How to sell on TikTok LIVE: your first TikTok Shop LIVE

Short answer

Set up a TikTok Shop, then go live from your shop's own TikTok account (no follower minimum) or as an affiliate creator with at least 1,000 followers. Add products to your LIVE Showcase, start a LIVE from the app, add products on the pre-LIVE screen and pin each one while you show it.

1. Check that you can sell LIVE

TikTok Shop's US Creator Eligibility Policy sets who can go live with products. Every creator must be at least 18 and based in the United States, and must follow TikTok Shop's rules.

  • Your shop's own account: bind a TikTok account to your seller account as an Official Shop creator. There's no follower minimum, and it can only promote your own shop's products.
  • Affiliate creators, who sell other shops' products, need at least 1,000 followers and must pass TikTok's identity verification.
  • New accounts start with limits. Affiliates with fewer than 5,000 followers can post up to 3 shoppable LIVEs a week during their pilot; new official accounts may also have some features limited at first.

2. Set up your shop and products

Create your TikTok Shop and add the products you plan to sell. If your stock lives in Shopify, TikTok's own Shopify app syncs products from Shopify to TikTok Shop and lets you manage TikTok Shop orders and inventory from your Shopify admin.

A product has to be in your LIVE Showcase before you can feature it in a livestream, so add your show's products there first. Plan a batch you can show, describe and pack confidently, with each item ready to hand.

3. Add products and go live

  1. In the TikTok app, tap + at the bottom of the screen and choose LIVE.
  2. On the pre-LIVE screen, tap Products and add the products for this show.
  3. Go live. You can add more products during the stream from the shopping bag icon.

4. Pin each product while you show it

During the LIVE, tap the shopping bag icon, then Pin next to the product you're talking about, so viewers can tap straight through to it. Only one product can be pinned at a time, and TikTok advises pinning again about every 30 seconds so the card doesn't disappear.

5. LIVE Auctions: one link, one item

LIVE Auction lets buyers bid during your stream. To use it, TikTok requires an Account Health Score above 150, an account in good standing and no recent serious violations. Each auction product link must be exactly one physical item, with a title and description that match it.

Items you auction from a temporary listing or a numbered show listing, such as “Sneakers 1”, “Sneakers 2”, aren't your synced Shopify products, so their sales don't come off your Shopify stock. ScanStation closes that gap: scan the real item as it sells and Shopify takes it off its available count. The guide to keeping Shopify inventory accurate on TikTok Shop LIVE explains when to scan and when the sync already did it.

6. After the show

Pack each item against its order and ship through TikTok Shop's tools, or from Shopify if you manage TikTok orders there. Then compare what sold with your item costs, TikTok's fees and any seller commission, so you judge each show on profit as well as revenue.

TikTok's rules and screens change, so check TikTok Shop Seller Center's current guidance for your account type before you plan a show.

Useful next steps

Updated · All guides

Scan it off the shelf.

ScanStation does the scan-to-Shopify part for you, on Windows and Mac.

Get ScanStation