622: How Live Selling Is Crushing Traditional E-commerce With Gracey Ryback

00:01
Welcome back to the podcast, the show where I cover all the latest strategies and current events related to e-commerce and online business. Now in this episode, Gracie Ryback and I dive into the live selling phenomenon that’s turning ordinary people into six and seven figure sellers on TikTok, Amazon, and social media in a matter of months. You’ll learn why this shopping format is exploding right now and show you the strategies top sellers are using to rake in thousands of dollars per stream. But before we begin,

00:27
I want to let you know that tickets for Seller Summit 2026 are now on sale over at Sellersummit.com and if you sell physical products online, this is the event that you should be at. Unlike most events that are filled with high-level fluff and inspirational stories, Seller Summit is all about tactical step-by-step strategies you can actually use in your business right away. Every speaker I invite is in the trenches, people who are running their own e-commerce stores, managing inventory, dealing with suppliers, and scaling real businesses. There are no corporate execs and no consultants.

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Also, I hate large events, so I intentionally keep it small and intimate. We cap attendance at around 200 people so you can actually have real conversations and connect with everyone in the room. We have sold out every single year for the past nine years, and I expect this year to be no different. It’s happening April 21st to the 23rd in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and if you’re doing over 250K or $1 million in revenue, we also offer a private mastermind for higher-level sellers. Right now, tickets are the cheapest they’re ever gonna be, so if you want in,

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Go over to SellersSummit.com and grab your ticket. Now onto the show.

01:34
Welcome to the My Wife, Quitter, Job podcast. Today I’m excited to have Gracie Ryback on the show. Now, Gracie was introduced to me by my friends over at Lunch with Norm, and I’m really glad that we connected. She is a top Amazon influencer and content creator known for her expertise in influencer marketing and short form content. Now, back in 2020, she started sharing Amazon product deals just for fun. I don’t even think she had a plan, and before she knew it,

02:03
she had cracked the code on Amazon influencer and affiliate programs. And now she is one of the go-to creators that brands work with and they want their products to actually move on platforms like TikTok Shop. And she has also become a major voice in the Amazon creator space, teaching sellers how to use real authentic content and influencer partnerships to grow their brands. And with that, welcome to the show, Gracie. How are you doing?

02:29
Hi, Steve. I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me excited to talk about this fun topic. Absolutely. Yeah. And I am curious, like, how did you get started in e commerce? And was this like a pandemic thing? Like you were stuck at home and decided to just make tic tocs? It was such a pandemic thing. I was working a remote job like literally March 2020. I started that. And I think what my best friend introduced me to tic toc and I was definitely like a watcher of videos for a

02:57
few months and then towards kind of end of 2020, I was like, for absolutely no intention of any expectation, let me just start making videos of Amazon deals that I’m finding. And very unintentionally, that turned into, long story short, some Amazon sellers finding my videos, reaching out to me and then asking me to do videos for them. And that’s when I got catapulted into this world of

03:25
affiliate marketing, I had really no clue what it was before I was already deep into it. And then the brand owners I had met through it kind of introduced me to this world. And it was it’s a very deep world. And I’ve learned so much from that point. And then from there, I know you’ve been involved in Amazon live also. Is that still alive? Or is that kind of dead? Because of TikTok? So

03:52
It’s interesting. And I would say that it’s kind of different from what is possible on TikTok. know, most of TikTok live is very much like similar to Instagram live, where you prop up your phone and you’re kind of just chit chatting. I would compare Amazon live to a more formal type of live streaming where, you know, you have products like preselected, you have a set plan in place. You’re probably planning to go live for one to two hours. And maybe you have like a theme like

04:21
a get ready with me or today I’m talking about this specific brand. And I’ve seen more uh brand partnerships come specifically to Amazon Live rather than TikTok Shop live streaming, but that’s definitely changing. I’m seeing more happening on TikTok Shop live for sure in the last couple of months. ah But Amazon Live is still uh a thing. do see more creators. I do see more creators kind of

04:50
coming from a brand partnership place rather than like, I’m just gonna go live for the fun of it. I think going live for the fun of it is a TikTok or Instagram thing. think um having a more specific plan is an Amazon Live thing. Okay, because I know, you in China, live selling is like all the rage right now. And then we’re always like a couple of years behind. oh So are you seeing that already happening with like maybe some of your clients, Amazon Live, TikTok Live? I have definitely seen a lot of

05:19
success come from TikTok lives. But I think what I have discovered is that it’s not always just big numbers and big dollar signs that you should believe came organically. I think a lot of what TikTok shop live success came from is a lot of money directing traffic to that live stream and a lot of like pre-preparation of sharing the live stream, marketing the live stream, a lot of brand resources being poured into those live streams. I have yet to see

05:48
too much success come from just non-brand supported or organic live streams. always really been so fascinated by the success that China has had with live streams. And I’ve always wondered like, why can’t the US get there in the same way? And my personal hypothesis is that in America, we are getting sold to from every different direction. And I feel like people are feeling fatigued from getting like product pushed at them all the time.

06:17
That might be the case in China, I’m not sure. But I feel like that’s why Americans are less liking live streams rather than how China has done it. So you don’t think it will be as crazy as it has been in China for like the last couple years? We’re not there yet. Could we get there? I think if there’s a shift, we could. But I don’t think we could say we’re nearly there yet. Okay. You know, what’s funny is my mom buys all of her products.

06:47
from QVC and the Home Shopping Network. But that’s probably just her age demographic. Like she’ll literally pick up the phone and like dial to actually buy the item. It’s pretty funny. I remember like, I remember adults doing that, like when I was younger, and I have certainly never done that. But I definitely know it’s still happening. QVC is like alive and well. So it’s definitely still out there. And I mean, as you said, there are people still dialing up the phone and be like, I want this.

07:17
For a pretty high price as I’ve seen QVC. Yes, yes, it gets taken a lot for a lot of junk. Okay, so let’s let’s switch gears just to kind of talk about ecommerce Amazon. So if you were to start a brand today, and let’s talk about organic short form first, which platform would you choose? Still today, tick tock as the best top of funnel to get started with. And I always say, pick one platform to create content for and then repurpose that

07:46
one piece of content into any other platform you can. And so if you create for TikTok, that style is more likely to work on Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Amazon storefronts, rather than creating for Instagram and hoping that it works for TikTok, I’ve noticed. So what are the differences in the types of content that work on TikTok versus Instagram versus YouTube shorts?

08:12
So YouTube shorts algorithm is definitely a lot slower to push videos out. Instagram and TikTok are like more similar, but I would say that with TikTok, it’s a lot more raw and messy. And you’ll see videos with millions of views with some girl, no makeup, in bed, bonnet on, just saying a random thought that she had. And if people liked the thought that she had, it might go viral.

08:41
But on Instagram, definitely is a lot more still, as it always has been, more curated, more aesthetic, more high quality professional. Like, here’s a recipe. Here’s an outfit idea. Here is, you know, home decor. Everything is really pretty well lit and curated, as opposed to TikTok. It’s kind of messy. It’s in the moment. It’s authentic and relatable, if you will. And so that’s still the case. um But I’ve also seen more like raw

09:10
unedited, unperfect content, imperfect content on Instagram more successful recently. So it sounds like Instagram takes more effort, right? Yes. Okay. So if you’re going to do it, just start with TikTok and just post the exact same content on both. is what you’re doing. All right. So let’s, maybe we should just like make up a hypothetical brand here. uh What are you into? I’m into

09:38
I like beauty stuff because not because I’m like, I like beauty and makeup, but because it has a good before and after that you can show really quickly. And that I think converts well. let’s, let’s use beauty if you. Sure. Okay. Let’s use beauty. uh Okay. What types of content, you know, cause it’s a first off, do you have to post every day? So my personal formula is I’d rather somebody post quality over

10:08
quantity, but with consistency in mind. So if you’re going to post three low quality videos just to get something out there, I think that’s less of a good strategy than if you were to think a little bit harder about like, am I providing value in this? Is this something I actually am getting something from when I watch this video? And uh thinking a little bit more about the quality and the lighting and the energy that you bring to it. uh

10:38
So I wouldn’t say like post every day you’ll see success. I think it’s make sure you’re posting something good and then being consistent at it. So I’d rather you do three times a week good videos than crap videos once a day. Okay. And then when you say quality, you don’t mean production quality, right? Slightly. Like I think the very basics are having good lighting, the video is not blurry. You’re not like the sound isn’t warped and you’re not like in

11:08
you know, in a windy airplane or something, like, at least have clear audio, good lighting. That’s like, I feel the basics. If you don’t have these two basics, you can assume that your video probably won’t perform. And then quantity, would you say like the minimum would be three times a week? Yeah. Okay. Because I’ve been told like, you know, multiple times a day, especially if you’re trying to scale. That’s a great way to burn out really quickly. Right.

11:37
because anybody, no matter who you are, you will run out of ideas eventually. And then eventually the pressure of like, I ran out of ideas, what do I do today? How do I get something out there? And then like that pressure is going to kind of mess with your creative creativity. And so I think, I think batch posting is great. I have like a running list of ideas that I might get at 3am in my head and then actually film it and batch it like a week later.

12:07
quality I think is still going to be a priority over getting something out there when it’s bad. I mean, that totally makes sense. Do you have like a content bread and butter? Because I think what most people have problems with is what do I put like if I own a brand, like what am I going to post? And I think so many brand founders at least the consensus that I’ve heard is like, I don’t want to put myself out there. I don’t want to, you know, yeah, I’m not interested. I’m not a social media person. The thing that I think

12:38
Um is missing from brands is the human factor something that I actually learned from our friend kevin king is He said what’s going to make the difference between you and your competitor is the story behind your brand if you can share that story whether that be a founder story or um, might be the story of a mishap a mistake that you made in your business that caught you this but whatever That’s actually so much more important than any kind of marketing

13:07
ads you can run, campaigns you can do with an influencer. If somebody can see, this person is the one who created this brand. This is their why behind creating this brand, and this is their process behind it. That’s actually really fascinating to somebody completely uninvolved in the e-commerce side of things. Take somebody who’s just a normal buyer, a normal consumer.

13:30
Like this is fascinating. had, you know, still so many people think Amazon is not a marketplace. They’re just like, it’s like Jeff and us and like, it’s just Amazon to consumers. They have no idea there’s like small sellers and you know, individuals in the middle that are actually doing the selling. They have no idea. So when they come out with the human factor, that’s a huge, huge, huge differentiator between one brand versus the next. Let me give you an example here. So

13:59
I’ve been trying to get my wife to do a TikTok channel for our brand, for example, and she doesn’t want to be on there. And I mean, we sell handkerchiefs, right? We don’t want some middle-aged Chinese dude hawking handkerchiefs, although it might work, I’ve been told. So you do the founder story and then you, you know, maybe you talk about like the process, how we process orders and we’re talking like one post a day, right? You’re going to run out of that really quick. So I’m just kind of curious, like what your mix is. Like if you were to…

14:26
If a brand came to you and said, hey, I need to create content, like I need a list of things that I can even talk about. Yeah. Indefinitely. Yeah. So there is two types of important content. There’s nurture content and then there’s reach content. So you need reach content to reach new people. You need nurture content to keep the people you have around and interested. So it involves a mix of everything with that reach content. I would suggest.

14:55
Hopping on trends. There’s constantly trends that you can hop on every single day October 1st hop on the it’s the first of the month trend You could take a video of you sitting at your computer at your desk write like a quote not necessarily like an inspirational quote, but something like Something useful something valuable like a little quote It could be a five to seven second like b-roll clip of you at your computer that could go viral um you can also hop on trends like

15:24
For example, Taylor Swift’s album just came out. You could use her music, incorporate her music into like your business. There is always a trend that is happening that you can hop onto, make it relevant to your brand. And that’s your reach content. The nurture content might be a little less viral. That’s not for the big views. That’s for, you might get a few hundred to a thousand views on it and that’s okay, cause that’s like your nurture. So that could be a one plus minute video of you sitting there being like,

15:53
Today, I ran out of stock and I lost my rank. And this is what it means as a business owner. Today, I had to buy more inventory and I’m out of money right now. That’s the life of a business owner. It’s not always glamorous and money and successful. Oh, this is our new launch. Check this out. Here’s a handkerchief. It’s made out of this. Here’s how I use it. It’s on sale if you guys want. There’s a bunch of different stuff. But if you only rely on your life and your brand, you could run out of stuff really quick.

16:23
But if you look at the greater ecosystem of what’s happening on TikTok and then you jump in with your angle, that’s like, you can never run out of stuff with that. Okay. And then what is like a good mix of nurture content, uh growth content, and what about just flat out? Like does flat outs mentioning your product work also, or is that going to nerf the reach? I think em if you are a brand and you are nonstop, just hustling and selling your product and bringing no insight or value or entertainment, you might not grow that.

16:53
Right. That’s like the reason for the reach content. If you’re talking post cadence or like how much reach versus how much nurture. Yeah, percentage wise. Yeah. Okay. So I’d say 30 % reach. Okay. 70 % nurture, I think. Okay. All right. And then when you decide to mention your product, it’s just like a casual mention, right? You don’t have to mention any links or anything like that, right? That’s a no no.

17:21
You know, at this point, given that we’ve already been in this world of people buying stuff from social media, I think people know, OK, like, where do I find the link to this? Is this a TikTok shop link? uh I’m going to go to their profile and see if there’s a link or most most likely they’re going to just search the brand name on Amazon or Google. So that’s why I always say instead of saying click the link here, go to the shopping cart. You just say, oh, this is the brand name handkerchief. Da da da da da da da

17:51
So people will know, oh, this is the brand name, Hankerchief. Let’s see if it’s on Amazon. Or you could say, it on Amazon. And there you have search, find, buy. And you didn’t even mean to do it. Right. Yeah. I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a free resource that I offer on my website that you may not be aware of. If you are interested in starting your own online store, I put together a comprehensive six day mini course on how to get started in e-commerce that you should all check out. It contains both video and text based tutorials.

18:19
that go over the entire process of finding products to sell all the way to getting your first sales online. Now this course is free and can be attained at mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Just sign up right there on the front page via email and I’ll send you the course right away. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Now back to the show. Okay, so what you mentioned in terms of the reach content implies that you need to be a consumer of TikTok content, right?

18:48
Yeah. Is there a quick way to like figure out what the trends are or something like that? A separate site or some resource for that? Sure. So there’s a couple of sites that could give you insight as to what’s trending, but there is, and this is why I say scrolling on TikTok is part of my job because it really truly is.

19:13
Until you have consumed enough content to understand what separates a good video versus a bad video, you’re always gonna wonder, why did my video flop? What am I doing wrong? You can’t know until you have seen both sides of the spectrum. And then I, at this point, can look at a video and not see the views or comments or insights, and I can know this is a viral video versus not. Simply based on the hook, the cadence, the lighting, the sound, these factors,

19:42
Viral videos always have a reason that they’re viral. This is not like- Okay, what you said was very interesting. Can we break that down? Like what is in your head that you know? Like, you put that in words? Yes. So what makes a viral video? So first and foremost,

20:00
If you don’t have a good hook, you don’t have a good video. So there is so much importance and weight on the hook of this video. So it could be you like doing something in the camera really quick, flashing something. It could be a closeup of something kind of like, as a viewer, you’re like, what’s going on here? um Or you could say something really controversial, like click, bake, hot take, like, know, whatever, feel like. um You can start with saying like,

20:29
Why is nobody talking about how come I didn’t know? um I just discovered it. I I just changed my life like whatever and then like go into something completely like not life changing. But at least you have the person’s attention to for them to even give you the opportunity to say whatever you have to say. So like first and foremost, it has to have a good hook. If a video starts out, hey, I’m Steve. uh I wanted to talk about like, bye. Like, that’s not going to work.

20:57
Okay, first and foremost. Second of all, like I said, lighting, sound, that’s like the basics. Have good lighting, have clear sound. Second of all, hopefully it has one of these following things. It has value, it has entertainment, it has education, or it has something of substance to share. So at the end of the video, you either get more insight, more education, you’re laughing, you’re sharing. Like this is the stuff that makes people share it and save it. This is a recipe I wanna make later, save.

21:25
Oh my God, this is funny. It’s like talking about the new album and I’m gonna share it with my friend who is also talking about this to me. I’m gonna share it to them. So this is the stuff that, or something controversial is like, oh my God, this changed my life. I discovered coffee this morning and everyone’s like, that’s not life changing. And so like the comments are going off. Most of my viral videos, people are like talking in the comments, they’re arguing, they’re saying I’m wrong. They’re saying I said something wrong. Like this is not necessarily a bad thing to maybe make a mistake, make a typo.

21:52
say something click bait here. you that on purpose? Or was that just completely by accident? I’m the way I did it. It was an accident. I said Auntie on’s like Auntie and Oh, yeah, the pretzels. Auntie in like a weird accent and everyone’s like, Oh, the ones but everyone was saying on the on so it went viral. So this is the stuff of a viral video. If you’re just sitting there like, oh, like come shopping with me. It’s a vlog but you don’t have a following yet. Ask yourself

22:22
Why would people care to watch a stranger go shopping unless there’s something valuable coming from it? Right. Once you’re famous and have that, go shopping. People want to know what you’re shopping for. until you get to that point, you have to lead with education, entertainment, or value. Do you care about length at all? TikTok is pushing videos over one minute. However, unless you really have the ability to keep someone interested for over a minute,

22:50
I would say keep it 30 seconds to 45 seconds. The thing is, if I can keep it under 30 seconds, I will because there’s the scrubber bar where you can like jump to a certain point in a video on TikTok. If it’s under 30 seconds, it doesn’t have the scrubber bar. So if somebody wants to see something in the middle of the video, they have to watch the whole video again. So that obviously helps if you can keep it under 30. And then in terms of determining the ROI, which is another question I always get, right?

23:19
There’s always a halo effect when you do this stuff, but is there a way to measure it? I think we’re trying to figure out right now. As of right now, today, I don’t think there is because this is like, how do you measure brand awareness? How do you know how many people saw the video and now know your brand exists? And now might be like being like, oh, like if I ever need this, I’ll come back to it. But I at least know that this is out there now.

23:47
That is something so valuable to just be discovered and be known and like for your brand name to be in people’s brains. But how you cannot really track that or ever know, but it’s happening. And this is the halo effect. So you might get that search, find by on Amazon. You might not, you know, get all the attributed clicks through affiliate links or attribution links that you can calculate. So this kind of ROI is so hard to measure, but brand awareness is very important and should not be discredited.

24:17
Let’s switch gears a little bit. uh Let’s say you’re willing to create one TikTok per day. But then on the flip side, also, you could be spending time getting influencers to create the content for you. How do you make that decision? And which one will be more effective? At what budget? I know it’s a complicated question, but I think you get what I’m asking. I get what you’re saying. So as the founder, you have your own insights and value.

24:47
to bring and nobody knows your brand better than the founder themselves. I was on a call one time with a brand and she was literally saying like, I don’t want to be in front of my product, but my product works. I had eczema and I use my product. was the only thing that it, and I’m like, why don’t you just put up your phone and tell me what you just say to the phone, what you just said to me and like you sold me. So like you just did it right then and there. part of this

25:13
for brand owners and founders is that they feel like social media is this huge, scary influencer thing when they’re doing it already by just sharing with their friends and family that their own product works. Anyway, so to answer your question, I really like the strategy of using UGC and then using the content that actually converts and using paid ads behind it.

25:39
So I think at this point, I’m seeing more and more brands not only just depend on an influencer video to organically do well, but they’re always asking for the ad codes or the spark codes to then boost that video as well. every platform as I’m seeing literally starting from Q4 this year is becoming more of a pay to play platform, unfortunately. organic reach is at least as I’m seeing it dying.

26:06
even Amazon and TikTok themselves. TikToks like use the promote video feature. TikToks like here’s how to promote on Meta. So at this point, I think driving traffic, paid traffic to an affiliate link used to be against terms, but now they’re really pushing and supporting it and brands are as well. So not every video that an influencer does organically for you will result in good views or good sales. But what you can do is if it does a little bit better organically, choose that piece of content.

26:35
Use organic video to kind of test what’s good, what’s not. If it does well organically, boost it with ads. And that way you’re not paying a huge flat fee to a bunch of influencers. UGC is much cheaper. And if you use, you know, softwares that do UGC, typically they give the brand or the seller the rights, the copyrights to the content. So you can post it on your own feed or you can run ads, whatever you want to do with it.

27:04
All right, so what I’m hearing right now is organic reach. Maybe they’ve made some changes, but it’s not nearly as what it was like several years ago. And so that implies that creating your own organic channel is not going to be as effective, right? It’s lower. It’s harder. It’s more saturated and brands want, you know, pay to OK, so in terms of your time, then would you just jump straight to like UGC influencers?

27:33
Maybe putting out your brand story, but not being as consistent with it. It depends on the brand and the owner. It depends how much you are able to dedicate to it. It is never a bad idea or a waste of time to get content on social media about you or your brand. That is never a wasted effort. is always like a small, think about like it’s stock investing. Like every penny that you put in today is going to result in gains one day.

28:01
The only way to not get gains is if you stop investing. with social media now, we’re seeing the death of hashtags and the rise of SEO. So now TikTok and Instagram are taking the words that you say, the captions that you put, the text on the screen. And like literally AI is like looking at what’s in the video. You can now tap on a TikTok and it’ll show you similar products. So you can shop everything in the video without the creator doing anything about it. So.

28:30
At this point, it is so important to use SEO and get content out about your product because Google is indexing these SEO things in TikTok, Instagram, whatever short form content and putting it into Google searches. just know that in the future one day and already happening, your video is going to be found when people search your brand or when people search your product. OK, so I mean, when you phrase it that way.

28:59
it is essential. Correct. Okay. effort at all. It’s kind of like how I see my YouTube channel, right? Although I think I feel like long form YouTube is a much better investment. I don’t know for like a physical products brand, but at least for what I do. YouTube long form is an excellent investment. mean,

29:20
for whatever you’re doing it for, as we’ve seen, like it stays there forever. YouTube is the best algorithm for evergreen content. So again, it’s YouTube is great for longterm. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about the, uh, let’s talk about TikTok cause that seems to be the platform that you like the best. How would I create like an influencer army? Ooh, wow. Okay. So there are,

29:48
ways that you can get. So with TikTok specifically, are you saying using TikTok from uh like a Spotify, or it’s not Spotify, Shopify or uh Amazon brand, or are you on TikTok Shop? Yeah, okay. So that’s the first question I was gonna ask you. How important is it to be on TikTok Shop if you’re gonna do this influencer thing? Yeah, it’s just a really great opportunity with a lot of money. If you don’t want that, like you don’t have to be on it, but

30:17
it is simply going to get more saturated from this point forward. And it is simply just another avenue. There’s not a brand that has joined TikTok shop. Every brand is like wondering, should I be on TikTok shop? Is it worth my time to like get into another platform? But then once they’re actually on TikTok shop and putting in that bare minimum effort, they’re like, oh my God, I can’t believe I even questioned being on this. I’ve made seven figures just from TikTok shop, blah, blah, blah. And that is a great way to kind of

30:47
enter into the creator world and start building relationships with creators. You can start sending out samples through TikTok. You can start building an email list through TikTok. You can also uh have creators invited into a Discord or a community of some sort and then nurture them there and then give them perks. You can offer flat fee campaigns or samples for new launches.

31:16
or you could do higher commission rates just for your little community. Like make them feel exclusive and special because they are. And then that’s a great way right now to grow a creator. And you can’t do that if you’re not on TikTok, right? There’s no easy way for you to give out samples, the whole platform, everything. You have to be on TikTok shop, right? So can you get people, let’s say you just joined TikTok shop just for the sake of joining so you can get access to these influencers.

31:45
Can you do like side deals after the fact if you don’t want to do them through TikTok Shop? Or is that probably not going to happen? No, I think that’s definitely possible. Like I’m in so many little communities of different brands now from TikTok Shop. And I think TikTok actually encourages that. Unlike some platforms where they’re like, don’t talk to our creators, like don’t talk to them off the platform and make your own deals. I think TikTok’s very much open to like join this Discord group or like join this community with this brand.

32:15
So yeah, that’s definitely not something that they are against, I would say. Okay. I mean, I’ve spoken to several people who run TikTok shops successfully. And I guess there’s just a couple of different schools of thought. Like on one end, you just like max out the number of influences you can message a week, which is like thousands, right? I think it’s like 7,000, give out free product. And just over time, you have this army, right?

32:43
On the flip side, I’ve also had people that tell me, hey, just being on TikTok shop and getting creators to do things has already boosted my Amazon sales. And their TikTok shop sales actually are not that great, but their Amazon sales have exploded. There’s your halo effect, right? Because even now, TikTok shop is a great discoverability platform, people still want to go up buy on on Amazon. So people are discovering on TikTok and then search find buying it on Amazon. And that’s why

33:12
you know, whether it be the price is slightly higher on TikTok or maybe the shipping is just longer, or maybe a lot of TikTok shop products still don’t have free shipping. It has to be above the $30 point or have specific shipping requirements. But I’m not going to pay $8 shipping for something I can get free shipping on for Amazon. And this is a big thing for buyers. Like people don’t want to be shipping. So they’re still going to search, find, buy on Amazon. And that’s why your TikTok shop sales might be a little bit, but you’re seeing that result on Amazon. Another thing I want to mention,

33:42
is the higher commission rates on TikTok shop that are required that can really hurt profitability. So a lot of brands go into it and they’re not counting for the fact that like, I have to send out hundreds of samples. And then my commission rates are what minimum 10 to 15 % upwards of 30%. Those margins aren’t built in, you before they start that. all of a sudden, and then they have to pay for GMV max ads, you know, they have to pay for ads too, to really

34:09
get the ball rolling. So they’re like, oh my God, I’m losing money. I’m not profitable. Da da da. It’s like a dead platform. I don’t know why I’m doing this, but that is like a learning curve to get to that profitability. Like that might be where you start, but don’t get scared there because you’re seeing that brand awareness, that halo effect on Amazon. And like, once you get enough sales there, it really does snowball. So I don’t want that to be like a scared, like fearful thing because yes, you are going to have to pay

34:40
for the extra samples and the commission rates and the GMV max and it’s gonna feel unprofitable, but you’re getting so much value that it’s not just calculated in sheer sales. Yeah, it’s just not easily quantifiable like the halo effect. Let me ask you this, I know you work with lot of Amazon sellers, what types of products work well and will you just sometimes tell someone, hey, this product’s not gonna work on TikTok shop? I’ve been surprised before. um So products that are demonstrable.

35:09
are very important on TikTok. I personally have seen supplements do well. I’m not a big fan of them because I like to see like, it’s hard to describe a long-term before and after effect within like a short video without like the process. uh I definitely think there are some products that are very niche or very, very expensive or just hard to describe that might not be.

35:36
a good fit for TikTok shop as much as others are. The good TikTok shop is like demonstrable, a pretty affordable price because again, like the demographic is younger on TikTok and something you can like explain in a video. If it’s something very niche, that’s hard. Because- about something boring? Like would you do TikTok shop for like, I don’t know, office products or something like that?

36:03
Yeah. don’t think boring is like a bad thing. think boring is like, you know, people say like invest in boring businesses because people are always going to need boring things like cookware set. Everyone has one. It’s kind of boring, but like this is doing numbers on TikTok or like an office shelf. People love decor. People like seeing it decorated in different ways. They want to see like organize my office with me. And this is like a perfect natural product placement. So I think boring is not necessarily bad. think maybe uh

36:33
reddish flags are like very niche hard to explain or super expensive. Give me an expensive of something that’s super niche that wouldn’t work. A really expensive camping stove that is geared towards like survivalists specifically not like just necessarily campers and it’s like five $600 and it has like

36:57
weird features that you can’t really like show. That might be a bad example because maybe I think that’s a good example. mean, maybe that would work with the exception of the price part, right? What is the spot for price? Price I want to say like between if it’s over 75 to $100 that that leaves the realm of impulse purchase. Okay, that’s more of like a there’s a there’s a hair dryer product right now going viral on TikTok shop.

37:25
And it’s about $470. And everyone’s like, well, dang, I want it, but I don’t have that. And maybe that’s like just like the loud people in the comments. It’s like, I don’t, I have 10 bucks, but like, but people want to see like maybe under $50, I think is like the, you’re going to hit a bigger population of people who can just be like, okay, like I’ll buy it rather than like, I want it, but it’s kind of out of the budget right now. Is that hairdryer doing well?

37:53
It is doing very well. And I have 170 bucks. Wow. It’s it’s yeah, it’s like a reverse vacuum type of hairdryer and it is doing really, really well shockingly. But I also have seen that it is selling well on Amazon specifically. I haven’t seen how many units they’ve sold on TikTok, but TikTok shop has been doing these like specific sales that are not available anywhere else. So people are going in stores like look at this.

38:22
hairdryer that’s you $200 here, but you can get it 150 on TikTok with a $50 coupon. So that’s that’s like how TikTok is like incentivizing buying there versus store or Amazon. So there are clearly exceptions to the price rule. It’s really just how cool you can make it look in a video. Yes. Yes. Okay. Alright, so let’s say well, let’s go back to the fact that you have a brand now. How do you pick the correct influencers? Like what do you look for an influencer when you’re looking for a brand?

38:52
Never follower count ever. So I will always look at their previous content. That is a really great, that’s their portfolio. That’s a really great way to see like, what can they do? What can I expect? Like what’s their typical content look like? uh I always say, look at their average numbers of views, their engagement, their comments, are people actually reacting to their comment? Do they have good average views?

39:19
If the influencer has like one huge video and like they’re normally averaging 200 views every other time, you can like probably assume that you also will be a $200, a 200 view video because this is a brand deal or like a right video. um Another thing is like when you’re searching for influencers, a lot of even through TikTok’s own catalog of influencers directory.

39:46
they will say like GMV as like a big indicator of like if a creator is good or not. And that is not the best indicator because that GMV could have 99 % come from one viral video. And so that can’t necessarily be applied to the video that they will make you. So the way that I like discovering is I will search keywords. Let’s say hairdryer, for example, hairdryer. I will search that on TikTok.

40:14
go to the filter options and then search most viewed within the last three months or even month. And then this will pop up the most viral videos about hairdryers. And then I will see those creators, which one described the product well, clearly it converted. It was a successful video. ah And then from there, I find like some really good creators rather than just going directly to the directory and looking at all beauty creators. Okay.

40:45
What about at scale? Like, cause when you’re doing TikTok shop and you can message like 7,000 a week. Like does that all go out the window? Like I can’t imagine clicking on each one of those people. No, at some point, like you can find your shortlist. I always recommend having a shortlist of like, these are the creators I really want to work with. I’m going to work extra hard to reach out to them, you know, give them that good commission rates, you know, maybe a small flat fee. These are my priority.

41:11
But at some extent, you’re going to run out of that, and you’re always going to need to scale. So then, of course, there is software, there’s Yuka Helium 10, there’s these mass outreach platforms. And then at that point, it really is kind of like a spray and pray kind of like numbers game, because your response rate is always going to be a small percentage of your outreach. So you might be reaching out to 1,000 creators, getting 100 interested, and you end up working with 5 to 10. Right. Right.

41:40
What’s a good outreach email that a creator is likely to respond to? So I always say, keep it as direct but comprehensive as possible. So I got this email the other, I mean, I get many emails that are looking like, hey, hey, like, and then they’ll say, I’m looking for an influencer. Can you do it? Thanks, brand. And so, you know, when I get this,

42:10
And I’m really stressed looking at all the emails that I have. And so immediately, we have to start this back and forth game of like, okay, like what’s the product that you want? What is the budget here? Like, what are you, are you looking for a TikTok, a live stream of like UGC? Like, what are you looking for? Are you looking for this tomorrow, next month? Are you looking for like Black Friday? um And then like, what’s the goal here? Are you looking for sales? Are you liquidating? Like maybe most influencers might not ask like about the intention behind the

42:39
the campaign. But if you can include this kind of information in that first outreach email and then leave my responsibility to decide yes or no, simplify it for both sides instead of creating like a whole back and forth that’s going to take a week or two to like get to the bottom line. you would recommend like the money and the affiliate terms right off the bat. If you have that and if they’re strict, then yes, I don’t think there’s any problem in asking the creator what is their rate.

43:10
Because sometimes the Spider-Man meme where it’s like, what’s your rate? What’s your budget? But I think if you have a very strict budget, you’re like, I have 50 bucks and I’m not willing to pay anymore, then say that outright. So the other person’s like, I charge 500 a video and you’re like, But if you have the information, say the information outright. If the rate is something you’re not sure about, then fine. Ask what’s the rate. What’s your rate for this? That’s not a big deal. For the clients that you’ve worked with,

43:38
How many influencers do you have to work with in order to give it like an honest shot at this for the people listening who are like, I don’t know if this is for me. I hate to see people give up on influencer marketing or working with creators because I truly don’t see success without it at this point in the game for long. I think influencer marketing is always going to be an important piece of the marketing puzzle. um How many?

44:08
you could get a one-off lucky hit, or you might have to work with 10, 20, 30 before you get the results that you’re looking for. And that’s why I’m also talking about these lower budget costs. Like if you’re paying every influencer a flat fee, like you will run out of money for that quick. But if you work with micro influencers on a performance commission-based way, and then you kind of boost

44:34
ad spend with the videos that actually organically convert, then it’s a lot more less budget heavy and a lot more like performance based. So I don’t know, there’s not a specific number, every brand is different, but I hope that you know, a couple of non viral campaigns don’t doesn’t make a brand give up on it completely and say this isn’t for me. mean, here’s just what I’ve seen, like people go out and they get like 10 influencers and it doesn’t

45:03
have an ROI and they’re like, this doesn’t work, right? Right. And I think especially with influencer marketing, when things are hit or miss all the time, what I was trying to get at is given what you know about like the percentage success rates, I know there’s a ton of variables in there, like what is giving it a good honest try? I would say if you have reached out to 1000s of influencers, and you have over 100 pieces of content, and not a single one of them has

45:32
provided any inkling of sales, success, awareness, views, you could probably be like, all right, I either have to completely change my strategy here or my product just isn’t a good fit. And as a brand owner, you could probably logically think, OK, I understand my product is, because of this factor, maybe not a good fit for this. Or I could see where the friction is on why this is not working. Because at that point, 50 to 100 videos, pieces of content, is

46:03
with for TikTok shop what you need to get into GMV Max. Right. So once you get that, I wouldn’t say that’s like a super hard or expensive thing to do. It does involve outreach and that might be a little time consuming. But once you get to that point and you’ve seen nothing, no organic results, it’s changed strategy. that’s highly unlikely. But yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you a different question then. How do you how does one manage interacting with thousands of influence?

46:33
Mm hmm. It’s time consuming, to be honest. Of course it is. That’s like managing thousands of relationships back and forth of, you know, everyone’s different details, different situation. You’re going to need time to do that. em This is something you could get an assistant for. This is something that it would be worth getting like a VA or an assistant for because it is important. But also as the founder, brand owner, like your time might not be best spent here.

47:02
have other important things to do that only you can do. So. I guess what I was getting at was I know there’s all this TikTok shop software out there that like just automatically blasts like your template modifies a little bit. uh Are your clients or anyone using those things or is it? Definitely. I think at this point there’s there’s no better way to get that mass outreach and save time doing that. I think those are a very, very good tool right now to get.

47:30
your product message out to as many creators as possible. um Once you’re playing that numbers game. But I also do want to say, have your short list of influencers, maybe like 2030 that you find and really focus and hone in on those because they’re shortlist for a reason. They’re performing in a niche converting have good content, whatever. And if you have to invest a little bit more in working with them, whether that be flat fee, higher commission, extra samples, try. Let’s tie it all together now. All right, so your brand, you just started out. oh

47:59
What’s your relative priorities between putting out your own organic content, finding influencers or going on TikTok shop and, and, uh, you know, just trying to get influencers that way. If you have a brand being on TikTok shop is a very great way to just grow it. And I don’t see any reason not to be on TikTok shop right now. Brand if you are established on another marketplace beyond take talk shop. Okay.

48:28
especially as Q4, especially now. there’s that. um If you’re talking about like, much do I invest time in my own content versus working with influencers, I’d say make your own content. uh I’ll take the wise words of Gary V here. Document, don’t create. oh

48:47
Like don’t specifically set out time and try to be something you’re not and try to like find ideas out of thin air. Like just document your process, document your thoughts, be real, be honest about it. That’s your job as the founder. It’s to give insight into what your life is like and what you’re doing as a founder or whatever your product. Make that natural. um But I don’t think that should overpower working with other creators. That is like the, that’s the greater picture here.

49:15
So that’s the way to reach more people than like your brand new founder account. So that is a little bit more priority for me than the founder creating their own content. oh But not to say, don’t do it or it’s not worth it. It’s not the priority or focus compared to working with others that could talk about your product. mean, if I can put words in your mouth, you’re basically saying like TikTok shop and working with the influencers would trump your own channel.

49:44
and you don’t even need to have your own channel to make the rest of this work. Whereas the flip side is not necessarily true. If you focus strictly on your own content, it might not go anywhere because these platforms are looking to make money. Right. But I also want to say it’s never a wasted effort. If you can mesh it into your daily schedule in like an effortless way that’s not taking too much time away from everything else you have to do, it’s so worth doing.

50:09
Thank you, Gracie, for that advice. Where can people find you online if they need help in this department or if they want to look up some good great deals on Amazon? Are you still doing that? I am. am. OK. So you can find me on Dealcheats on all platforms, D-A-L-C-H-E-A-T-S. And my email is contact at dealcheats.com if you ever want to reach out. OK. Well, thanks a lot for coming on the show, Gracie. Really appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. It was really fun.

50:39
Hope you enjoyed this episode. If you’re even half decent on camera, live selling is definitely worth a try. At Seller Summit, my wife actually sold hundreds of dollars of merchandise in about five minutes on stage. For more information and resources, go over to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 622. And once again, tickets to Seller Summit 2026 are now on sale over at sellersummit.com. If you want to hang out in person in a small intimate setting, develop real relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs and learn a ton, then come to my event. Go to sellersummit.com.