TikTok Shop live setup for beginners

TikTok Shop lets you register as an individual or a business, but live selling access depends on your account and region. Open TikTok Shop Seller Centre and its Academy pages to see what your account can do today.

Add your products to the shop before the stream. Pinning an item mid-show is quick when the listing already exists and slow when you are typing a description on camera.

TikTok is a vertical app, so mount the phone portrait on a tripod with the lens level with your eyes. A lens below your chin makes every viewer look up your nose.

Stand the tripod about an arm’s length away. That frames your face and hands together, so beauty buyers see the shade on your skin and the tube in your hand in one shot.

Put a ring light directly in front of you with the phone through its centre. It fills shadows under the eyes and shows true foundation colour, which a ceiling bulb distorts.

Turn the colour temperature to a neutral white and leave it there for every show. Shades that look warm one night and cool the next lead to returns.

The phone’s own mic picks up the room echo and the fridge. A small wireless mic clipped to your collar puts your voice close and keeps it level when you turn to grab a product.

Do a ten-second test recording before each show and play it back with headphones.

Pull every product you plan to show into one tray, in the order you will show it. If you search a tub on camera, viewers watch your back.

Keep the rest of your stock in clear tubs by product line, off camera. If a viewer asks for something not on the tray, you can see the right tub from your seat.

Plan the show in short blocks: a hello while people arrive, a hero product, two or three cheaper add-ons, then the hero again for latecomers. Write it on a sticky note under the phone.

Talk to the first viewers by name. Answer early comments and the next viewers find a conversation already running.