#717 - Starting a TikTok Shop From Scratch

#717 - Starting a TikTok Shop From Scratch Speaker 2: Today, we've got one of the most known influencers in the entire Amazon and TikTok space, Gracey, back on the show, who's going to talk about what's new with social media, what's new with being a creator and influencer, but also talk about her recent launches and future launches on Amazon and TikTok Shop as a seller. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. It's a completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we've got back on the show Gracey, before a serious influencer, but she's been becoming a serious seller as well. Gracey, how's it going? Speaker 1: It's going good, Bradley. Good to see you again. Speaker 2: Likewise, if you guys want to get her full backstory, we're not going to go too much into it today because like I said, she's been on the podcast before. Her very first episode was episode 360, so you guys can look that one up. Her second one was 498 and she was actually recently on last year, 623. But this time, we're going to talk about a wide variety of topics. What you're known for primarily is being one of the top influencers in the game, creators, as far as promoting Amazon and other e-commerce products for other sellers. We'll definitely talk about that. We'll talk about what's been going on in the Amazon side of being a seller. We talked a little bit about that last year. Obviously, the new thing is you are trying to actually start from scratch We're going to be talking about a TikTok shop business that we're actually been documenting in our Scaled Stories series. So a lot to talk about here, but let's just first get into it. How's the year been going for you so far? Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. I cannot believe the year is like coming to a close now. We're in almost mid-November and I cannot believe it was a breeze, but it's been one of the most exciting and This year has changed a lot for me. It's kind of made me look more long term, want to be in more of that builder mindset, not just keep doing what I have been doing. So at the end of the year, looking back, it's been pretty good and a lot of things to look forward to. And like we're in building mode right now. Speaker 2: Nice. Was there anything that instigated that or like you had an epiphany or a light bulb moment of why you wanted to like do this kind of pivot? Speaker 1: I think a mix of a couple things. I actually didn't go into it as usual with any intentions of getting to where I am, but I think it was a mix of changes within the industry, changes across social media, and then opportunities kind of just making sense and presenting themselves. With that in mind, I think there's a lot that has been changing on social media with what I do. It's completely dependent on these algorithms, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Meta, everything like that. When these changes started happening, you have to pivot, you're forced to. And then as you know, I've been interested in like the seller side of things for a couple years now. But I think with just everything in mind, there wasn't necessarily one thing that made me pivot, but it was just seeing what was happening and then a lot of opportunity coming from those changes. Speaker 2: On the influencer slash affiliate side, what has changed for you in the last year? I know one thing you mentioned before just talking to you is like you're not doing as many or maybe not at all like the Amazon lives as before, but what else has changed for you as far as what your normal day-to-day is like on that side of things? Speaker 1: So I think with the live streams, because you mentioned that, I am still not doing as much as I did before, but I'm kind of working with brands individually on On that side of things, I still enjoy live streaming. I think given what we see in China, it's not reasonable to give up on it completely. I think even with TikTok Shop coming up, I think we're starting to see more larger influencers like David Dobrik, for example, in the last few days just did a hugely successful TikTok Shop live stream. So I think the taboo of being a TikTok Shop affiliate or promoter, it's going to stop being cringey coming soon. And you're going to start to see more Jeffree Star, like these larger Influencers start to hustle their own brands and products on the platform. And so once the bigger influencers and players come in, that's when it kind of shifts the culture around it. So what has changed in the last year with social media? So there was actually a very stark change January 1st of 2025 that everyone saw across the board. And it was the decline of being able to grow organically on these platforms. So it became a more pay to play game, I want to say, as like platforms do get. And I've started to learn from more of the other successful creators in the space that they have started doing more paid ads. They've started doing more like collages. They've done more like static image carousel posts. They've started doing more of that because the algorithms as I've discovered across this year, meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram are becoming more Less dependent on who you're following and only seeing content from people you follow, more of a discovery platform like TikTok has been for so long. So you're going to get served content that you already like and engage and watch, and that's how you discover more people. But that's why people aren't following as much as they used to. It doesn't matter who you follow anymore. So growing and follower count is much harder. But as a micro influencer, it's good because even without a small following, you can still get huge views and huge sales. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. So it's kind of like people adopting a little bit more of the TikTok algorithm because TikTok, I mean, at least for the last couple of years that I've tried to be more active, I found that it really doesn't matter who you're following. It's all about just what shows up in your feed and learning about it. But yeah, now that you mentioned that, I do notice that You know, Facebook and Instagram and YouTube shorts, even for that matter, have been kind of following that model. It's actually interesting because I know there's a lot of like people scared about, hey, now that TikTok is being sold and its value is in the algorithm, oh my goodness, it's going to be terrible. I don't think it's going to be terrible because I am just as a doom scroller on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram now as I could be on TikTok when I'm just like doing nothing. And the reason is because those algorithms are pretty darn good too. Like it figures me out, you know, pretty well. And so like, hey, Facebook and Instagram and YouTube can figure out, you know, the algorithm, whoever's the new owner of TikTok, it's not going to be like, oh, I don't see anything I like anymore on TikTok. So I'm not really worried too much. We did talk about Amazon Live last time, but I don't remember if we talked about it. Maybe we did or didn't, but what has been your experience with TikTok Live as opposed to Amazon Live? Has it always been more lucrative than Amazon when you compare it one-to-one? Is it about the same? Speaker 1: So comparing just the state of how things are right now. Amazon used to have these great placements for live streams. They would be on the deal page. They would be on the homepage. Even back in the good old days, they'd be on the product pages, which is a very relevant placement for somebody shopping. It made a lot of sense, but obviously in the last few years, they've taken away all the placements on Amazon. So unless the creator themselves is bringing their own community and own followers onto Amazon by promoting the live stream or doing whatever they need to do to get their people on, Amazon is not going to give you free viewers and they're not going to give you any kind of visibility that you're not bringing yourself. So that's like what the State of the Union there on Amazon is. But the good thing about TikTok is that I definitely think that they're pushing consistency and length of live streams. They want a minimum of 90 minutes and they want you to go live as often as possible because the TikTok algorithm is also seeing who's staying in your live stream, who's watching, who's engaging, and they're going to serve your live streams to those people consistently like the algorithm does. Speaker 3: Are you browsing a Shopify, Walmart, Etsy, Alibaba, or Pinterest page and maybe you see a cool product that you want to get some more data on? Well, while you're on those pages, you can actually use the Helium 10 Chrome extension demand analyzer to get instant data about what's happening on Amazon for those keywords on these other websites. Or maybe you want to then follow up and get an actual supplier quote from a company on Alibaba.com into In order to see if you can get this product produced, you can do that also with the Helium 10 Demand Analyzer. Both of these are part of the Helium 10 Chrome extension, which you can download for free at h10.me forward slash extension. Speaker 2: If somebody is just starting out now as a creator slash influencer, give me the lowdown of what they should do, like which platform should they be working on? You know, Should they be getting into creator connections? That's something we haven't talked about on Amazon much. Should they be focused on live? What would be the blueprint of, hey, I'm just looking for a side hustle right now. How do I start getting a following? Because I know on some of these platforms, you actually have to have X number of followers to even qualify. And then if somebody does, hey, should it just be Amazon, TikTok? How should I find brands to work with, et cetera? Speaker 1: Ain't that the million dollar question? How do I make money from social media from scratch? Alright, so here's like, Welcome to the million dollar answer. So if you want to be the most effective with the least amount of effort and make the most amount of money from scratch, here's exactly what you do. So obviously you want to utilize all the platforms you can and repurpose the same content. So that means if you can find a product that is both sold on TikTok shop and Amazon or whatever other retailer, then pick a product that you can do on both platforms, but you're not going to go on TikTok and then drive to Amazon. And we're going to talk about how to drive to TikTok from Instagram. So I found that meta platforms, Instagram and Facebook are the best at driving to Amazon these days because TikTok wants to keep TikTok shop on platform and they want to keep their users on the platform. On TikTok, post your video, but drive to TikTok Shop. Find products that give you exposure plus, which means TikTok will give you free views for your content. This is great when you're starting out and find the products that have a, at least 10 to 15% commission rate. If you're investing your own money in your products, which people do when they start, then find the products that are going to give you the best ROI on the money you're spending on the products. Now on meta platforms, Instagram and Facebook, I found a lot of creators do well with the DM automation. And that's LinkedIn, ManyChat, something like that, something like that. So that helps a lot with making the customer journey from content to link to buying it much simpler rather than going to the link in bio, sorting through, maybe scrolling down, finding the right link, going there. Maybe it's not deep linked. Maybe it's not. I'm getting a little bit nitty gritty, but deep linking is also very important. What that means in short is when you click an affiliate link, sometimes it opens within the browser. And then people have to sign in and you lose the tracking cookie and you don't get the sale or it opens directly in your Amazon browser, which deep links, and then you don't have to sign in. And then it's like a very seamless process. So deep link is something to look into too. Um, and then. Obviously, once you post your TikTok shop video, post your Amazon product video on meta platforms, and then, um, have people shop through your link by DM automation. Start there. I don't want to overcomplicate it, but like... Speaker 2: No, I like that. That's a good starting point. What about the people out there who are... They want to make the affiliate commission but they don't feel comfortable in front of camera or they don't feel that comfortable doing content. Is it still a thing where you can start trying to build a following that's maybe just on X or Telegram or WhatsApp groups where it's more like just deal sharing and stuff like that? Is that still a thing that people can get started on or that's really hard to get enough people get a following on there? Speaker 1: Of course, it's still a thing, but I do think that without some sort of factor that differentiates you because we really, it's surprising that people still think like I'm creating the deals and I'm like, I don't create the deals. I can't create the deals. The seller does and I just find them and I share them. But like, so we're all kind of working with the same pool of deals unless you can differentiate yourself with like style or personality or something. It's hard to grow like a I'm also a part of the Faceless Deal text post community these days, but I still think deals are great. They convert very well. They help people save money. It's like a mutually beneficial thing. That's why I started this also. I still think creating video content is important, but you can totally do it faceless as well. Like faceless content that's just product focused with a voiceover that does great. And so it's a great way to like start out. It's an easy editing style. You just make it quick, snappy to the point and then do a little voiceover and you never have to be on camera. Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm switching to the opposite side of the aisle. Amazon sellers, TikTok shop sellers, are probably finding it harder than ever to get creators and influencers to even open their messaging just because it's such a thing now. Five years ago, maybe it wasn't so much, but now I would imagine your TikTok inbox, your email inbox, your Instagram DMs are just completely inundated. What are some tips on how you can make sure, like if I'm on TikTok shop and I'm trying to use like the Helium 10 tools to reach out to influencers, is there something I can do in the subject or something I can do in the body of the message? Is it just the amount of permission I'm offering? How do I increase my chances to get engagement with the influencers that I'm looking for? And then a similar question on Amazon. I don't even know how stuff like Creator Connections works. I haven't looked into that. But how do I contact influencers? Again, Helium 10 has got an influencer tool on Amazon. I can search for, hey, who has made videos for my competitor's products? And then if they have Instagram or TikTok, now I'll see their profile. I could slide into their DMs. But again, they probably get hundreds of these messages a day. What are some tips for sellers out there for outreach? Speaker 1: Thank God for Helium 10's outreach tool. That's one thing that's going to make a lot of manual hours of work much simpler. But then you have to consider even with something that makes outreach easier, what will make me feel seen and get them to actually respond and work with me. So I think it's like, consider different aspects. There's not one thing. The subject line will be important because it's the only thing I see before I open the message at all. Then, of course, you want to be competitive with your commission rate. I'd say like 10% these days is the bare minimum. 30, 15, 20, 25 is like middle ground. 30 is considered high. And so considering this, you also, if you can, want to offer samples. I think in the TikTok shop culture, samples are very important. You need them to create the content with. Good subject line, good commission rate, open to giving samples, and then open to boosting the content with the brand's ad dollars is always helpful because this is mutually beneficial to both the creator and the brand. Brand gets more visibility and sales. Creator gets more viewership and commissions. So considering all these factors, if a brand offers this like bundle situation with like a good catchy subject line, you're much more You know, able to get some good responses. Speaker 2: How has your Amazon endeavors been? I mean, we were just talking about last December that you're just like, hey, guess what? I'm an Amazon seller now. What are the struggles? What are the wins, the losses you've had? Speaker 1: So at first it was, I kind of started doing expansions in like maybe middle of this year. And so that'll be launched soon, probably this Q4, just like a line of expansions. I'm excited about that. I think starting to sell on Amazon was always just a learning experience of trial and error. Let's see what this is like. Let's see what everyone's talking about. I'm learning as I go. I probably made all the mistakes. I've probably not done things perfectly. But also I'm going in with like a creator mind. And so that's what I'm focused on. I'm focused on like, working with creators, external marketing. That's like my focus on it. And so yeah, with the new expansions, I'm excited for that. And hopefully it will just kind of like bring a lot more people into like the People Who Could Use This Product world. Speaker 2: Cool. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 3: Cool. Speaker 2: Now we let's talk about, you know, the episode that dropped last week, Scale Stories, where you're showing a journey from becoming a TikTok influencer to becoming a TikTok shop seller. So when we first, you know, came to you with that idea, what was attractive to you about, you know, why did you choose to be a part of that program? Speaker 1: So obviously, like, Working with Helium 10, in my experience, has been super rewarding and fun every time up until now. So still now, but like, I really love the idea of creating a case study style piece of content or video series, documenting the process. And I also felt like I could learn a lot. I started out as an Amazon creator, kind of became a seller to learn about that side. I've been a TikTok affiliate. Now I'm able to learn how to become a TikTok shop seller. And I felt like there was a lot that I could learn in the TikTok shop seller world. And I'm a firm believer that TikTok shop is going nowhere but up. Especially in the future. So I thought it was a great time to start selling. I also was really interested in how I could utilize Helium 10's tools to help with that. And then of course, getting like help from the mentors. Like Liz, Michelle, Ryan, like all of them are huge, huge, huge resources and amazing help to have, especially as like a non-experienced seller. So all of it was a really, really great opportunity, I want to say, and it was really fun to make the video series as well. Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome. What did you think about that process? Again, the mentors were kind of the ones guiding us on choosing the product and the different factors. Is there anything that stood out to you that you learned or that you thought was interesting? Speaker 1: I think, well, obviously having experienced mentors who were guiding the process helped so much, but I'm somebody who kind of looks at trends. I look at the market. I'm not a super data back person. I'm not like in spreadsheets all day. I go based on what I see is trending and working and like what's the internet is talking about. So I felt like the process was A little bit disheartening, but in the best way because I came in with all these ideas. We could do this. We could do that. This is going well. I want to try this. But then it was interesting to see like, okay, like let's actually verify that this product is a good fit to even look into before we invest all this money and time into it. And then to like back that up with data and actually look at, you know, what do we do like scale or fail? Just to make sense rather than this looks cool and would be fun to sell. I went into it with hoping that it would You know, be personal to me and something that I would love to share and talk about all the time as well. But something that surprised me was that the process really is as fast as you want it to be. Like we did so much in a day's time that in my head, I probably would have said, oh, I need maybe a month to figure this out and like be confident enough to like lock down a product we did in a day or two. Speaker 2: Yeah, so absolutely. So that's cool. Now, since then, you know, we've been trying to get the product manufactured. What are some of the obstacles we've been running into after we chose that makeup brush or not makeup brush? Speaker 1: The root powder. Speaker 2: Root powder. Yeah. Like what was the what were some of the obstacles that, you know, entrepreneurs, you know, they probably face something similar potentially. Speaker 1: I think it's like good and bad that it didn't go perfectly and it didn't go super like as we expected because that's like that's the reality. You're not always going to there will always be some road bump that you're not expecting. So what happened was when we decided on this, my idea was to create like a dual ended product. And what we ran into was that it would cost a lot of money to start a mold to create the packaging of this product. And so then we had to pivot and be like, all right, what do we do? Do we do a bundle? Do we change something else? We wanted to stay with what we decided on, but figure out a way to make it work. I think we were able to iron it out. I'm really excited and I have such high hopes for this product. Obviously, everyone's going to see how it ends up and how it all goes and the step-by-step. But yeah, that was the problem we ran into. It was creating a mold and the price that it would take to do so and getting from that into something similar, maybe formulation, maybe different packaging, something like that. Speaker 2: This is something that could come up because sometimes the reason why something is not very competitive or like nobody has it is because it's very hard to do. And so yeah, if we had a limited budget of like $20,000 or something like that, we absolutely should go the route that we were going into. But not many people out there have the $20,000. Gracey probably does. She's a Oh, multimillionaire. No, I'm just kidding. But uh, Gracie's a great Gracie, you know, potentially could have, especially since we were footing part of the bill, but we decided to go a different direction because I like, Hey, now all of a sudden, most of the people watching the series are like, well, shoot, I don't have no $20,000. You know, like, this is kind of a useless show. We really want to make sure that people understand that anybody can do it. Um, you know, with even budgets around $10,000. And so that's where we're like, all right, this is our budget. Let's not cheat. And, and. Pretend that we're doing something that, that was way outside of our budget. And, and because that's real, you know, sellers out there who are starting, um, the, the, you guys have your own budget. Maybe it's only $5,000. Maybe it is $10,000, but once you have that budget, you got to stick to it. Um, and not, you know, go into like big credit card debt, just because you're trying to be unique. And then maybe down the road. Now, now you have some more funds because you know, you've been successful. Okay. Now you can take some bigger swings and, and things like that. So it's, it's very interesting to see this process and. Shout out to our, our sourcing agent, Apple and Howard and the team over there who are really trying to help us to get this, get, get this product out. So very excited about that. Now, long-term, what. Do you see yourself in two years? You're going to be on this podcast, I'm sure, in two years. You've been on here for three years already. So when we're interviewing here and I ask you, hey, What is your income as far as the breakdown between whatever other jobs you're doing, your influencer career and your Amazon selling and TikTok? I know we can't predict, but what do you think? What would be your goal if you could control your future? How do you see it ideally? Speaker 1: If I could manifest two years from now, I'd love to be on a yacht drinking champagne, eating grapes in Mallorca, but I'm kidding. Speaker 2: Yes, but then what is the I don't think you should get that's a very valid. That's a very valid thing to be wanting to do. But what would have brought you there? Speaker 1: So I don't think that at this point in my life, I ever want to give up or stop creating content. I think there's ups and downs and it's seasonal. And, you know, there's burnout. There's I've been doing this for over five years now, almost six. Oh, my God. But I there's something about it that is feeding the creative aspect. There is something that puts me in this industry of other creators that are so amazing to become friends with and learn from and that part I will always like. So I hope that I never lose the creating content piece. I do hope to work more closely with maybe Some people in the industry, whether that be softwares that I love and use every day and like helping them, you know, serve creators better or like partnering with people to create a brand or even I really do enjoy like the consulting aspect. I do love bridging the gap of helping brands work with creators, helping creators work with brands. I do think that there's so much that will happen in the industry. I mean, we're in like the baby years right now. There's so much that will grow and happen that I will always hope to be part of this industry. But I love the consulting. I love the education. I love being able to travel the world and like speak about this and meet people, brands. Factories, manufacturers, like sellers, like whoever, it's just a really cool place to be. I went to China like last few weeks and I got to meet the people behind the brands that I've been promoting for years. And that was just like really eye opening. And I feel like I'm friends with them now, which was a really rewarding trip and experience. I never, ever thought when I started this, I'd ever be traveling to China to like meet these brands. It was just really cool. Speaker 2: How rusty were you in your Chinese? I'm sure you don't use it as much at home as you did over there when you went to China. Speaker 1: Somebody said I was 80% good. That's pretty good. I can do it. It's obviously very rusty. I will throw in English words here and there, but for the most part, I definitely improved during my week there. I definitely left much better than I went in. Speaker 3: Nice. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: But as far as your income diversification, like, do you have a goal as far as like, you know what, you know, like, like maybe three years ago, 95% of your income was creator slash affiliate, you know, related. And now it's, it's been kind of going down because you started an Amazon business next year or this year you're starting a TikTok shop business. But ideally, like, do you want creator stuff being at 50% and then physical product business being at 50%? Do you want You know, something being 80-20, 70-30, what would you say? Speaker 1: This is interesting. You're right, like up until maybe recently, 100% or like 90% of my income was probably from the affiliate content creation side. But there's a caveat with being a seller of anything. When you're an affiliate creator, you're like full profit, like you don't have any investment into it other than maybe buying products. But when you're a seller, like You could be making a lot of money and your profits could be nothing. So that's really interesting. I would love to keep my profits high, but use that money that I am earning from content creation to invest into a brand or invest into other things. Speaker 2: You go to a lot of conferences that have to do with influencers, affiliates, and you have a network of other ones who are like you. Based on word on the street and some of these conferences that you've been to, any predictions about where you see the industry going, whether it's social media in general, like you see more algorithmic changes, how AI is changing things for the game, or just what some of the people out there are predicting as far as what 2026 is going to see for what we've been talking about today? Speaker 1: I see within the next five years, let's say, I do see more of like less flat fee, more commission, performance-based partnerships. It's less risky for brands and it can be very rewarding for creators. I do see more of these platforms popping up every day that are doing this style of partnership. I do want to say that more brands will use less traditional influencer marketing agencies And do more, you know, greater connections directly through Amazon or choosing one or two platforms to work with rather than so many different platforms. And then I also want to say that. With the algorithm of these platforms, I do see it being harder to grow a following, but that brings in more opportunity for the smaller creators that are starting from a smaller following. You can get huge views without having huge followers, and so I do see a huge influx of creators We're here to talk to you about starting content creation, being able to monetize through affiliate links. And even with Amazon's program, I do want to say I have a lot of friends that are like starting content creation. So I've been able to help them and they're like, I don't have any following to even apply for the influencer program. The good news is there are so many other affiliate platforms that you can even link to Amazon that you can start with no follower requirement, no approval process. So you can monetize immediately. So there's a lot of exciting stuff. I'm like mixed about AI. I think I'm so impressed with what it can do and how fast it's grown. So I do see AI being really helpful, at least in some way, if not the traditional sense of AI avatars and sales videos from it. Speaker 2: Before we get into your last tip of the week, how can people find you on the interwebs out there? Speaker 1: My name is Gracey. My email is contact at dealcheats.com and my username on everything is dealcheats, D-E-A-L-C-H-E-A-T-S. Speaker 2: Love it. Love it. All right. Now, you've been giving us some strategies and stuff. What's something unique either on the influencer side, on the Amazon side, advertising? It could be about anything that you feel that is a quick hitting tip that not everybody knows about. Speaker 1: Okay. How do you make the best kind of converting video That is also super simple to make. It doesn't have to be with your face. It can be faceless. I'd say like the recipe is under 30 seconds, great lighting, great sound, and a really great hook. And at this point, good hooks are not hard to come by. They're all over the internet. People are sharing them all over the place. So finding a cool product and following that framework, I feel like anyone can become a content creator. Speaker 2: All right. Well, Gracey, it's been great to catch up with you. I'm sure we're going to be doing a lot more stuff with you to show your journey on TikTok Shop. And we'll probably be filming some other episodes or something to track your progress. Everybody's excited to see your product launch. So thank you again for being open. Not everybody's open enough to kind of like be vulnerable and show all the pros and cons of how e-commerce is. So thank you for that. We appreciate it. And we'll definitely have you back soon on the show. Speaker 1: Thank you, Bradley.