A 130-year-old brand on a channel that didn't exist five years ago - and one of the most honest assessments of TikTok Shop you're likely to hear. Stephanie Vanderplank-Jones built Philips' TikTok Shop business in the UK from scratch and is currently expanding into Germany, France and Spain. In this episode, she explains why 80% of Philips customers spend more than two and a half hours on TikTok every day - and why that was the decisive reason for Philips to enter TikTok Shop. She talks about why the first six to nine months on the platform are essentially a paid experiment, and how to bring stakeholders through that phase without losing their trust. Stephanie also explains why affiliates require far more work than most brands expect - and why that's especially true in newer markets like Germany. And she makes clear why TikTok Shop isn't just for low-priced products: Philips now sells devices up to €400 on the platform.

Note from the sponsor ChannelEngine:

20,000 SKUs across seven Kaufland markets - without starting from scratch seven times. The Handyhuellen.de case shows how an existing Kaufland Germany setup was rolled out to six additional countries with the help of ChannelEngine - and why that is exactly what makes the difference in cross-border expansion. Individual markets were technically activated in around two hours, the new countries reached around 50% of Germany's sales volume after one year, and Italy is already number two after Germany. The full case with all the details is available at Marketplace Universe. https://marketplace-universe.com/best-practice-how-handyhuellen-de-scaled-into-seven-kaufland-markets/

So many parts to TikTok shop, but affiliates are a huge part of what will drive your success on the platform.

And if you don't get them behind what you're trying to achieve, they will just follow the money.

They will go to another brand where they know they can make sales and there's not so many restrictions.

So you have to find this balance.

Let's Talk Marketplace.

The Marketplace podcast with Ingrid Lohmer and Vana V. Dichto.

Hello and welcome back to let's Talk Marketplace.

I'm Valerie and yes, I am flying solo again today, so Ingrid is still on holiday, so it's just me.

And honestly, I'm looking for this episode actually for quite a while because I met our guests in March already when I was still in my baby break.

But I took part at the first anniversary of TikTok shop in Germany and there were the TikTok awards.

And I think it's pretty interesting to see how TikTok shop evolved in this one year.

And I will also share with you what we're talking about today.

But when I, when I talk in the industry about TikTok shop, then there is like either the people who are saying, like, yeah, oh, we onboarded, but there's no turnover because, yeah, we did nothing really.

We, we, we tried it, but actually they really didn't try it because they haven't done anything with live streams or like to push turnover there.

So.

And then we have the other ones, they're like, nah, we don't do this because our products doesn't fit, et cetera, et cetera, or our company policy, and so on and so on.

So I think both are pretty interesting point of views.

But today I'm really happy that we can share one really great example from a 130-year-old company that has just, yeah, started to build something on TikTok shop that really worked.

And yeah, I'm really happy to invite you today as a guest.

Stephanie van der Planplank Jones.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Stephanie.

Yeah.

Stephanie, you are the commercial lead for TikTok shop and marketplaces.

Investor in Europe at Philips, you basically built TikTok shop presence in the UK from scratch and you're now expanding that across Germany, France and Bey.

So Philips was nominated at the TikTok Awards for Discovery content.

Right.

And you were in this panel discussion as well, where I thought like, okay, wow, that's interesting.

Such an old company, right?

So with such a track on record for such a new marketplace, which really needs to be handled differently, I would say, and that's also what we will talk today about.

So, yeah, quite a feat for such an old company.

And I'm looking really forward to what we are learning from you today and how you managed to do this.

Thank you, Valerie.

Thank you so much for the introduction.

I'm really excited for our conversation.

Yeah, me too.

So, but before we dive in, let's hear a little bit more about yourself, Stephanie, with our three classic questions.

The first one is, who are you?

So, hi, everybody.

I'm Stephanie Vanderpank Jones.

I, as Valerie said, the commercial lead for Philips, managing the TikTok Shop business across Western Europe.

I'm based in the uk.

I've always been in sales.

I've got a commercial, commercial Bones, as it said.

But I think TikTok Shop's an interesting one because it's a real combination of marketing and sales.

So I think anyone who goes into this space really has to flex between the two.

But, yes, that's who I am.

I'm based in the UK, but managing multiple countries across Western Europe when it comes to TikTok shop.

Wow.

And what would you say?

What do you do best in the business, Stephanie?

I think I am able to rally the troops pretty effectively, and I think with this channel, it's something you have to do, because you mentioned it a lot in your introduction, around the hesitancy that a lot of brands have around leaning into this channel.

And that is felt, I think, in every business, because it's so new, it's so unknown.

So I think one of my strengths is being able to get everybody united behind a vision and a direction that we want to go in and can convince even the doubters, because I think, you know, there are lots of doubters.

It's a new channel, it's new for everybody.

So I would say that is one of my strengths.

Yeah, Yeah.

I can really see the sales bones.

And that's actually what you need, right.

To get through such a project in such a big company, you need to sell it internally, otherwise you don't have any chance.

Okay, so let's tell us a fun fact about yourself that most of our listeners probably don't know.

Okay.

So I used to live in Singapore.

So I spent about just over a year in Singapore when I was about 19 for a graduate exchange.

And I fell in love with Southeast Asia.

So I go back whenever I can.

I got engaged there and I tried to get my kids really into Asian culture.

So we go a lot to.

We've got this amazing cafe locally.

To us, it's a Hong Kong couple that do these like amazing noodle broths.

And every Tuesday we have our little get together with the kids.

I'm teaching them how to use their chopsticks.

So I love Asian culture so that is a little fun fact about me.

I can really relate to that one.

Great Stephanie.

So I'm really looking forward to getting into all of this with you.

But before we do, a very quick word from our partner Channel Engine.

20,000 SKUs across seven Kaufland markets without starting from scratch seven times.

It sounds technical at first, but it's actually a pretty interesting case.

Together with Channel Engine, we took a closer look at how Handy Hohen Punktee transferred its existing Kaufland Marketplace Germany setup to the six additional Kaufland regions.

And what is interesting is not just the numbers.

Even though they are strong, individual markets were technically activated in around two hours.

The new countries reached around 50% of Germany's sales volume after one year and Italy is already number two after Germany.

The real point is handehoegen.de did not have to start from zero for every country.

Product data, pricing, stock and content were already connected through Channel Engine.

Kaufland added the country marketplaces reach and translation support.

That is where cross border is decided in practice.

Not only in the question which country do I enter next, but can my setup actually support this next market properly?

You can find the full case at Marketplace Universe website.

The link is in the show notes.

And now back to our main topic and to Stephanie.

So Stephanie, what we realized is like Philip is a 130-year-old brand, right.

What was the internal business case that convinced stakeholders officially to launch on TikTok shop in the UK?

Because I mean TikTok shop in the UK was I guess the first one.

Right.

And what committed them to build out Western Europe?

Yeah.

So UK was the first in Western Europe, but we were actually already live in Southeast Asia because that's where TikTok shop originated.

Right.

And I think what we really saw very quickly was where our consumers were spending a lot of time was on this platform.

So over 80% of our consumers were spending more than two hours.

I think it was like two and a half hours worth of time on the app every day.

And so it was kind of a no brainer for us that we needed to be where our consumers were.

And I think as TikTok shop was evolving and they set out their very clear roadmap of how many countries they really wanted to expand to, I think for us it was very clear that we needed to jump on that as quickly we could become experts because it was something that was not going to be going away.

And I think the beauty of Philips is they're innovators, we're innovators as a brand, you know, even from my product development but also how we structure ourselves from an organization perspective and I think, you know this is a very innovative channel.

So I think it was a natural fit for Philips but ultimately it came down to being where our consumers were.

Okay, and what kind of like products did you start with on TikTok shop?

Because I mean Philips has like a really wide range of products.

Right, so what were the kind of products you said like?

Okay, these are really fitting also to TikTok.

Yeah, so we started with some low end products because I think it's quite common knowledge that generally the, the price point that works on TikTok shop is around €30 or and it's similar in the UK it's around 25 to 30 pounds.

So we started with relatively low end, low consideration products that wouldn't require a huge amount of education.

So think shavers, think beauty devices.

We've got a facial hair remover which is one of our top sellers and we've continued to actually to build on those products and they're still our top sellers but over time we've been able to add higher price points.

So one of our most expensive products is the La Mer device which is a IPL hair removal device and it retails for up to €400.

Um, there is a different technique and there's different commercial levers that you need to utilize for your higher price point versus your lower price point.

But both can work on the platform.

Um, and so we've had success in both but in just in different ways.

So now if we look at our range is a, a really great blend of high to low which I think is very confusing for actually a lot of people because they still think it would be in the low.

Um, but yes it is a blend.

Okay, that's quite interesting because that's also what you hear like oh we can just sell low price items.

Right.

And like so okay, I'm really interested about, to hear more about that one.

Established brands actually often harbor reservations about TikTok and brand safety concerns.

It's two Gen Z argument tension with traditional E commerce logic, et cetera.

How did you manage that?

Internal friction.

I think it's one of those things where you need to get your senior leadership team buy in ultimately in the beginning and then of course like we were saying in the Introduction manage internal stakeholders I think it's a continuous thing because especially in an organization the size of Philips, it's a big organization and if we are expanding into more markets, it's more people to engage with each.

Each country that we launch into is another set of stakeholders that you need to manage.

So I think it's a continuous thing if I'm honest and it's an educational thing.

So TikTok and TikTok shop is so new and especially in some of the newer markets where TikTok shop their go to market is very quick.

So it will if you're in for instance Austria, TikTok shop have just announced that they're going to be launching in Austria, which is super exciting.

But if you're in Austria currently, you won't even know what the TikTok shop functionality looks like until it launches on that day.

So the learning, it's a very steep learning curve.

You have to learn pretty quickly.

So a lot of what my team do is education around the business to make sure that everybody understands how the app works and listening, listening to what people's concerns are in terms of the sort of brand safety and brand equity piece that feeds into that as a kind of a totality.

And we started out with quite clear guardrails as to kind of how we were going to operate and things that we, we weren't comfortable with.

And as we've gone along we've had to adapt that because our, our business has evolved, how we've operated on the platform has evolved and so now we have for instance engagement with creators.

We have very clear guidelines as to what we do do's and don'ts in terms of what their content should include.

And I think I would urge any brand that is venturing into TikTok shop affiliate to start to do that because you of course have less control over content than you paid influencer partnership where there's scripting, there's rounds of edits.

So it's a very different way of working.

But I think as long as you are putting steps in place to make sure that you're getting the best quality outputs, I think that is as much as you can do as a brand.

So even beyond that, things like educational webinars to affiliates, making sure that you're engaging with them constantly on lark, sharing best practice, having one to one conversations.

And this is where I think there's a lot of heavy lifting actually involved in this channel.

So to your earlier point where the brands sort of say I've tried it, that they go I never believe that because I'm like, you can't have tried it because it's hours of work.

There's so much that goes into engaging with these affiliates and making sure that it works for both parties, because ultimately the affiliates, and I'm just honing your affiliates, there's so many parts to take shop.

But affiliates are a huge part of what will drive your success on the platform.

And if you don't get them behind what you're, what you're trying, trying to achieve, they will just follow the money, they will go to another brand where they know they can make sales and there's not so many restrictions.

So you have to find this balance.

And I think what we've done from going back to the educational point internally is also had to really educate the team on what good looks like on the platform, because what we found in some of these newer markets, the affiliates are so new to this type of selling.

So in the UK, where TikTok shop has been around for about, you know, five years, the.

The pool of talents that are working on TikTok Shop, the affiliate pool, they're very skilled at what sort of hooks work with content to drive conversion.

But in some of the newer markets in Germany and Spain, where it's maybe influencers that are transitioning to TikTok shop affiliate, or it's people that are just brand new to being an affiliate altogether, it's a brand new skillset.

So the types of hooks that they use are not so sophisticated as you would see in the uk.

And we've had to educate the affiliates on, maybe try this, maybe talk about the product in this way, show this demonstration.

And we've had to also educate our team.

Like, we have to be patient.

The skill set will rise, the bar will be risen, but it just takes time.

So it's a continuous thing.

Yeah, I can pretty much imagine that one.

So you said, like, TikTok shop in UK is already there for five years and you started, so what or how did you originally start it?

So we.

So it's been around for five years, but we've only been in it for two years.

I think it does take a long time to get your head around what the requirements are for the channel and find out your kind of operationally, how you're going to set yourselves up.

So we spend a lot of time trying to figure out, right, what capabilities do we have in house?

What do we need to source?

And actually for this channel especially, there are very few brands that I know that I've spoken to and I've spoken to a lot of the brands that are top five in most of the markets.

They don't have the entire skill set.

Very few have a studio, live host on tap, a producer used to talking to 400 affiliates a day, all these skill sets.

So I think you have to be figure out in those early few months what you can and cannot do and also what you want to achieve from the platform.

What function does it serve?

Is it a sales platform?

Is it marketing?

Is it both and what good looks like for you and what you ultimately want to achieve?

So when we were starting out, we had to answer all of those questions before we activated and I would urge any brand to do that because I think a lot of people rush their way to launching, which is like speed over perfection, of course.

But I think it's good to answer those questions before you activate.

Yeah.

And how was your business case in the beginning?

Was it like, okay, like did you already needed to achieve really turnover and also be profitable or was it like, hey, here's some money, try it out and let's see how it works.

So how was Philip's going with that one?

So the first six months was a pilot.

So at that point then we decided, right, okay, now we're going to put in place, you know, a real business case for expansion.

And now we have very clear targets in terms of, you know, GMV metrics, product impression metrics that we are going after.

But in the beginning it was very much a test and learn.

And they say TikTok shops say there's a dark period of about six months where you're just figuring it out and you're testing and you're learning.

I would argue it's more like nine months, but at least six months to get your head around it as a business and to start to test different commercial levers throughout the channel.

So yes, for us we needed that time to do that testing.

Yeah, that's actually pretty important to know, like to have like this dark time as you call it.

Right.

Because otherwise sometimes like the, if you, if you started a new marketplace, usually they were like, okay, like we have like three months to ramp up or something like that.

And then if you are not profitable after, I don't know, six months, some, some company hats are like disappointed but you started this and like why doesn't it work etc.

So if you already know up front, hey, you have like this dark time of six to ninth month, then everyone is already prepared and like can deal, you can deal better with the expectations like starting this business.

When did you started or decided to say like okay, now we want also to start with Germany, France because I mean you were in UK and you said like you have to talk with affiliates in Germany and to tell them like maybe like this hook works or that doesn't, et cetera.

How do you do this?

Like do you have like Germans and French people in your team or how do you do that one?

So it's growing rapidly.

And I think, you know, in terms of the affiliate outreach is a really good question because language I think is imperative.

Yeah, you need to have the language capabilities and also you need to have a grasp of what's happening in the local market.

So actually what we have found is working with native speakers.

They don't necessarily have to be based in the market, but people who are natives understand the culture and can recognize strong affiliates is really, really key.

So we work with agencies in Germany and the uk.

So the UK agency will manage our affiliate outreach with us.

It's a very much a partnership and the German agency will manage it for mainland Europe.

But they have Spanish native speaking, French native speaking so that we can have that cultural fit which I think is very, very important, especially for affiliate.

Yeah, and they also then support you with like the studios, etc.

Right.

Because I mean that's not what we have here so far.

I mean look in Asia, every big brand I think has like their live studio, right?

Like for years already.

Like they're pretty used to it.

Like that's really like, like their A and B basics for E commerce business.

Right.

But for us it's still new and I mean, I don't know, I was like 10 years ago in Asia and they were like, yeah, like we do live stream and this and this and this and we're like 10 years later, I know we still have no plan,.

We're so far behind.

I was in China in January and.

And seeing their live streaming production was just mind blowing.

And obviously I've been doing it over two years now, so I've seen a lot of studios, I've seen a lot of brands, but it's another level there.

Another level, Yeah, I can really, really imagine that one.

So let me just get through a bit more.

Like how you are set up.

You said like you work with agencies for the setup.

Like, how do you overall, what you say like is your setup.

Like, how are you?

How are you?

The words.

How are you connected?

No, no, no.

Yes, now, now I have it.

How are you connected with TikTok Shop?

Like in a.

On a technical technology side, on logistics side, but also how are you working daily with TikTok Shops?

So what is like the different content pieces you are doing?

Like do you do videos, live streams, et cetera?

So first the technology part and then the other ones, like how do you really do sell on TikTok shop?

Sure.

Okay.

So I think with the connection side of things, it is a real kind of magical like triad is like how I would describe it.

So you've got TikTok Shop, you've got the brand, in this case Philips and then you've also got our agency partner.

So the agency Partners are called TSPS, TikTok Shop Agency partners.

And as a brand you can select whichever services you'd like from them.

So we select certain services.

Some of those are live production, affiliate outreach, sometimes shop management, depending on the specialties of these services of these agencies.

Sorry.

And the way that we work is very much in a partnership.

So we are working day in, day out with these agencies and the TikTok Shop team to make sure that Philips is best represented on the the channel.

We are meeting the objectives we want.

We are representing ourselves from a brand tone of voice perspective.

We're focusing on the right product.

So it is very much a collaborative thing.

TikTok Shop have a communication system called Lark which is very much like Slack or Teams.

I know.

Yeah, I onboarded there yesterday.

Oh, well, I resisted it for a very long time and then I realized that the pace of the platform, you just cannot live without Lark.

There's a couple of brands I've spoken to that are still doing an email and I'm like, how do you manage?

Because the pace of the platform is such that you need to be able to answer questions very quickly.

Opportunities are arising all the time.

TikTok is Adjusting the algorithm, they're bringing out new functionalities.

So it's a hourly if not sometimes by the minute that you're speaking to your agency and you're speaking to TikTok shop team.

So it's a very, very close knit team that you're working with.

And I think that is a really important point because there's lots of brands I speak to where they, they have huge teams that are involved in the, the input to this machine.

Right.

So from a brand side they might have someone from like supply chain team, finance, marketing, maybe several marketers, a salesperson.

What we've tried to do is keep a very lean structure our side.

So we do have in house experts that are involved in speaking with the agencies and TikTok shop but they are the go to that all of the internal teams will go through.

So there is a bit of a funnel but mean that you're able to make your decisions very quickly.

You're not having to, you know, check in with 10 stakeholders and you're able to move forward because the pace of the platform won't wait for anyone.

So I think that is something that is new for brands but it is something that has worked, worked well for us.

So that's the setup that we have and what was your second question?

Sorry.

So it was a technical setup.

Like how do you connect it with like TikTok shops in E commerce?

How can really people order there at Philips?

Like how do you do logistics?

More that kind of part.

So we have slightly different setups in each of the countries that we operate in.

But it is similar to any kind of website or any like D2C where you will go onto the app, you will go onto the landing page of the product that you want to buy, you'll click through purchasing and then you will be delivered the product within.

I think it's two to three working days.

From the UK we use our agency's warehouse and in mainland Europe we use the FBT warehouse, very similar and then the customer support and care is also managed through us in the agencies as well.

So it's a very seamless experience I would say.

I order a lot from TikTok shop.

I've tested orders through both parties as well to make sure and it is in line with what your expectations would be for any Pure Play or any website that you would be going onto.

Okay, so speaking about like the formats you are using to sell on TikTok shop.

Right.

So one big part is live selling.

Maybe you can walk me through how Philips Livestream actually works.

How do you select hosts products, structure the session and measure whether it was worth it?

Sure.

So I think Lives is a, is one that lots of people are very new to.

It was one that we were very new to as well and it was, it's the one that I think can offer a lot for you if you're wanting to utilize the platform for more of like a mid funnel activation.

Because you can sell well on Lives, don't get me wrong.

But it's also an amazing way to drive education and consideration especially on high, high price point products.

So that is I think one thing to kind of bear in mind.

So when it comes to lives from a brand side of things we're very involved because is it's ultimately a shop front.

So you are involved in the set design.

What does it look like?

How are your products going to be displayed?

What host are you going to choose?

How are you going to choose your host?

And I'll come back to that point.

What demos are they going to do?

What bundles are you going to do?

So it's a very all encompassing.

I actually joke to my team sometimes this role is mad.

Like I'm like part producer, part host, like scout, part like you know, an rgm, a finance guy, like it's all crazy is cool.

It's very varied.

So yes, you have to get involved in all of them because it is ultimately the consumers are interfacing with you as a brand.

So it's really, really important.

Whereas I think in some of the other kind of commercial levers, if you think about affiliate, it's an affiliate endorsing your product.

So it's slightly different.

It's, it's their opinion.

Whereas we need to make sure that the lives as our shop front on the channel are representing us in the right way.

So some of the things that we get very involved in outside of these things is the host selection and that's really important because they are basically the voice of Philips.

So this is something that is a real challenge and it's a challenge for a lot of brands because up until several years ago this job didn't exist.

Live selling didn't exist.

Okay, yes it did on qvc.

But live selling is so different on, on TikTok shop as I'm sure you know, because of the live element.

So if you think of qvc it would have been scripted, you've got a teleprompter, you know exactly the direction that the show's gonn with lives you can have a plan, you have a show plan of like, right, we want to focus on these skus, these are our price points.

But then you don't know what people are going to say in the comments.

And that's where the show takes a turn.

So you know, you could have anyone from anywhere in the country just saying like, actually I don't want, I don't care about that toothbrush, I want to hear about the, the hair trimmer or the head shaver.

Show me that.

And then the host has to be able to pivot towards that focus.

So it's very much a live kind of organism, this show and you never really know who's going to enter from an audience perspective and what they're going to ask.

So from a host selection perspective, we spend a lot of time testing new hosts, trying to find the right host.

And it is, the skill set is quite unique.

You're looking for a unicorn.

I mean, you need also people who are really much trained to your products, right?

Yes, well, that's something that we've realized we can train them on.

So the number one thing we're always looking for is charisma.

Someone who, because if you think about it, people are scrolling for three seconds so you need to capture the attention of that audience in three seconds.

So that is really important for us.

Often we find it's people within the performing arts space that have that because they're naturally trained behind the camera so they know how to capture that audience.

So usually those are the top performers that we usually go for.

And then we will need to spend time on, training them on, okay, selling psychology, what kind of hooks can you use to be able to drive a sense of urgency?

And then like you said, education, we need to train them on the products, show them what demonstrations they can talk about, take them through the technology.

And actually for us on Philips, that's quite challenging because if you think about selling on beauty and I think that there's some amazing live hosts on beauty and I don't want to take away from what the amazing job they do, but actually it's far more visual and you're able to, if you think about swatching lipsticks for instance, you can see straight away it's very visual and it's quite easy to explain.

But actually if you have to explain a 200 pound toothbrush and the technology behind it, that's a different skill to be able to do.

So some of the skills are trained, but some of them, you know, especially from a performance and charisma perspective, I think we just, you need to have to be able to even go into that space.

But it is a hard, hard find in terms of the host talent.

Really hard.

So you would say like you have one big part is live streams where you sell on, right.

You have like your TikTok shop videos and then you also have like affiliates, right.

Is there any other, like, is there any other format you are selling on TikTok shop where maybe you want to walk us through the other ones?

Yeah, so I would say the majority is going to come through those chann.

Around 90% of most brand sales, if not more will be coming through lives and affiliates.

The remainder will be coming through Shop tab.

So this is where this is more of like your organic, natural consumer journey where you're going on.

You already have the purchase intention in mind and you're typing it into the box and then you can find it.

So it's not.

Yes, that is a third way.

But majority of the sales are going to come through those two streams.

But then you have kind of layered into that shopping ads which you also need to lean into heavily.

So making sure that you're putting support behind your affiliates in terms of, you know, boosting their, their, their content.

But also live, especially in a market like the UK can get very competitive for traffic, very competitive, especially around peak.

So Black Friday.

And the only way that you're going to be able to get those viewers into the room is what we say into the virtual room is through ads.

So shopping ads and the strategy behind your, your, your ad buying is also a very fundamental part of your success on the platform.

So that is also another lever that you need to utilize.

Okay, so speaking about affiliates, so also creators, right, what is the single most valuable lesson you would say you have learned from working with independent creators?

Yeah, I would say it's that don't underestimate the newer ones.

Don't underestimate the ones that have very few followers because we all know now, I think it's quite widely known now that in TikTok versus other platforms like Instagram, the content finds you.

So it does not matter how many followers they have, their content can still go viral.

And we've seen people that have very few followers.

What I'm classified as few followers, like less than 10,000.

Some of their content has blown up and they've done like 150kg in a month or 200.

So because they have the, they have the drive to want to do it.

A lot of these people are often new to it, but they have more of a hunger and they just keep testing and Testing and some of them will make, you know, five, ten videos on one of your products just because, because they want to make those sales.

So I think not underestimating the newer affiliates and the ones that have the SORT following because they can be real powerhouses.

Okay, that's quite interesting.

I wouldn't have guessed that one to be very honest.

Does that really change the economics for a brand like Philips and what does it signal about where the platform is heading?

Yeah, I think that you know this is going to happen as a platform gets established.

I think there's always the, in the early days a platform needs to make it appealing for brands to be able to onboard, especially when it's very unknown and very new.

So I think there was an element of it that we, we kind of anticipated obviously when we spoke about it earlier in terms of the profitability that is still a very, very important part of, of us wanting to delve into this channel and it still remains very, very important for us to retain profitability.

So you know, hopefully it doesn't continue to rise up but I think it's something that all brands you know, need to, need to be cognizant of and aware of.

But I think you know, TikTok know the power that they have now.

I think the early days especially and it's still in some of the newer markets it's still very much about onboarding brands but in more of the established markets and I would say Germany is, is getting very close to the UK as well in terms of being the penetration in the market.

They know the strength that they have so I think that that will continue but it's something that you know we are keeping a very close eye on.

Great.

So we are almost coming to an end.

I have like one last question.

Stephanie, our next Monday question.

So what is the concrete thing your listen, our listeners could take away from today what they could do next Monday to start the TikTok Shop business?

What would you recommend them to do if they want to start?

If you want to start, my suggestion would be start watching as many lives as you can.

Start to follow some of the top performing brands, go on to platforms like Callowdata where you can see some of the top performing brands.

You can see very easily by market.

You can see the best performing products, the best performing shop brands, then hunt them down in TikTok shop, start to watch their lives, see how they manage their lives, what kind of hooks that they're, they're talking about.

Then start to have a look at their affiliate content.

Just get a feel as to what these top performing brands are doing.

And then what I would suggest doing is create your seller center.

Because as soon as you create your seller center, you'll be able to start to test to learn the functionalities and you will also see some internal data.

You'll see see top performing in categories and you can see top performing affiliates.

And then the next stage would be you can start to go live and start to test.

But I would say get a grounding as to what is working well in your market and in your category first.

That would be my first piece of advice.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

Welcome.

And I would say it's definitely proven now that just to say like we're now connected to TikTok shop is not enough to make any sense.

Yeah.

But some, yeah, some brands are still doing this.

So actually, thank you for this episode, Stephanie.

It was really, really great to get more insights from a really brand perspective.

Yeah.

To hear how you did evolved and how you started a platform business with TikTok Shop, but also how you expanded it.

Yeah.

So a huge thank you to you.

Thank you, Valerie, for being so open and concrete about what you did and how you did it.

Thank you so much for having me.

You're welcome.

And yeah.

And if you enjoyed this episode, please follow and subscribe to let's Talk Marketplace on Spotify, Apple podcast or YouTube.

And yeah, this genuinely helps us reach more people in the marketplace industry to connect you with each other.

And yeah, Ingrid will be back next week and we will have a great episode lined up with the latest news from the past month of the marketplace industry, the two of us.

So listen to us and see you then.

Bye.

Bye.

You listened to let's Talk Marketplace, the Marketplace podcast with Ingrid Lommer and Vanneri Dichtel.