How to sell on TikTok Shop: requirements, listings, videos, fees and fulfilment

What TikTok Shop is and where sellers can open a shop

People ask how to sell on tiktok shop as if it were a button inside the app. It is a marketplace with its own seller accounts. Wikipedia says TikTok Shop officially launched in September 2023 after beta testing that began in November 2022 in the UK and several Southeast Asian countries. It lets users move between watching content and shopping without leaving the app, through shoppable content, livestreams and a storefront.

Where you can open a shop depends on the country. TikTok’s seller site groups its markets into the Americas (the United States, Mexico, Brazil), Asia and Europe, and its FAQ says to sign up for each region you want to sell in, because the shop operates locally in each market. A TikTok newsroom post of 28 May 2026 adds Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland to the European list and describes a Sell Across Europe feature. Russia is not among the markets listed on the seller site. Lists change, so read the page for your market.

Seller requirements and onboarding: identity, tax and verification

The US Seller University describes the sign-up in five steps: register and accept the terms, verify your business, submit tax details, upload your first product and link an official TikTok account. A seller chooses a business type, either an individual or a sole proprietorship, corporation or partnership. US sellers complete a W-9 form and non-US sellers a W-8 form. TikTok warns that business and personal information cannot be changed after submission, and that products stay invisible until document verification is complete.

The eligibility page for US sellers sets concrete conditions: applicants must be at least 18, must reside in the USA, and must hold a valid US passport, driver’s licence or state ID. Files must be under 10 MB, in JPG, PNG, JPEG or PDF format. Expired documents, paper forms of identification, cropped files and photos of a screen are rejected. Other markets have their own pages with their own conditions, so a US checklist cannot simply be copied.

Some products cannot be sold at all. TikTok’s Prohibited Products Policy names firearms, ammunition and weapons, alcohol and tobacco, vapes, illegal drugs, gambling and adult products, among others, and says the policy may be more restrictive than applicable law. Restricted categories, such as e-bikes and electric scooters, may be sold only when they meet category requirements. For violations TikTok may deduct account health points, remove listings or revoke selling access.

Product listings that pass review: images, titles and descriptions

TikTok’s US Product Listing Policy is specific. A seller may upload up to nine square images, one of them the main image, which must show the front of the product on a pure white background; images must be at least 600 by 600 pixels and in colour, and repeated angles are not allowed. The title should name the brand, if the seller is authorised to use it, the product type and the details needed to identify the item. The description must run to at least 30 words and avoid vague claims.

The same policy lists what to leave out: seller names or links in titles, subjective phrases such as Best Seller, percentage discounts, claims that a product is a dupe or knock-off, and anything that tries to send customers off TikTok Shop, such as a QR code or a website link. Listing a product in the wrong category is itself a violation.

Shoppable videos and LIVE: how a viewer becomes a buyer

A shoppable video is an ordinary video with a product link. TikTok’s help page explains that before posting you tap Add Link and choose a single product, the whole shop page, a category or a collection, and viewers then see a small shopping-bag icon in the lower-left corner of the video. Links can also be added to videos posted within the last 30 days through the Creator Center. The link is the bridge, so the video still has to give a reason to tap it.

TikTok’s creator and content policy guide sets limits on what such content may say. It asks for truthful and realistic content, forbids medical claims, warns against absolute wording that guarantees results, requires promoted prices to be accurate and rejects prompts to buy through external links or messaging services. It also requires creators to disclose AI use in their content in certain cases.

LIVE is the second route. The seller site lists LIVE and LIVE Auctions among its selling tools, and the auction rules show how strict the format is: a seller needs an Account Health Rating above 150, each product link must match one physical item, claims about price, value or scarcity need evidence, and the item must ship within two days.

The creator affiliate programme and how commission works

Wikipedia describes the Creator Affiliate Program as the part of TikTok Shop that connects creators with sellers for commission-based promotion. TikTok’s help pages split it into two modes. In a target collaboration you invite chosen creators to promote chosen products. In an open collaboration your products are visible to all creators, and you can switch on an approval mode so that only approved creators take part.

Commission is yours to set, from 1% to 80% in both modes, and a target collaboration rate always overrides an open one. Edits take effect after five days for target collaborations and after thirty days for open ones, so a rate cannot be changed on a whim. Free samples can be offered in both modes. Because the commission comes out of your margin, decide it from your costs first, not from what looks attractive to creators.

Fees and payouts: what TikTok’s own pages say

On the US seller site, TikTok states that there is no setup fee and that it charges a 6% commission on each sale, which its fee pages call the referral fee. The fee page gives the formula as the rate multiplied by the customer’s payment plus any platform discount, minus tax, and notes that the base includes the shipping fee the customer pays. Most categories sit at 6%; some jewellery subcategories and pre-owned categories are at 5%.

These are US figures, and other countries publish their own. Add the creator commission, shipping and returns, and the real cost of a sale looks different from the headline number. Payment details and a tax form are part of registration, so ask your market’s page how and when payouts are made.

Fulfilment and customer service deadlines that can close a shop

The US Fulfillment Policy sets clocks for every order. An order must be marked In Transit within two business days of Awaiting Shipment, or it counts as a late dispatch. TikTok recommends keeping the late dispatch rate at or below 4% and says enforcement may apply above 10%. Sellers must keep a valid tracking rate of at least 95% and an on-time delivery rate of at least 80%, and a seller-fault cancellation rate of 2.5% or less.

Customers are also on a clock. The Customer Service Policy requires sellers to answer all inquiries within 24 hours and to keep a 24-hour response rate of at least 90%. Missing the rate may lead to violations, and the possible actions include deducting account health points, removing listings, restricting chat access or deactivating the shop. Returns and refunds follow a separate policy, so read it before you set your own terms.

What to prepare before you launch, and what to hand to a studio

Choose the market first, because everything else depends on it: the account, the documents, the fees and the deadlines. Verification asks for the owner’s own identity documents, so have them ready whoever does the rest. Work out the margin per product after the referral fee, the creator commission, packaging and shipping. Check that you can dispatch within the deadline and that someone can answer messages within a day.

Registration and the first listings are a job you can do yourself in a few evenings. Ordering makes sense when you have many products to photograph and describe, when videos have to be made in volume, or when you want a plan for approaching creators. VITON13 Studio offers a TikTok Shop launch package: opening and setting up the shop, product listings, five short videos and a creator outreach plan.

The package costs $113 and takes 7–10 working days. Marketplace fees are paid separately. As a free draft before you pay, the studio prepares one product listing and one video script. A related package, ten AI UGC ads, is $73. Nobody can promise sales on a marketplace; what you can compare is the listing, the script and the plan.