Please read this section with these questions:
1. Why is product selection the key to success or failure?
2. How to choose products suitable for TikTok sales?
3. What product do you choose? How would you rate your product strength?
TikTok’s five core strengths refer to: product strength, content strength, traffic acquisition strength, operational strength, and brand strength. It can help us analyze a business model using these five dimensions and strengthen them one by one in a targeted manner. I have talked about the five core strengths of entrepreneurs in many offline sharing and speeches, and I have also learned the five forces model of private domain in the courses and books about private domain by “Private Domain Xiao Changzhang”. I think this is a very valuable system, and it will be very useful to disassemble TikTok using this model. So this chapter will take you to a deep understanding of TikTok’s five core strengths.
Tips
The content of this chapter not only takes you to learn and analyze from the five dimensions of TikTok, you can also use these methods to disassemble, evaluate and optimize any of your business models.
1. Product strength is an important factor in success or failure
Before I signed an incubation cooperation with a certain company, I learned that they had invested more than 3 million yuan in the cross-border e-commerce sector, but almost no transactions. The CEO wanted to give up this sector, but did not want to admit defeat. After I diagnosed them, I found that the product selection process determined that this project was difficult to sustain.
They chose convenience foods. When I diagnosed them, I asked them the following questions in the WeChat group:
I looked at your products and accounts and listed a few questions:
Okay, Mr. Wang, you say.
1. Are there any big B-end customers like Chinese supermarkets or Walmart?
2. If there are no big customers, do you want to sell to B-end or C-end?
3. If you want to sell to B-end, the response rate through online email development is extremely low, and the possibility of closing an order is extremely low. How to solve this problem?
4. If you want to sell to C-end, should you choose to send a single piece to a customer by express delivery, or concentrate in an overseas warehouse?
3. If it is a single piece, the timeliness is too expensive, the express delivery cost is higher than the product, and food requires special qualifications; if you choose an overseas warehouse, it is more troublesome, and there are also overseas warehouse costs. If it is not sold well, it is more difficult to handle, and food has a shelf life; how to deal with it?
style=”text-indent:14px”>6. Advertising materials are difficult to make. It is difficult to make videos that foreigners think are very fragrant and delicious. Because they don’t eat such things in their daily lives, they have no concept of this; how to solve it?
7. If you want to use a new media platform with a large amount of traffic such as TikTok to promote your products, but it is difficult to make attractive short videos of such products; if you invest a lot of money in content output, you will find that the profit margin is not enough to support these costs, what should you do?
Have you ever thought about these questions? Who can tell me?
I got the point… When do you have time, can we talk about it in person?
Later, the CEO told me that the friends in their team were silent after hearing these questions. Just a few of the most superficial problems trapped a team of 9 people who invested more than 3 million yuan in a project. This is a very typical case of a project encountering difficult problems due to inappropriate product selection. It is not that you cannot choose the category of convenience food for cross-border business, but you have to match your own capabilities and resources. If they have a big customer like Walmart, maybe they don’t need to worry about it. If not, these problems will make them stretched.
TikTok’s product selection is very important. If this step is not done well, all subsequent marketing strategies, content strategies and live broadcast adjustments will be restricted by product selection issues. When I was diagnosing and incubating cross-border projects for enterprises, I found that more than 80% of companies and teams had big problems when selecting products on their own, and they would step on the same pit. [Pit 1] After investing millions of funds to start the project, I found that it was difficult to make promotional materials! The postage was so expensive! There was no traffic after it was put out! There was traffic but no transaction! These problems were only solved when they were encountered… After solving one problem, I found that there was a more difficult problem waiting for me.
So you must remember that when doing cross-border business and TikTok, product strength must be an important foundation and an important factor in determining the success or failure of the project. What impact will product strength have on the project? Let’s look at them one by one.
1. Impact on cost and profit margin
Product selection has a very direct impact on our cost and profit margin, mainly reflected in: First, whether the price difference between China and foreign countries is large, whether foreigners think this product is worth spending money to buy; second, the length, width, height and weight determine the amount of postage, whether the product can support the unit price; third, if there are liquids, powders, batteries and other items in the product, it is necessary to invest extra costs to go through special channels.
2. Impact on traffic size
I have done product traffic tests, and the traffic gap between different products in TikTok live broadcast rooms is very large. Products that can attract the attention of foreigners in 1 second, arouse their interest, and generate a desire to buy will have very high traffic in the live broadcast room. On the contrary, if the audience cannot understand what you are showing in a short time, and the picture is not novel, the traffic will be very poor (I will explain in detail how to increase the traffic in the live broadcast room later).
3. Influence on conversion rate
Conversion rate is the transaction rate, that is, whether the customer will pay for this product. I mentioned earlier when talking about interest e-commerce that we hope that users will be interested in short videos or live broadcasts and generate purchasing behavior. Therefore, whether the product can arouse interest and whether it can make users make a purchase decision in a short time is very critical. For example, false eyelashes, the short video or live broadcast shows a woman wearing false eyelashes on her left eye and the effect comparison on the right eye. Customers can instantly understand what effect buying this product can bring to themselves. In addition, product pricing is also very important, because in the early stage of TikTok interest e-commerce, if you want customers to make a purchase decision immediately, you must carefully consider pricing. Products that are too expensive have a relatively lower conversion rate. You can set products with lower customer unit prices as a population for customers to know our brand and contact our brand (for example, international big brands sell bags worth tens of thousands of yuan and lipsticks worth two or three hundred yuan). Later, convert high-customer-unit products in the private domain. This strategy also needs to be taken into consideration when selecting products at the beginning.
4. Influence on repurchase rate
We all know that the cost of getting one old customer to buy 10 times is much lower than getting 10 new customers to buy once each, and it is also more advantageous for brand building. If we want customers to recognize us, in addition to considering the pricing and profit margin of the product, it is more important to consider whether the user thinks that this consumption is worthwhile, or even exceeds expectations. Of course, this also depends on whether the attributes of the product have high repurchase. For example, for a kettle, no matter how good the quality is, it is difficult for customers to repurchase within two years. So when selecting products, these two angles will affect the customer’s repurchase rate.
5. Influence on referrals
Products with good quality and good reputation will get referrals from customers from the heart, but I want to emphasize that our product selection can affect customers’ “passive” referrals. For example, exquisite jewelry, diamond-studded wearable nails, unique mobile phone cases, handsome sunglasses, etc., these products are inherently display-oriented. When customers use these products, they are our natural models, helping us to spread and “plant grass” for the second time. When I lived in the United States, I often encountered American girls waving at me from the opposite street, and ran over excitedly to ask me: “Where did you buy your shoes? Where did you buy your bag? Where did you do your nails?”… It can be seen that good product selection itself has the ability to display and refer.
The above factors deeply affect our entire business chain and the final sales transaction. In fact, it is not that TikTok is difficult to do, but that many people go astray in the first step of product selection. So, next I will share with you my exclusive secrets for TikTok product selection.
Second, five exclusive TikTok e-commerce product selection secrets
After suffering many losses in the product selection process, I read a lot of information, used tools to find a lot of data, and also studied how the most popular live broadcast room of Douyin in China selects products. Combining the product selection problems I personally experienced, I personally formulated five secrets for the team to sell goods and select products on TikTok.
1. Material, volume and weight of the product
First, try to avoid some of the “sensitive” items I mentioned earlier: food, liquid powder, batteries, chemicals, and other products that are restricted for export or require special qualifications. Many logistics channels do not transport these products, or the procedures are complicated and the freight is expensive. Some international logistics can transport them, but it is easy to have long customs clearance time. Choosing these products will cause a lot of trouble for yourself and bring many problems to the project. Second, don’t be too heavy, and don’t make any of the length, width and height data too large. This standard is relative and depends on the product’s pricing and profit margin. The standard for international postage is to evaluate both volume and weight, which means that if any of the three dimensions of length, width and height exceeds the range, the postage will increase a lot. International postage is the key to our cost calculation, and it must be taken into account when selecting products. I have suffered losses in logistics costs in a project: the products sold in that project are oil paintings. Although they are very thin, the length and width data are not small. Especially at the end of the year, the peak season sometimes encounters the problem of price increases by logistics companies. I thought the profit was very high, but in the end, there was no advantage after counting the postage, and I was happy for nothing. However, jewelry and crystal products are different. They are of high value, small size and low logistics cost. I have calculated the logistics cost of rings. If we send a single piece to a customer, the logistics cost of each piece is RMB 30 to 60, and the time limit is 7 to 14 days. The average customer price of each ring we sell is US$100 to US$200, so this logistics cost is acceptable. Third, pay attention to the broad product. This refers not only to physical products, but also to services. If it is a service, such as old photo restoration, PPT production, LOGO design, teaching foreigners to learn Chinese and other courses, it is delivered online on the Internet, and there is almost no logistics problem. However, if you choose this type of product, you will also face other troubles, such as the higher average return rate of virtual products and the greater difficulty of making materials.
2. The price difference between China and foreign countries is large, and there is enough profit space
When choosing a product, you must compare the price of this product in the target market, and also compare it in the same channel. When I was incubating a cross-border TikTok project of a Chongqing company, the partners in their team wanted to make many products, but they didn’t know which one to make. I taught them to research all the data of the products they wanted to make, and their completion results are as follows (see Figure 2-2).
With such a result, I don’t need to say that they have eliminated some impossible options by themselves. The rest will continue to be screened and judged according to other product selection principles. The profit margin is not imagined, but compared with real data. If you don’t know enough about the target market, make good use of the data search tool I gave you to assist yourself in making a good judgment. Here I would like to talk about the issue of profit margin. We need to continuously optimize the supply chain and leave enough profit margin for the project under the premise of reasonable pricing. I will say in the last chapter of this book that if you are an entrepreneur who wants to develop overseas markets, then I hope you will not only be a TikTok e-commerce, but also let yourself use TikTok’s traffic and trends to eventually build your own international brand independent station with your own barriers and brand assets. A reasonable profit margin can not only ensure the smooth progress of the project, but also make a long-term strategic layout for the project.
3. Strong display, low threshold for understanding, what you see is what you get
Using TikTok to obtain traffic and monetization, the most important thing is to get more exposure through short videos and live broadcasts. Our product selection needs to meet the current characteristics of the platform, that is, the product should be what you see is what you get, so that users can understand what it is in one second, whether it is good or not, and whether it is worth buying.
I have stepped on a big pit at this point: I have an independent website that sells customized tattoo stickers. The traffic is very poor when I live broadcast on TikTok. It is not easy to get people, but they don’t have the patience to listen to you about the customization steps, but buy whatever looks good. Later, I concluded that products that are difficult to understand and have long links are not suitable for TikTok live broadcasts at present. Try to select products with strong display and put them in the live broadcast room, so that users can effortlessly know what we are selling and retain them with amazing pictures. Too many cumbersome steps and too long links only result in impressing yourself and users leaving because of lack of patience.
4. Matching with the target market demand
The easiest way is to search the tag “#Tik Tok Made MeBuyIt” (topic: TikTok makes me buy) directly in the search bar of TikTok, which can quickly see what the most popular and best-selling products are and find a lot of inspiration. However, this method can only help us find products that are already selling well on TikTok, so the competition will be more intense. It can be used as a comprehensive consideration when selecting products.
In addition, before deciding to select a product, be sure to look at the demand, sales volume, and search volume of this product in your target market. Here I recommend a very useful tool, SEMRush, which is a must-have for my product selection. Let me take moissanite as an example to show you how I use this tool to assist in product selection. When I want to check the global search volume of a keyword, I can see a lot of results on this page: the number of searches, the ranking of the country and the corresponding total volume,
What related words there are, etc.
When I want to see which global top brands and independent websites there are in this product category, as well as their pricing and strategies, I can find them through this interface.
There are many things on this website that can help us understand product selection data from various angles, find brands worth learning at various levels, and help us analyze the traffic of these brands. Before you want to determine a product selection, go to this website to check the data, find more benchmark brands, and see their specific SKUs (minimum stock units), pricing strategies, marketing strategies, traffic sources, etc. It must be much better than making a decision on product selection by yourself.
5. Product value
If the previous four product selection secrets are to help a startup team get started better, then this fifth method is a very important product selection standard for friends who have requirements for brands: the multi-layered value of the product.
First, use value. Good product quality can meet the purpose of users using it and get good feedback and word of mouth. This is very important and basic. But it should not be the only pursuit in this era.
Second, emotional value. There are many decompression products on TikTok that sell very well. Because everyone needs to decompress. And the moissanite I just mentioned, this kind of simulated diamond that looks like a diamond, can satisfy the user’s love of beauty and vanity at the same time.
Third, asset value. This requires higher requirements for products and brands. Like the two brands we are all familiar with, Rolex and Hermes, their products have both use value (watches can tell time, bags can be carried), emotional value (symbols of assets, identity, and status), and even more asset value (reselling not only does not depreciate, but also increases in value, and even increases in value more than many financial products). When a brand has all three values at the same time, its product power will be very strong. However, when selling products on the TikTok platform, users need to make purchase decisions in a timely manner because of their interests, so the conversion rate of products with too high a price is relatively low. If you want to make products that meet these three values, you can choose products with relatively low price thresholds as entry-level products, so that customers can settle in the private domain, so that they have the opportunity to come into contact with higher-level products again.
The above are the product selection tips I used when I selected products myself and incubated TikTok cross-border for other companies. If you are already doing TikTok, you can refer to these aspects to evaluate and adjust your product selection; if you are preparing to start the road to TikTok, you can refer to the methods I mentioned to assist you in product selection.
III. Product Strength Evaluation Criteria
Avoid sensitive items
-1. Product material, volume and weight – Volume, length, width and height
Virtual delivery service products
– 2. Large price difference between China and foreign countries, sufficient profit space
Exclusive TikTok – 3. Strong display, low threshold for understanding, what you see is what you get
– 4. Matching degree with target market needs – Competitive product analysis and tools
E-commerce product selection secrets
Use value
Emotional transmission
Product Value 1 – Emotional Value – Decompression
– Asset Value
Let’s review the five important secrets of TikTok product selection. Based on these five secrets, I have listed the evaluation criteria for TikTok’s product strength. You can refer to this standard to evaluate the product strength of TikTok.
1 point product strength: don’t know how to select products for TikTok, and do not meet the above five principles of product selection;
2 points product strength: know how to select products for TikTok, and your product selection meets at least 2 principles of product selection;
3 points product strength: meet 3 or more principles of product selection, and understand the basic situation of this product in the target market;
4 points product strength: meet 4 or more principles of product selection, can be well integrated into the target market, and rely on strong product strength to obtain high traffic exposure and transaction conversion on TikTok
5 points product strength: meet all the above principles of product selection, become the leading brand of TikTok or cross-border e-commerce in the industry, have a unique product style and differentiation, and have self-propagation and fission properties.
Please record your rating, I will analyze the comprehensive score with you at the end of this chapter.