The ever-growing ecommerce market continues to present new opportunities for brands. But with those new opportunities comes additional challenges in preventing the unauthorized resale of products online. In the past, unauthorized resellers relied heavily on ecommerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart. Today, unauthorized resellers have begun selling products on the TikTok Shop. While brands may look to partner with influencers and other celebrities to sell genuine products directly on the TikTok Store, unauthorized resellers are taking advantage as well, selling products without authorization by leveraging content and branding. If brands have not already done so, now is the time to begin monitoring TikTok for unauthorized resellers, just as they do with other ecommerce platforms.
How the TikTok Shop Works
Brands and influencers alike can leverage the TikTok’s built-in ecommerce features to promote and sell products directly through the TikTok Shop. At a low level, the TikTok Shop benefits influencers, brands, and consumers by offering a convenient platform for the sale and purchase of products. For ecommerce businesses, partnering directly with influencers and other celebrities to market their products can be very advantageous, benefiting from the popularity of both TikTok and the promoter. By integrating product links into videos, live streams, and profile pages, brands can showcase their products in real-time, offer reviews or tutorials, and drive instant purchases without redirecting viewers off the app. As a result, TikTok is becoming a legitimate one-stop application for entertainment and online shopping.
TikTok promoters, whether that be popular influencers and celebrities or other users with less of a following, can participate in TikTok’s affiliate program, earning commissions by featuring products from brands or independent sellers. This model blends entertainment with shopping, enabling promoters to monetize their content while providing followers and consumers with a seamless purchasing experience. As a result, TikTok has become a powerful tool for brands to market and sell products directly to new audiences, particularly those who would not seek to purchase the products on a separate ecommerce platform.
However, while the TikTok Shop presents exciting opportunities for legitimate brands and influencers, it has also opened the door to new risks, particularly from unauthorized resellers seeking to exploit the platform’s growing commerce capabilities.
Unauthorized Resellers on the TikTok Shop
In general, unauthorized resellers present serious risks to a brand’s reputation, channel control, and customer trust by selling products and using branding without approval. Unauthorized resellers use the TikTok Shop by creating seller accounts and offering branded products for sale without the brand’s permission, often sourcing items through gray markets or bulk purchasing from authorized retailers. Unauthorized resellers may promote these products through videos, live streams, and tutorials just like other branded and approved content. In many cases, they use the brand’s trademarks, logos, or marketing language in their listings or content, which can mislead consumers and potentially constitute trademark infringement. In other words, it becomes difficult to determine which TikTok promoters have the brand’s approval to post content and sell the products and which TikTok promoters are doing so without the brand’s authorization and potentially selling gray market goods.
What Should Brands Do?
Brands should begin monitoring TikTok for unauthorized resellers–even if the brands themselves are not actively selling or promoting products on TikTok. For brands that are actively selling products on the TikTok shop through influencers or otherwise, they should ensure those influencers are authorized, sourcing products appropriately, and certified with TikTok.
TikTok claims to enforce strict intellectual property and trademark guidelines to protect creators, brands, and consumers on its platform. However, TikTok recommends contacting the user directly to resolve brands’ complaints more quickly. Brands may also file a Trademark Infringement Report with TikTok when necessary.
Overall, to combat unauthorized resellers effectively, companies should implement a comprehensive strategy that includes securing intellectual property rights, establishing strong distribution agreements, and monitoring online platforms. In that same vein, brands should also use influencers and content creators to cultivate promotional materials in line with the brand’s image and mission.
Through these combined efforts, brands can better safeguard their products and uphold their market integrity.
