TikTok Shop, in plain English.

48 terms

The platform Fees and money Creators and content Operations Agencies and partners Other platforms

The platform

Account Health Rating

A score TikTok keeps on each shop, covering fulfillment speed, cancellations, customer service and policy compliance. It is not cosmetic: auction eligibility requires a rating above 150, and a falling score restricts features long before it closes a shop.

Countdown Bidding

TikTok’s live auction format, documented by TikTok Shop Academy in June 2026. A host sets a starting bid and a timer; the highest bid when the clock stops wins. A fixed auction ends when the timer reaches zero. An extended auction resets the clock each time a late bid lands, which is the mechanic that produces a real bidding war. Winning bids skip the usual one-hour cancellation window and promotional discounts do not apply.

Cross-border seller

A seller shipping to US customers from outside the United States. Cross-border shops face different fee treatment, longer delivery expectations and tighter scrutiny than domestic ones.

Fulfilled by TikTok

TikTok’s own warehousing and shipping service, abbreviated FBT. Stock sits in TikTok’s facilities and TikTok picks, packs and ships it. It removes work and adds a fee, and it means your inventory is held in a system you do not control. Most of our clients ship from their own 3PL instead.

In-feed video

A normal TikTok video carrying a product link. It is the second-largest selling surface in the US — around 40% of GMV in the same 2026 analyses — and the one most affiliate programmes are built around.

LIVE Shopping

Selling during a live broadcast, with products pinned to the stream so viewers can buy mid-session. It converts several times better than feed content but reaches fewer people per hour. See LIVE selling.

Product qualification documents

The category-specific paperwork TikTok requires before certain products can be listed — lab results, ingredient disclosures, certifications, claims substantiation. Supplements, cosmetics and food all require it, which is why those categories take longer to launch than apparel.

Seller Center

The administrative back end of a TikTok Shop, where listings, orders, promotions, creator collaborations and compliance documents are managed. Access is granted per user, which is why the seller account should always be registered in the brand’s own name, as our FAQ explains.

Shop Performance Score

A separate measure of how a shop serves customers, scored out of five. A score of 2.5 or higher is one of the conditions for running Countdown Bidding auctions.

Shop tab

The storefront on a seller’s or creator’s TikTok profile. It is the least glamorous of the three selling surfaces and, by several 2026 analyses, the largest: Momentum Works and Tabcut data for the first half of 2026 put the shop tab at slightly over half of US GMV.

TikTok Shop

TikTok’s native ecommerce system. Customers buy without leaving the app — from a product in a video, from a live session, or from the shop tab on a seller’s profile. The seller handles the listing, the stock and the shipping; TikTok handles the storefront, the checkout and the payment.

Violation points

Penalties applied to a shop for policy breaches — prohibited claims, listing errors, intellectual property complaints, late shipping. Points accumulate, and enough of them suspend the shop. Most suspensions we are called in to fix are the result of listing copy nobody reviewed.

Fees and money

AOV

Average order value — total revenue divided by number of orders. It matters more on TikTok than on most channels because a flat fulfillment cost eats a $18 order far harder than a $45 one. Raising AOV through bundling is usually the fastest available margin improvement.

Attribution window

The period after someone sees or clicks a creator’s content during which a resulting sale is credited to that creator. It governs who gets paid, and it is the reason creator-reported numbers and shop-reported numbers rarely agree exactly.

CAC

Customer acquisition cost — what it costs, all in, to win one customer. On TikTok Shop it is often understated, because sample costs and creator commission are counted as something other than acquisition spend when they are exactly that.

Contribution margin

What is left from one sale after every variable cost of making that sale — platform fee, creator commission, ad spend, fulfillment, returns and cost of goods. It is the number that decides whether a channel can work. Our margin calculator computes it per unit.

Creator commission

The share of the selling price paid to the creator who made the sale. It comes out of the seller’s side, not TikTok’s. FastMoss’s 2026 medians were roughly 15% for beauty and personal care, 20% for health, 10% for womenswear and for sports and outdoor, and 8% for fashion accessories. Offering below your category median makes recruitment considerably harder, because creators can see what everyone else pays.

GMV

Gross merchandise value — the total value of goods sold before any fees, discounts, returns or costs are taken out. It is the headline number the whole industry quotes, and it tells you nothing about profit. A brand can double GMV and lose more money doing it.

Landed cost

What a unit actually costs you by the time it is sitting on a shelf ready to ship — factory price plus freight, duty, tariffs, inbound handling and any inspection. Quoting ex-works factory price as your cost of goods is the most common way a margin model comes out wrong.

Referral fee

The commission TikTok takes on each sale. As of 2026, US sellers pay 6% on most categories and 5% on some jewelry categories, with payment processing included and no listing or monthly fee. New sellers pay 3% for their first 30 days of selling. The fee is calculated on the customer payment plus platform discounts, excluding tax.

Return rate

The share of orders sent back. A return costs you twice — the lost sale and the outbound shipping you already paid — which is why our calculator charges returns against both. Apparel routinely runs far higher than beauty or food.

ROAS

Return on ad spend — revenue generated divided by advertising cost. A ROAS of 3 means three dollars back for every dollar spent. It is a gross measure, not a profit measure: at a 30% take rate, a ROAS of 3 can still lose money.

Take rate

The total share of the selling price consumed by the channel before cost of goods. Across platform fee, creator commission, fulfillment, ad spend and returns, total take on TikTok Shop can approach 30% of the selling price, per FastMoss’s 2026 analysis. Brands that budget only for the 6% referral fee are the ones who are surprised.

Creators and content

Affiliate

A creator who earns commission on sales they generate, rather than a flat fee for posting. Affiliate economics are the basis of most TikTok Shop programmes: you pay for results, not for reach. See creator affiliate programs.

Creator tiers

Rough bands by audience size — nano up to around 10,000 followers, micro to around 100,000, mid to around 500,000, macro above that. Follower count is a weak predictor of sales. Past selling performance in your category is a much stronger one, which is why we select on it.

GMV Max

TikTok’s automated campaign type for commerce, which hands creative selection and bidding to the platform against a sales goal. Convenient, and it removes much of the manual control a careful operator would otherwise use.

Live host

The person selling on camera during a live session. It is a distinct skill from making videos: holding a room, handling comments, pacing an hour without losing energy. We staff this from our own studios rather than asking brands to find it themselves.

Open collaboration

A commission offer any eligible creator can accept without being invited. It scales effortlessly and attracts volume rather than fit. Useful once you know what converts; noisy before that.

Sample seeding

Sending free product to creators in the hope they post. It is a real and continuing cost that budgets routinely omit. The number worth tracking is not how many samples went out, but what share of recipients actually posted — a question worth asking any agency you are considering.

Shoppable video

Any video carrying a product link so a viewer can buy without leaving it. The format is less important than the first two seconds, which decide whether anyone sees the rest. See content production.

Spark Ads

A TikTok ad format that promotes an existing organic video, including a creator’s, rather than a studio-made advert. It is how a video that is already converting gets more reach without losing the credibility that made it work.

Target collaboration

A commission offer extended to specific named creators, usually with a sample and a brief. Slower than open collaboration and far better matched. Most programmes that work are built from these.

UGC

User-generated content — video made by creators or customers rather than by a brand’s own production. On TikTok the term usually means paid creator content made to look organic.

Operations

3PL

Third-party logistics — a company that stores your stock, picks and packs orders and ships them. Using one is optional on TikTok Shop and often sensible once parcel volume becomes unpredictable. See fulfillment.

Chargeback

A customer disputing a payment with their card issuer rather than requesting a refund. Chargebacks cost the sale, a fee, and shop health, and they rise when delivery expectations set on camera do not match what fulfillment actually does.

Kitting

Assembling several items into one sellable unit before it is ordered — a bundle, a gift set, a starter pack. It raises average order value and is one of the few margin levers that does not require renegotiating with a factory.

Lead time

How long it takes from placing a purchase order to having sellable stock on hand. Long lead times and viral demand are a poor combination, which is why we ask about it before a launch rather than after.

Pick and pack

The act of retrieving the right items for an order and packing them for shipment, usually charged per order plus per additional item. On low-priced TikTok orders this flat cost is a larger share of the sale than most brands expect.

Safety stock

Extra inventory held to absorb a demand spike. It matters more here than on other channels, because a single video can move a month of volume in a day, and a stockout mid-flight wastes the demand and damages the listing.

SKU

Stock keeping unit — a unique code for one specific sellable item, down to size and colour. Live selling exposes SKU discipline quickly: a host cannot sell what the system cannot find.

Agencies and partners

Commission-only

An arrangement where the agency is paid solely from sales it generates, with no retainer. It shifts risk to the agency and usually comes with a narrower scope, since nobody funds a full operating team on speculation.

Managed shop

An engagement where the agency runs day-to-day shop operations — listings, pricing, orders, compliance, reporting — under permissions the brand grants and can revoke. The seller account, the sales data and the customer relationship stay with the brand. See shop management.

Percentage of GMV

An agency fee calculated as a share of sales generated. It aligns incentives on revenue, though not automatically on profit — an agency paid on GMV has no particular reason to care about your contribution margin unless the agreement makes it care.

Retainer

A fixed monthly fee for an agency’s work. The structural question matters more than the amount: ask whether the retainer is charged on top of a percentage of sales or credited against it. Ours is credited against it, which is not the industry norm.

TikTok Shop Partner

An agency formally certified by TikTok to work on sellers’ or creators’ behalf. Certification is per capability rather than general. DCA holds four — representing brands, representing talent, affiliate marketing, and the entertainment side of TikTok. Many agencies describing themselves as TikTok Shop agencies hold none, so it is reasonable to ask for documentation.

Other platforms

Douyin

TikTok’s Chinese counterpart, operated separately by ByteDance for the domestic Chinese market. Its live commerce ecosystem is several years ahead of the US one, which is why so much of what arrives on TikTok Shop has already been tested there. See selling into China.

Drop

A scheduled release of limited stock at an announced time. It concentrates demand into a window, which suits live selling and auctions, and punishes any weakness in fulfillment.

Whatnot

A live-selling marketplace built around auctions and scheduled shows, strongest in collectibles, trading cards, sneakers and jewelry. Buyers arrive by following a named host rather than through an algorithm. See Whatnot live selling and our comparison of the two platforms.