Most TikTok Shop Sellers Are Stuck Because They’re Asking the Wrong Questions

I’ve sat through a lot of TikTok Shop webinars lately. And while the format is often different—brand panels, Q&A, or tactical deep dives—the same questions keep popping up:

• “What’s a good commission rate for affiliates?”

• “How should I price my product?”

• “What kind of content works best?”

These are fair questions—but the truth is, they’re too general to be helpful.

There’s no single playbook that guarantees success on TikTok Shop. What works for a beauty brand selling $25 hero SKUs might totally flop for a premium food brand with a $50 AOV. Too many sellers are looking for plug-and-play answers in a landscape that demands custom strategies.

Why General Advice Falls Flat

TikTok Shop is still early. What works is highly dependent on your category, your product, your margins, and your goals. When someone asks, “What commission rate should I offer?” the only honest answer is: well, it depends.

Is your product $30 or $90?
Does it have a high repeat rate or is it a one-time novelty?
Is your goal to get 100 creators posting quickly, or are you optimizing for high-quality UGC and conversions?

These details matter. A creator might post three videos for a $30 skincare serum at a 15% commission—but might completely ignore a $12 kitchen gadget at the same rate.

Trying to apply one-size-fits-all advice to a marketplace this nuanced is like trying to use a fast fashion growth strategy to sell luxury handbags. The mechanics might look similar, but the playbooks should be very different.

So How Do You Get Smarter?

Instead of asking generic questions, the best sellers ask better ones. They zoom into their category, their margins, and their business goals—and make decisions from there.

Here’s how to think more strategically:

1. Study Your Category Comps

Before you set your pricing or commission structure, look at what’s actually happening in your vertical. This is your version of market research—but through the lens of TikTok.

Let’s say you’re selling a functional food product with a $35 AOV. You’re not competing with $13 impulse-buy lip gloss. You’re competing with other premium wellness or snack brands.

So ask yourself:

• What’s the average price range of products in your category?

• What types of creators are working with top shops?

• Are top sellers pushing bundles or individual SKUs?

• What commission rates are consistently getting picked up?

You can get these insights through:

• Manual research on TikTok

• Tools like Kalodata or FastMoss

• Connecting with your category manager

These aren’t things you copy and paste. But they help you make grounded, data-informed decisions—rather than relying on generalizations.

2. Use Best Practices as a Starting Point—Not a Rulebook

There are patterns that work.

• Title your listings clearly and simply.

• Add product usage and benefit visuals to your PDP.

• Give creators short, specific briefs (bullet points, not bulk texts).

• Incentivize creators with tiered commission structures.

These are all best practices—and they do increase your odds of success.

But they’re not guarantees. And they shouldn’t be treated like gospel.

Let’s talk about commission rate, since it’s the most common example. Yes, 15% is a typical starting point. But that only works if:

• Your product has visual appeal or existing traction

• It’s easy to demo on video

• It has a clear, immediate benefit

If your product takes more effort to shoot, is highly educational, or doesn’t “wow” on camera—expect to go higher. 20–30%+ is not unusual for slower categories or new products that need traction.

Again: context matters more than rules.

3. Be Realistic With Your Goals

This is where most sellers misstep. They’re asking for tactics when they haven’t clearly defined the strategy.

If your goal is:

• Top-line growth/TOF brand awareness → You’ll likely need aggressive offers, competitive pricing, and high creator content output.

• Profitability → You’ll be more selective with creators, more conservative with commission, and lean on owned content and lives.

• Brand building → Your focus may shift to higher-quality UGC, premium packaging, and unique launch moments.

These goals are all valid. But they require different decisions around pricing, incentives, and promotion.

The mistake is trying to pursue all three at once—without tradeoffs. You can’t offer a 40% commission and protect your margin and spend big on ads and expect every video to convert.

You have to prioritize. And more importantly, you have to test.

4. Ask Better Questions

Instead of chasing generic advice, challenge yourself to ask sharper, more strategic questions.

Instead of:
❌ “What commission rate should I offer?”
Ask:
✅ “What are the top 5 products in my category offering, and what content are they getting in return?”

Instead of:
❌ “How do I price my product?”
Ask:
✅ “What’s the perceived value of this product on TikTok—and how can I structure the offer to feel like a no-brainer?”

Instead of:
❌ “How do I get creators to post?”
Ask:
✅ “What creator incentives (commission, upfront fee, gifting, retention) make sense based on my goals, margins, and CAC targets?”

The sellers who are succeeding aren’t asking more questions. They’re asking smarter ones—and then taking action based on what they learn.

There’s No Perfect Playbook—But There Is a Smarter Way

One of the biggest myths about TikTok Shop is that there’s some secret formula.

There’s not.

The brands that win are the ones who:

• Analyze their category deeply

• Test aggressively with realistic expectations

• Build systems around what works

• Iterate relentlessly

Even top shops doing $500K/month are still testing new hooks, refining offers, and adjusting creator programs every few weeks. Nothing is perfect in the TikTok land; you just keep innovating and testing.

Final Thoughts

If you’re still figuring things out, that’s okay. Most sellers are.

But stop looking for universal advice that ignores your context.
Start studying your space.
Start testing what works for you.
And most importantly—keep going.

No one’s cracked the entire TikTok Shop code yet. But the ones closest to it?
They’re not copying answers.
They’re building playbooks that fit their brand.