convince people with impressive videos. However, it lifts the competition and makes it difficult for drop shippers to make their business offerings stand out.

Customer support is not optimal

Customer reviews analysis showcases that customers are a little dissatisfied with the customer support services. The same is the case with video content creators who disagree with the level of support offered by TikTok.

The Result- Does the TikTok Platform Fit Well for Dropshipping?

After weighing the pros and cons of TikTok dropshipping, businesses look for results to see if it’s good to go ahead. TikTok dropshipping is suitable for small businesses with a smaller budget and a decent fan following on TikTok, which helps increase conversion. Here, business model, product type, and user segment are vital in ensuring high performance for the marketing campaign.

Also, for dropshippers, TikTok is not the best option when expecting quick ROI generation. A little effort is required to setup the dropshipping store and product marketing for great results.

A Quick Walkthrough of How TikTok Dropshipping Works

Dropshipping is a type of indirect selling wherein dropshippers act as go-between, and TikTok-like social platforms are leveraged to increase sales. The TikTok dropshipping business model works in a simplified manner.

Dropshippers need to create a TikTok business account and link it with the dropshipping store that can be maintained using the E-commerce platform. Later, products are promoted on TikTok with organic content creation, partnering with influencers, or opting for premium ads.

When TikTokers look at the ads and click on them, they are directed to a dropshipping store to buy a particular product. After order placement, dropshipper will get the amount credited. After that, the order’s request is passed to the real seller who handles order packaging and shipping.

TikTok dropshippers sign a contract with the sellers that illustrates sellers provide the wholesaler price of the products, which are then listed for sale by dropshippers at retail price. The difference amount acts as profit for TikTok dropshippers.

How Can You Advertise Dropshipping Products on TikTok?

As discussed above, TikTok allows dropshippers to market the products effectively using different marketing tactics and strategies. These three ways enable dropshippers to engage and convert the target audience on TikTok.

Content marketing

Like gaining organic traffic with SEO optimization on Google, which allows businesses to increase leads and conversion, the TikTok platform improves connections with compelling content creation. Content marketing is good for low-cost startups and can create wonders with short videos that target users seek. For example, producing a mini-review video of the pet supplies that help keep pets clean and healthy informs the users about the pet-related products. Increase the purchase. However, this marketing approach takes time to see millions of sales.

Importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Your Website

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is well-known across all social channels, and the TikTok platform is no different. When dropshippers connect with influencers with a sizeable following on TikTok to promote their product, it helps increase product visibility and possibly sales. When influencers get ready to post a video on TikTok reviewing the product, a positive boost is experienced in everything, from userbase to demand for the product. However, TikTok dropshippers must be ready for the payment that influencers demand for creating and posting videos. When high ROI is considered, this payment appears worth it.

Paid ads

When TikTok dropshippers seek faster results, selecting the ad purchase option on TikTok is a good move. Drop shippers must create and register business accounts on TikTok to start running paid ads. TikTok provides different types of ads that businesses can choose based on their marketing goals and then create campaigns using Ad Manager. After setting an ad budget for the ad campaign, it will increase leads and conversions accordingly.

Tips to Start a TikTok Dropshipping Business

Setting up a TikTok dropshipping business involves multiple steps that help businesses realize success. Follow the steps to dropship better on TikTok:

Product selection for TikTok dropshipping

Product or niche selection is an essential step for successful TikTok dropshipping. The drop shippers should create a store that sells niche industry products, say women’s apparel. The industry-specific product selection builds your store’s authority and trust in the audience.

Niche TikTok dropshipping store building diminishes competition as most dropshippers create general stores. Also, it helps businesses stay on top of the trends because general store creation won’t allow them to keep up with the changing trends of various industry verticals. Niche selection accompanies reaching out to followers with similar interests and possibly in products that businesses have chosen.

When dropshippers want to sell a range of products to increase the opportunities for sales, they can also promote related products. For example, in addition to selling women’s apparel, businesses can introduce women’s footwear and other accessories. This way, dropshippers can sell only niche products while diversifying the product range.

Collaboration with suppliers

Dropshippers need to connect and collaborate with suppliers that provide quality products to sell through TikTok dropshipping. Before partnering with suppliers, drop shippers should check the quality of products they supply, their shipping services, price range, customer support services, and drop shippers reviews, and consider the platform’s reputation.

After the supplier’s products and other services analysis, strengthening the relationship with a supplier is also essential. All of these together make the TikTok store’s reputation better.

Dropshipping store creation

Businesses can build Dropshipping stores using E-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, Foursquare, etc. Regardless of the choice for e-commerce platforms, make sure the dropshipping store is simple, using a lot of white space and optimal graphic elements. Consider the best web design practices that make the store easy to navigate on all devices and millennial friendly.

Ensure the store looks professional and legally compliant by adding all the pages such as terms & conditions, GDPR policy, return policy, privacy policy, and more. Instead of creating clutter with pop-ups and others, it’s good to integrate features like- upsell, cross-sell, and bundles that help increase conversion.

TikTok business account registration

Once the dropshipping store is ready, dropshippers must create a business account on TikTok and complete the registration process. Initially, dropshippers can register with a personal account and later switch to a business account to enjoy a range of benefits for dropshipping businesses.

The TikTok business account helps dropshippers access a music library from platforms like- YouTube that are free from copyright. Dropshippers are allowed to upload posts that are scheduled for a later date. Additionally, adding an email address and dropshipping store’s link to the TikTok profile improves the store’s visibility. Access to analytics enables viewing the business performance through TikTok dropshipping. Not to forget, accessibility to the business creative hub allows dropshippers to create videos used for marketing purposes.

Integrate dropshipping store on TikTok

When your dropshipping store is created, and the TikTok business account registration process is complete, you can integrate it with the TikTok platform, but it requires at least 1000 followers. The TikTok platform mandates that 1000 followers apply for the TikTok shop. After gaining 1000 followers, dropshippers qualify for the TikTok shop program and integrate the TikTok shop with the Ecommerce store.

Post-integration, dropshippers can manage TikTok shops from the E-commerce dashboard. The TikTok shop setup process is completed from the sales channel selection.

Market products

When the TikTok shop is ready to sell and market the products, everything won’t start automatically. Dropshippers need to create marketing strategies to get the winning results. For example, content marketing drives organic traffic but takes a lot of time. Influencer marketing dramatically increases visibility and conversion, and running paid ad campaigns augments CPM, CTR, and others. Use one of three marketing options or a combination of them to market products effectively.

Hosting a livestream is a way to extend the reach to the large user base you are targeting. Holding giveaways are also popular in spreading the word about the dropshipping business on TikTok.

Complete orders fairly

After order placement by the customers, the order request is forwarded to the dropshipping supplier to fulfill the order. After that, the supplier starts with product packaging and shipping to deliver the order on time. The order tracking information is sent to the customers to help them track the order anytime, anywhere, for shipment details.

TikTok dropshipping provides the best after-sales support services to ensure all the customers’ queries regarding orders are answered convincingly, which makes the customers return to the store again.

Ready to Boost Your Business With TikTok Dropshipping?

TikTok is emerging as a powerful platform to promote and sell products socially. Recent studies are proving the facts. So dropshipping on the TikTok platform is an excellent opportunity to join the gold rush, but it takes time to see the positive results. This blog allows businesses to learn how TikTok dropshipping works, different ways to market products on TikTok, how to start TikTok dropshipping, and the benefits businesses reap with TikTok dropshipping, followed by a couple of tips to fuel sales and profit. Start building the dropshipping TikTok shop to see the difference.