Wednesday, July 26

#1 - 👀 TikTok’s store is coming very soon

📰 TL;DR - I’ve got oodles of links for you today, but undoubtedly the biggest e-commerce story right now is fresh details on TikTok’s new shop coming to the US. According to a report, TikTok is launching the shop as soon as next month. Unlike TikTok Shop, this is a store owned and operated by TikTok, selling Chinese-made goods. TikToks takes care of the logistics and the goal is to turn viral trends into quickly buyable goods. There have been rumors about this for ages, but now it’s happening.

💡 Insight - I have a couple of thoughts about this, one good, one not so good. On the plus size, if TikTok makes itself more of a shopping destination, even if it’s their own goods, that could have a positive effect on elevating TikTok Shop for DTC brands. My big concern though is that if TikTok sees an original product doing well, their next move will be to make and sell their own knockoff. But this is all theoretical of course! The other tidbit is that TikTok eventually plans to include manufacturers outside of China, meaning perhaps they’ll look for US brands to scoop up one day.

➡️ You can read the article here...

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#3 - 🤔 How to use TikTok’s ad library

📰 TL;DR - In other TikTok news, their ad library is now live and ready for you to peruse. You can access it here as long as you have a TikTok business account. It’s literally a library of ads brands have run on the app, and you can sort it all by location, industry, objective, likes, and more. The tweet below gives some tips for how best to use it, chief of which is doing competitor research. The other good tip here is that you can filter ads by target demographic, which is powerful.

💡 Insight - To be honest the library takes a little tinkering to actually find standout examples — it’s quicker to get an idea of what the average ad looks like. And according to what I saw, UGC-style ads are by far the most popular. They’re unpolished, short, and target some specific keywords. Definitely dig around for yourself and see what your competition is up to.

➡️ You can read the tweet here...

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

🚨 ADS - Storia has dozens of case studies showing how they increase ad performance while helping you cut agency fees! Learn more about their creative + media buying flat monthly fee here.

📦 UPS - If you use UPS for shipping, you can unclench a little. A new deal means a strike may not happen. Read more here.

💗 THINK PINK - The Barbie bump is real — searches for all things pink and pretty have risen. Read here.

🤖 CHATGPT - Here’s a great list of Shopify apps with ChatGPT integration.

👕 POSHMARK - Poshmark has a neat new tool that lets shoppers search items based on an uploaded image — a smart idea for a resale site. Read here.

#5 - 💵 Should you ask shoppers for tips?

📰 TL;DR - A TikTok is going around that shows a guy complaining about being asked for a tip from a Shopify store. He doesn’t reveal what the store is and frankly, it’s not the most viral TikTok, but it did get turned into a NY Post article. What is very telling is the comments — they’re mostly people complaining about being asked for tips in situations where they weren’t actually provided meaningful service. One person wrote, “like is the tip gonna make it ship faster orrr.” Fair point.

💡 Insight - Tips are super tricky right now. There’s a cultural conversation about “tip creep” — both being asked for tips at more places and the expected % of tips going up on POS machines. The reaction to this TikTok is a pretty good indicator of how people respond to tips from an e-commerce store. I was trying to think of a situation where this would be a good idea. Maybe if it wasn’t phrased as a tip, but as “buy the warehouse workers a beer” or something. Or if there is a service-heavy component to your products. But even then the question is why you aren’t compensating your workers well enough. Altogether, it’s a very risky idea.

➡️ You can read the article here...