TikTok Shop Onboarding Guide: How Should Cross-Border Sellers Choose Between Self-Managed and Fully Managed Models?

As TikTok continues to grow in popularity globally, cross-border e-commerce businesses are increasingly turning to TikTok Shop to explore international markets. TikTok Shop offers two primary operational models: the self-managed model and the fully managed model, each with distinct operational features, management requirements, and target business types.

During the warm-up period of TikTok's Black Friday event this year, TikTok implemented different management policies for self-operated and fully managed merchants. Therefore, enterprises must understand and choose the appropriate model. This guide compares the features, suitability, and pros and cons of both models to help cross-border sellers make informed decisions.

What is TikTok Shop self-operated mode (POP mode)

Definition

The self-operated model (POP model) refers to merchants operating independently on the platform, including product listing, sales management, logistics arrangement, content promotion and influencer cooperation. Merchants can flexibly participate in marketing activities and set their prices. This model is suitable for merchants with certain e-commerce operation experience, especially for enterprises that focus on brand management.

Applicable scenarios and merchant types

1. Southeast Asian market

Sales regions: Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines.

Product categories: Apparel, shoes and hats, home furnishings, beauty products, 3C digital products, etc.

Invitation categories: Jewelry, food, personal care products, etc. (Enterprises need to submit a form to TikTok to apply)

2. U.S. market

Applicable merchant types: Merchants holding business licenses in mainland China or Hong Kong, cross-border merchants with U.S. entities (Chinese shareholders hold more than 25% of the shares)

Product categories: Beauty, 3C hardware, fashion accessories, home furnishings, collectibles, food, etc.

Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of TikTok's self-operated model

Advantage:

1. Sellers have high autonomy and flexible operations.

2. Ability to quickly adapt to market trends and optimize products.

3. Take charge of after-sales service and ensure after-sales service attitude

Shortcoming:

1. Merchants need to invest more time, resources and manpower costs in all aspects of marketing.

2. Merchants need to have more professional knowledge to manage TikTok accounts and self-operated stores.

What is TikTok's full hosting model

Definition

The full-hosting model is suitable for merchants who focus on product supply. Merchants are responsible for providing products, while the TikTok platform assists in a series of tasks such as operation, sales, influencer cooperation, and after-sales service. The full-hosting model can save management energy and allow companies to focus more on product supply chain management.

Applicable scenarios and merchant types

Sales regions: the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Product categories: Apparel, home furnishings, fast-moving consumer goods, digital hardware and other categories.

Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of TikTok's full hosting model

Advantage:

1. No need to worry about operation management, suitable for companies that lack cross-border e-commerce experience.

2. The entry threshold is relatively low, making it easy for new companies to get started quickly.

3. Merchants can focus on product research and development and supply chain optimization.

Shortcoming:

1. Lack of autonomy and limited brand building.

2. The platform controls pricing and promotion, and merchants’ orders and profits are restricted.

3. Opportunities of end consumers that are not reached

Self-operation vs fully managed: How to choose?

1. Self-assessment of abilities

In cross-border e-commerce, logistics and after-sales service are often the primary challenges faced by companies. Therefore, for companies that have just started to go overseas, if they do not have a deep understanding of product procurement, warehouse management, logistics distribution, payment settlement and after-sales service, the full trusteeship model may be a more ideal choice. However, if a company has a solid grasp of the various aspects of cross-border logistics, sufficient financial backing, and aims to build its brand image, the self-operated model would be more suitable. This approach allows companies to maintain flexibility in controlling processes, achieve brand personalization, retain market competitiveness, and safeguard data privacy.

2. Positioning matches market demand

The self-operated model is more suitable for companies that value user interaction and want to build brand loyalty. This model allows merchants to communicate directly with consumers, to better understand user needs and flexibly adjust products and marketing strategies. In turn, it can show personality and enhance emotional connection with users. Relatively speaking, the fully managed model is more suitable for companies that aim to sell in bulk, allowing them to achieve more efficient resource allocation and stable sales growth through large-scale sales.

3. Risk and Benefit Analysis

The self-managed model offers greater autonomy and profit potential but involves higher costs. The fully managed model requires less effort but may result in lower margins due to platform fees and restrictions.

Operation strategy of self-operation model

TikTok's self-operated model combines content e-commerce with shelf e-commerce. If a company chooses the self-operated model, it can use creative videos or live broadcasts to quickly attract users, build brand awareness and promote purchasing behavior.

1. Bind multiple TikTok channel accounts for matrix promotion

Since the basic logic of TikTok's self-operated business is "content drives sales", operating the TikTok account is a necessary process. During the new store inspection period, stores can only bind one official TikTok account (the official account entity must be the same as the store entity). After the new store inspection period, the company can bind one official TikTok account and four channel accounts.

Operating multiple TikTok accounts can not only reach different audiences through multiple accounts, but also guide traffic to stores through matrix accounts, and there is an opportunity to guide another part of the traffic brought by channel accounts to the private domain for in-depth operation. Enterprises can integrate all channel accounts into SaleSmartly to manage and receive messages from multiple TikTok accounts on one platform. This function greatly improves the efficiency of message processing, allowing private messages and comments to be taken over by professional customer service staff for efficient management and conversion, thereby enhancing the effect of conversion to the private domain and improving customer experience.

2. Live broadcast strategy

TikTok accounts with good data can maintain their activity through daily live broadcast operations and interact with customers in real time. This not only helps to increase the exposure and user engagement of the account, but also can slice and convert live broadcast content into subsequent video materials for further promotion. In addition, live broadcast capabilities also provide preparation for taking over popular videos. Once a video with good data appears, merchants can quickly start live broadcasts to take over this traffic and promote product conversion.

3. Accurate advertising delivery

The account should be clearly positioned in the early stage. If the TikTok operation positioning is not clear (including a series of issues such as store style, product attributes, and live broadcast room style), do not place advertisements to increase users. Otherwise, it is easy to disrupt the fan tags and lead to account failure. It is more effective to operate the store and account first, accumulate a certain fan base, and ensure that the account tag is consistent with the target user, and then conduct advertising promotion.

Fully managed model operation strategy

Although the majority of the work in the fully managed model relies on the daily management of the platform, merchants should also do key preparation and support work to ensure optimal sales results and customer satisfaction.

1. Ensure sufficient supply

In the full-hosting model, merchants are mainly responsible for the supply of products, so ensuring sufficient supply is the top priority. Merchants are advised to make reasonable inventory planning based on market demand to ensure that they can quickly replenish stocks during sales peaks such as big promotions and holidays to avoid sales losses due to out-of-stock situations.

2. Regularly update some popular products and seasonal products

Since fully managed merchants have less autonomy and find it difficult to respond to the market quickly, but popular trends on the TikTok platform change rapidly, merchants should regularly introduce new products or update merchandise that meets seasonal needs to maintain the attractiveness of store products.

3. Communicate with the platform and provide good after-sales service

In the full-hosting model, the platform is responsible for specific after-sales management, and merchants basically have no access to consumers. Therefore, merchants are required to maintain active communication with the platform, cooperate with the platform to optimize the after-sales process, and quickly resolve service issues such as returns, exchanges, and refunds.

Further reading

TikTok Operation Guide: 20 Professional Tips to Create Popular Videos (salesmartly.com)

How to add WhatsApp and LINE contact information to TikTok? Seamlessly guide customers to private domains (salesmartly.com)

How does TikTok divert traffic to private domains? And how can it be taken over? (salesmartly.com)

Mastering Multi-Account TikTok Marketing: Advanced Strategy and Analysis Techniques (salesmartly.com)