TikTok Shop and the Next Phase of Shoppable Fashion Content
FSW examines the impact of creator-focused platforms like TikTok Shop on fashion content and what they mean for the survival of fashion and luxury brands.
For the past week, the Fashion Strategy Weekly (FSW) team has been conducting a content experiment on TikTok.
Our unique value-add is to provide tips on content strategy using examples from fashion and luxury that are useful to both content creators and brands to debunk a lot of the poor or ill-informed content advice out there.
Our internal goals for this TikTok experiment are simple:
Learn how TikTok as a platform works.
Understand what video content types perform best (i.e. short vs long, talking head vs demo, greenscreen vs non-greenscreen, etc).
Get an insider view on how the TikTok affiliate program and TikTok Shop work in practice.
Study the potential opportunities and challenges for fashion and luxury brands on TikTok and TikTok shop.
While we are still gathering our insights, one takeaway from our content experiment is clear from the outset: TikTok Shop is putting the future of shopping into the hands of content creators in real-time, which is simultaneously chaotic and enthralling.
Now is the time for fashion and luxury brands to take a step back and invest in foundational approaches like content strategy if they are to survive and evolve in this constantly-evolving shopping landscape.
Here are some insights we have learned.
TikTok Shop rewards the bold and the vision-focused.
The data for TikTok Shop do not lie. Brands and creators choosing to participate in what is in essence live user testing are reaping the rewards. The site has a fully integrated e-commerce platform that allows brands and creators easy access to all the content creation and brand management tools they need with all the built-in analytics bells and whistles.
Before we created our FSW account, we set out to understand how TikTok as a platform works and see if we needed to adjust the set of questions we set out to answer.
From a content perspective, we learned two things by studying videos from top-performing brands and creators in the fashion and beauty categories:
Clear up-front messaging and a direct call-to-action are highly effective. Creators in the fashion and beauty categories are smart and focus on either authentic takes on product marketing through a personalized sell or on educating audiences on the product value or uniqueness. This is not to say that these categories lack an element of the random but that many of the more successful creators have put in the work to define their messaging and get to the point quickly.
There does not seem to be a correlation between video content type and sales. Top-performing creator videos run the gamut from live shopping events to short, sub-30-second buy-this-now approaches. Live shopping videos are currently a huge moneymaker on TikTok Shop and produce some very long videos. Consumers globally are tuning in.
From the TikTok Shop dashboard, we only saw a few mainstream brands within the fashion and beauty categories: Tarte Cosmetics, e.l.f. Cosmetics, and Temu. These are all social-first brands with very refined content marketing strategies in place for TikTok.
While some luxury brands like Givenchy, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and even Cartier have a presence on TikTok, these are effectively broadcast marketing channels that appear as either paid ads at login or as well-curated videos on their feed. The consumer engagement is minimal. Indeed, only Gucci follows anyone back and they are Sabato de Sarno and Kering.
On the e-commerce side, there is no engagement from higher-end fashion and luxury brands with TikTok Shop. Given considerations of brand dilution and the newness of the functionality, this makes sense. Yet, one has to wonder about a missed opportunity to take a test-and-learn approach, as content creators themselves are actively focused on talking about luxury from a myriad of angles. Over the past week, #luxury has been anywhere from the third to fifth top hashtag within the Apparel and Accessories category on TikTok.
TikTok Shop as a platform is a case study of effective content strategy in action.
The ByteDance teams behind TikTok know the value of content strategy and provide all the processes, tools, and guidance that brands and creators need to plan, create, and manage content and sell their vision or products quickly and efficiently with fully transparent data and comparative analytics.
Trying to set up an affiliate account for TikTok without a base of 10,000 subscribers was interesting. We consulted at least three social media strategists to figure out the right steps to follow and even then we had to do it in stages once our account was approved. The TikTok privacy measures seemed decent, and the guidelines for creating a business account and a TikTok Shop were clear and easy to follow.
Once we were into our account, navigating the landscape of possibilities within TikTok Shop was slightly overwhelming. The platform has a dizzying array of features and functionality for brands and creators. But, TikTok’s content strategy includes a variety of guided content to simplify the process, particularly for newcomers trying to figure it out for the first time.
For logged-in users, behind TikTok’s video interface is highly functional, well-organized dashboard with top-notch content design, good information architecture, and filtered search with a robust taxonomy behind it. For brands, it is simple to set up a shop, add items, and make them shoppable. For affiliates, it is easy to find products to promote and create videos around them. That said, figuring out how to request a sample from a brand, however, was less clear, as there did not appear to be a way to filter out brands with samples available within the backend dashboard. We likely missed it but are trying to figure it out.
Also, as a new account, TikTok automatically sends messages with helpful tips and tricks to troubleshoot and learn the platform faster. One of the guides we received on our first day of account creation was in essence brand strategy 101: how to define your USP and be consistent and targeted with your messaging.
Then there is the TikTok Academy, which is a learning center for brands and creators to teach them how to use the TikTok Shop features and functionality. Like a proper learning-focused website, the Academy has an array of learning content types from how-to videos to webinars to feature guides and step-list written tutorials.
Shoppable fashion content on TikTok is about creating desire through authenticity, not the product.
To be honest, the first four days of TikTok as a new account were rough. We discovered firsthand the challenge of figuring out what audiences want and the roll-of-the-dice that is algorithmic content.
Our stats:
The first post (2 mins 15 secs) had over 1,700 views but no likes or comments. This was a talking head video with no additional graphics. The subject of the video was why brands and creators need content strategy.
The second post (39 secs) had almost 1,400 views and 14 likes but no comments. This was a talking head video with the Maison Margiela SS2024 Artisanal Collection in the background. The subject of this video was about brand storytelling.
The third post (3 mins 31 secs) had 1,017 views with 12 likes but no comments. This was a lengthy educational talking head video debunking the differences between content strategy and content strategy and why brands and creators need both.
The fourth post (42 seconds) had 623 views two hours after posting with three likes and two comments. This video was a brief content audit of the Burberry website talking about the value of understanding the customer journey for both brands and content creators.
These videos ranged greatly in subject matter so it is hard to draw significant correlations between them, even though they were all ostensibly focused on content strategy.
Some quick insights on trying out the role of content creator and affiliate:
For shoppable content, conversion happens where creator vision meets brand values.
It is almost a shame that the first brands in the TikTok Shop market are all fast fashion and everyday beauty products. The immediacy of the creator or brand promotion through shoppable posts and live content is ripe with opportunities for inventive brand storytelling and original content.
Unfortunately, most of the products that creators are promoting are functional and forgettable. Brand story and product details do not seem to matter as much as the connection the brand or creator creates either through the immediacy of the deal or the context in which the product is presented.
Also, unlike mainstream fashion and the picture-perfect world of Instagram fashion influencers, TikTok shoppable content creators and the brands they promote are a diverse, rowdy bunch who care about affordable pricing, size inclusivity, and product utility in addition to their obvious goal to make a profit. Of course, TikTok is also full of trend-focused, luxury-lifestyle-promoting creators who are a remnant of the Instagram influencer crowd. The beauty of the TikTok content cacophony is that there seems to be room for everyone.
While the FSW team only made one indirect attempt at creating affiliate content, we are actively studying how the creator and brand programs work from the inside out to get clearer benchmarks on what shoppable posts and live shopping work well, what the guidelines are, and what TikTok stipulates as best practices for different video content types.
Viewership for topic-based, non-shoppable TikTok fashion and luxury content is surprisingly robust.
TikTok audiences seem eager to learn new ideas and not just to buy things. The team behind FSW is a content strategy agency. This is our unique point of view so that is the lens we chose to explore. So far, we are pleasantly surprised that people are not afraid of more technical topics and are interested in approachable, informative content.
For fashion and luxury brands, this opens interesting opportunities for more inventive storytelling as well as content co-creation. This is, after all, the raison d’être of micro-communities on platforms like Discord, Mastodon, and even Threads because they are discussion-based. If consumers are interested in behind-the-scenes content like private Instagram messaging groups, imagine what they could do with more interactive, consumer-focused video content.
Then there are opportunities for brands willing to have real conversations with consumers. Platforms like TikTok and YouTube make it not only easier to address more esoteric brand vision and storytelling like heritage, craftsmanship, and cultural strategy; but also they make it more straightforward to dive deep into hard issues like fast fashion, sustainability, factory working conditions, and gender and size inclusivity.
Shoppable content and live shopping are two separate video content types and should be approached differently. Also, many existing content marketing approaches may not work for TikTok.
As content strategists, one thing we find brands do over and over again with content marketing strategy is assuming that the same approach that works for one platform will work for another. This is never the case. This is why we advise creating a channel-agnostic content strategy to guide content marketing strategies because it allows for more consistent brand storytelling across channels while allowing for specific channel-by-channel tactics.
The media keeps putting Tiktok’s shoppable content and live shopping functionality into the same category as either Instagram shop or television shopping channels like QVC. Shoppable TikTok posts and live shopping posts are fully separate video content types that require different approaches, though they overlap. Live shopping has the benefits of real-time authenticity and a direct call-to-action but is more challenging to plan from a content perspective; whereas shoppable posts can easily be planned but require more work to produce the same level of authenticity and immediacy.
The future of fashion and luxury e-commerce and shoppable content is flexibility.
The FSW team is still gleaning insights from our TikTok content experiment and will continue to share our takeaways as we go. What is clear is that online shopping and, in turn, digital content are maturing rapidly. Given the rapid evolution of the creator economy and tools like TikTok, brands need to think about how consumers consume content and understand how they move and travel across touchpoints from IRL to digital and back again. Taking a test-and-learn approach to content marketing strategy channel by channel is a great way to pilot specific tactics but works best when it feeds into a larger content strategy that marries corporate vision with consumer needs.
If anything, new platforms like TikTok Shop spell a more flexible, personalized future where brands and consumers have options when it comes to content and products and can share in telling stories and building experiences that are meaningful and do not add to the waste already being produced across the industry.