How To Start Dropshipping On TikTok Shop In 2024

As we all know, technological advancements and the growth of the internet create new possibilities and tools every day. The boom of social networks allows us to consider new business models. So, if you were wondering how to start a dropshipping business on TikTok 2024, this article will serve as your first step to expanding your business and increasing your sales in the easiest and most practical way.

Are you looking for opportunities to increase your income? Do you want to take your dropshipping business to the next level? Are you skilled at using TikTok and want to capitalize on it? This article can help as a guide and inspiration for all these cases.

Join us to learn what you need to do dropshipping on TikTok, the costs involved, how it works, and the steps you must follow to accomplish this task.

Is It Possible To Dropship On TikTok In 2024?

Not only is dropshipping on TikTok totally possible, it’s one of the best strategies you can choose to develop your business. As we write this article, hundreds of people are taking advantage of the benefits of integrating TikTok with their dropshipping online store. Keep reading to become one of them!

While dropshipping still has a low barrier to entry and requires low investment risk, it has become somewhat more complex over the years. TikTok makes dropshipping much more straightforward than it already is, especially regarding marketing. It’s a platform that can make you go viral overnight, and if one of your videos goes viral, it’s almost certain that the rest will follow suit.

Moreover, it’s not just easy and practical for us as dropshippers, but it also offers our customers and potential buyers absolute simplicity when it comes to purchasing. You might think that if it’s so easy to do dropshipping on TikTok, you could just stop reading, set up your online store, and you’re done. But wait, paying attention to the steps outlined below will save you time, money, and headaches!

Requirements To Sell On TikTok Shop

The first thing you must be clear about when building your dropshipping business on TikTok is which platforms you need. Basically, we’re going to use:

1. AutoDS
2. Shopify
3. Aftership
4. TikTok

Each platform plays an essential part in the process, but don’t worry! We’ll delve deeper into what you need from each one. But before we begin, you need to know about other requirements that need to be fulfilled.

Requirements For Individual Sellers

To sell on TikTok Shop as an individual, you must meet specific criteria:

• Legal status: As an individual seller, TikTok requires you to be a natural person with valid U.S. identification, such as a passport or driver’s license. This ensures that sellers are legally recognized entities and can enter into contracts. 
• Age requirement: You must be at least 18 years old to sell at a TikTok shop. This way, the platform ensures that the sellers are legally competent to enter business agreements and transactions. 

Requirements For Business Sellers

To dropship on TikTok shop as a business entity, we need to fulfill certain requirements: 

• Legal business registrations: First, your business must be legally registered in the United States. This includes providing relevant company registration documents such as articles of incorporation or business licenses. With this, TikTok ensures that sellers are legitimate businesses operating within the legal framework. 
• Employer Identification Number (EIN): In addition to business registration, you’ll need to obtain an Employer Identification Number from the Internal Revenue Service. This unique identifier is used for tax purposes and helps TikTok verify the legitimacy of your business. 

Verification Process 

Both individual and business sellers must undergo a verification process that includes the following:

• Providing Personal or Business Information:  TikTok requires us to provide personal information, such as company name and address. This information identifies and verifies sellers and ensures they are who they claim to be. 
• Submitting Tax Documents: Sellers must submit tax documents necessary for tax reporting purposes and to ensure compliance with tax regulations. 
• Providing bank account details: To receive payments from TikTok for sales made through the platform, we have to provide bank account details. This includes providing the bank’s name, account number, and routing number. Keep in mind that you absolutely need to have a United States bank account to start dropshipping on TikTok.

Follower Count Requirement

While no specific follower count is required to become a TikTok Shop seller, you will need a minimum of 5.000 followers to collaborate with creators if you wish to participate in the TikTok affiliate program. This requirement ensures that we have a certain amount of influence and audience rhea to promote products on the platform effectively.

Shop Name Guidelines 

Of course, we need to choose a name for our TikTok shop that complies with TikTok’s guidelines.

• Accurate Representation: Our shop name should accurately represent your business and the products we sell. This helps our audience identify our brand and builds trust and credibility. 
• Prohibited Content: TikTok prohibits shop names that contain offensive, misleading, or prohibited content. This includes content that promotes violence, discrimination, or illegal activities. Ensuring compliance with these guidelines helps maintain a positive and safe user environment.

In summary, to start dropshipping on TikTok, whether as an individual or a business, we must ensure we have the proper legal status, complete the verification process, and adhere to TikTok’s guidelines regarding shop names and other account details. Through these details, we promote transparency, trust, and compliance with legal and regulatory standards.

What Are The Costs Of Start Dropshipping On TikTok 2024

If you’re just starting in the world of dropshipping, or if you’ve already chosen that path to sell your products, you’re likely aware that a business model requires a low initial investment. This parameter also holds for TikTok dropshipping businesses, but there are inevitable costs to consider, and these are the main ones:

Building an E-Commerce Store

The initial cost of building an eCommerce store can vary depending on various factors. Of course, we can avoid this investment if we choose a free platform like Shopify. Also, you can save money using an AI builder like our AI Shopify store in less than 2 minutes.

TikTok Shop Account Setup

There is no direct cost to set up a TikTok Shop account. However, you will need to go through their verification process, which is essential for getting started. It’s important to know that TikTok’s shopping policy requires orders to be shipped within three days. Choosing reliable suppliers and fulfillment methods is crucial to meeting this requirement and ensuring customer satisfaction. 

Leveraging automation tools like Fulfilled By AutoDS, we can streamline the process and reduce account restrictions.

Product Sourcing And Inventory

As we said before, with dropshipping, you don’t need to invest in purchasing inventory upfront, significantly reducing initial costs. Instead, expenses arise when you place supplier orders to fulfill customer purchases. To streamline this process and make it more efficient, consider using tools and platforms that offer features such as automated order processing and supplier management. Our $1-14 Day Trial provides an opportunity to explore these functionalities and assess their impact on your business.

Marketing And Advertising

While organic promotion on TikTok can be effective, investing in marketing and advertising may be necessary to accelerate growth and increase sales. Paid advertising campaigns allow you to target specific audiences and amplify your reach on the platform. Starting with a modest daily budget allows you to test different strategies and refine your approach based on performance. It’s important to monitor your advertising expenses closely and adjust your budget as needed to optimize your return on investment.

How Dropshipping On TikTok Shop Works

As you may already know, dropshipping is a business model in which you receive an order from your customer and forward it to your supplier, who manages the inventory and the shipping. As dropshippers, we profit from the remaining gain between the source and store prices.

We are talking about a three-party business model which allows you to run a business without maintaining stock. But How does this model work on TikTok? It’s easy:

When customers place orders on your TikTok Shop, you’ll forward those orders to your supplier. The supplier will then ship the item, fulfill the order, and provide you with a tracking number. You must update your TikTok Shop with this tracking number to inform your customers of their purchase status.

Let’s say you sell in your online store a glass that costs 50 dollars a glass that your source sells at 25 dollars. The remaining 25 will be your profit. 

But now, where do the various applications we mentioned earlier come from? In the next subtitle, we’ll delve deeper into the step-by-step process of integrating your dropshipping business with TikTok, but we can tell you in advance that each platform plays an essential role in this process.

What Role Does Each Platform Play?

In this case, Shopify will work as our website. Don’t worry, you don’t have to invest a lot of time customizing your Shopify store or making it user-friendly since our customers won’t use it very much in this TikTok dropshipping business model. On the other hand, AutoDS will work as your virtual ally, making your work much more manageable. How? By fulfilling the orders for you. 

AutoDS eliminates all those little steps involved in receiving an order and forwarding it to your supplier. Automating your dropshipping business lets you focus on your business’s prior decisions, saving you time and money.

Starting dropshipping on TikTok implies that we make a smooth connection between our TikTok Shop and our Shopify store, so we need to use Aftership. Without it, you can’t leverage automation or other dropshipping advantages.

Beginners Tip: There’s a TikTok Sellers Shop App, but don’t get your hopes up. It’s designed with many bugs, doesn’t have good user reviews, and doesn’t fulfill its objectives. That’s why we recommend Aftership. Don’t waste your valuable time! 

These are the main uses we will give to Shopify, AutoDS, and Aftership. Meanwhile, TikTok is our public face. It’s where our audience accesses our products and buys them.

So, in summary, Shopify connects to AutoDS, and Aftership does. When a customer places an order in your TikTok Shop, Aftership takes the order and redirects it to Shopify, which, through AutoDS, automates and fulfills the order. Once the order is fulfilled, the information returns to Aftership, and Aftership sends it to TikTok to inform your customer.

Sounds too long? Don’t worry, we’ll break it down step by step in the following section.

Start Dropshipping On TikTok 2024 – Step By Step

Okay, let’s break it down step by step. In order to make a successful dropshipping TikTok business, make sure you go through all the following processes.

Shopify Setup

Shopify is the platform where our orders will be rerouted. Remember that, as we said before, our customers won’t go to our Shopify store since TikTok is the front door of our business. So we will make it easy and use AI to build our entire Shopify store. 

How? In the first place, we’re gonna sing in on AutoDS. If you don’t have an account yet, remember that you can try our 14-day trial for $1!

Once inside AutoD, you must follow these steps:

1. Click on “Add Store.” 
2. Choose the “build with AI” option.
   
   
3. Select the Pre-Build Store with AI option.
   
   
4. Then, you have to choose your niche. You would like to know that we have already provided you with hand-picked products for your chosen niche, no matter which option you choose. Once this is done, AutoDS will provide you with all the necessary information to access your Shopify store.
5. Next, you must log in to Shopify using the account information provided by AutoDS and select a plan. We recommend opting for the monthly plan. Don’t worry, with your business up and running, you will recover the small investment required for this step.
   
   

As you can see, both Shopify and AutoDS are involved in this step. Without the automation tools provided by AutoDS, none of this could be done. The good thing is that with these simple steps, you already have your Shopify store set up with automated processes.

TikTok Shop Setup

1. It may sound obvious, but the first thing you must do is log in on TikTok. To avoid issues, we suggest you do not enter your personal or previous account, try to create a new one! Make sure you choose your region and sign up correctly.
2. Select the type of business you will be running. You may go under sole proprietorship mode if you have an LLC and it’s just you. But you can always choose the individual option.
   
   
3. In the verification process, you may end up denied, if so, don’t worry, apply, and eventually, you’ll get accepted. It’s just a common mistake of the TikTok platform, but don’t panic. It happens to almost everyone.
   
   
4. After that, you will have to complete your shop information, such as shop name, primary product, tax information.
   
5. Once you submit all the information and your business is registered, you are one step closer to start dropshipping on TikTok succesfully. To do so, you need to click on the “Set Up Shipping” option and fill in all the empty spaces with your shipping information. Of course, as dropshippers, our products get shipped to different places, but TikTok requires a specific address to show your customers. You can use a virtual mailbox or your address as well.
   
   
6. Once all that information is successfully submitted, we have to click on “Orders” to ensure we complete one of the most critical steps in this process: go to shipping options to choose Seller Shipping to get your tracking numbers. Otherwise, TikTok will label your products by default. Make sure you create a shipping template before you do this.
   
   
   
7. Now that our shipping option is configured, let’s see what the TikTok Shop menu offers us.
   
   

• In the Manage Order section, we will find all of our orders.
• In the Fulfillment Settings, we can change details like our order handling time. However, we suggest you do not change TikTok’s 3-day shipping policy.
• In the Manage Products section, you will find information about your product. 
• In the Marketing tabs, you can opt to create ads for your products, but we recommend you choose an organic way to promote them. It’s super easy to go viral on TikTok!
  
  
• On the Affiliate tab, you can partner with affiliates and influencers who are looking for products to promote. 
• You will see which videos bring more customers and traffic to your store by clicking on Analytics. This information is always precious.

Aftership Setup

1. Setting up your AfterShip account is easy, of course. First, you have to install the app. We mention this only because you will find many different AfterShip versions. Make sure to choose the AfterShip Feed for the TikTok Shop one.
2. Once you installed it, connect the app to your TikTok shop store.
   
   
3. Aftership will work by improving the connection between our TikTok and Shopify accounts. Now you’re synchronized!
   

Product Research

By looking for trendy products on TikTok, you can see what items sell the most. We suggest you use the phrase “TikTok made me buy it”, followed by the item that better fits your niche. 

Conducting promising product research is vital to reaching success in your dropshipping business. 

Concerning the suppliers, since TikTok needs you to ship their items within three days, choosing Amazon is a great idea. Leverage their fast shipping speeds!

Importing Products

Once you choose your ideal products, it’s time to import them to your store. To achieve this step, you have to follow the next steps:

1. Log in on AutoDS and choose our Shopify store. 
2. Click on Add Product and then go for the option Multiple Products.
   
   
3. Copy the product’s Link/Code and paste it on AutoDS.
   
   
4. Click on the Drafts tab to access your products and change their details: name, price, tags, images, etc.
   
   
5. You need to have the same skew number in your Shopify and TikTok accounts. To do that, go to the Bulk Edit tab on AutoDS and click on Show Columns to see the skew numbers.
   
   
6. Add the product to your TikTok Shop and make sure you paste the Skew Numbers that you have on your Shopify Store. 
7. Once both stores are synchronized by Aftership, your orders will be fulfilled by AutoDS and automatically placed with your supplier.

Store Optimization

Yes, it seems like a lot. But once you see your sales increase, you’ll know it was worth it!

The next step is to optimize your store, as everything enters through the eyes. Since we’re talking about TikTok, we must focus on creating videos that reach our ideal audience. We recommend taking the following into account:

1. Creating an original logo: How you present yourself to your audience is very important and is present in every detail. Starting with a well-designed logo representing your store is key to making your store work. By visiting sites like Kittl, you can create them quickly and conveniently.
2. Connect Your Seller Account to Your TikTok account. For this step you will need to make a new TikTok account that will be primarily geared towards the niche you’re targeting. We’re going to connect this account to the TikTok seller account. Don’t forget that the personal account at this stage transforms into a business account and thus becomes our official seller account.

Order Fulfillment

Now you are ready to make some sales! To recap: our customers bought through our TikTok videos, Aftership connected TikTok with Shopify, and Shopify connected directly with AutoDS. From here, our order will be automatically rerouted to our supplier.

As we said before, to start dropshipping on TikTok, Amazon is the most reliable supplier in terms of shipping time and other features. That is why we strongly recommend using Fullfiled By AutoDS. 

With this feature, you gain access to different Amazon buying accounts, which allows you to avoid platform restrictions for shipping to different addresses. 

To do this, make sure to go to the Suppliers tab on AutoDS and then look for the Orders Settings to activate Fulfilled By AutoDS.

Marketing

Of course, the way you promote your products is key to start dropshipping on TikTok.

We recommend that you do this yourself. Don’t be afraid to try! On TikTok, organic-looking videos that we can relate to work very well. Appeal to the emotional components of your products to create trending videos.

That’s why we recommend that you continue uploading videos that are not directly related to the products. This way, you will build an audience much more successfully. Of course, when building an audience successfully, it gets easier to generate a specific niche and increase your sales.

Don’t discard influencer marketing! By using TikTok’s affiliate section, you can easily access the benefits of having influencers promote your products and attract people to your account. We recommend researching what type of influencers might be most suitable for your business.

Scaling Your TikTok Dropshipping Business

As you probably already know, dropshipping is a highly scalable business. In the case of TikTok Dropshipping, it’s better to focus on continuously improving your account by adding more videos and products rather than trying to open many accounts.

If you’re willing to risk being banned, you have nothing to lose by trying, but it’s always better to invest in your operational store and seek new ways to implement it day by day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Legal To Dropship On TikTok?

Of course! If TikTok is legal in your country, you won’t have any issues. Remember that it’s more effective to dropship on TikTok Shop than on ‘regular’ TikTok.

How Can I Start Dropshipping On TikTok In 2024?

Connecting your TikTok Shop with Shopify through Aftership and leveraging the automation and supplier advantages provided by AutoDS, is the best option on how to start dropshipping on TikTok 2024.

Does AutoDS Support Dropshipping On TikTok? 

This is a secret, but yes, we are working on a feature that will soon allow you to start dropshipping on TikTok automatically by using AutoDS!

Conclusion

We’ve reached the end! We know this information might seem like a lot, so we wanted to break it down step by step to give you all the information you need in order to integrate your TikTok Shop with Shopify and AutoDS correctly.

Apps and online stores are imperfect, and both TikTok and Shopify still have things to improve on their platforms. That’s why the abovementioned method is the best way to make your dropshipping business work on TikTok.

By connecting the apps through Aftership and automating some processes, all that’s left is to unleash creativity to generate high-quality organic content that allows us to reach our ideal audience. 

If you want to continue delving deeper, check out our marketing blog, where you can continue exploring different strategies and tools offered by the beautiful world of dropshipping. We suggest starting with one of the following articles:

• Chinese Websites Similar To Alibaba To Diversify Sourcing
• The Best Product Research Tools & Methods For Dropshipping
• Mastering Facebook Ads For Shopify: A Guide For Success