In January, I reported that TikTok would soon require all US merchants to fulfill orders through its in-house logistics service, Fulfilled by TikTok, use Upgraded TikTok Shipping, where it controls the labels and carrier selection, or use its new Collections by TikTok, which is a door-to-door pickup service available in select US cities. Alternatively, sellers would be able to use specific approved fulfillment software, such as Aftership or ShipHero, as long as those systems fully integrated with TikTok’s logistics API.
That news did not bode well for sellers, nor did the short timeline to make the transition, which took effect Feb 9th for new sellers and was set to begin Feb 25th for existing ones.
The changes impacted sellers who:
- Fulfilled items from Amazon FBA or Walmart WFS
- Shared inventory from one warehouse across multiple sales channels
- Did their own fulfillment from their garages
- Basically anyone who wasn’t already using TikTok’s fulfillment services!
The new requirements would’ve meant that sellers had to ship dedicated inventory to TikTok’s warehouses to sell on the platform, even though they didn’t know if it’d sell. Or on the flipside of the coin, preclude sellers from being able to realize peak sales when their products go viral if they didn’t have enough inventory stored with TikTok.
The impact was so severe that many sellers, including enterprise brands, were considering opting-out of selling on TikTok Shop, which is the opposite of what TikTok wants.
Well, “good news everyone!” says Professor Farnsworth. TikTok has reversed course on its plan to end seller-fulfilled shipping in the US, and merchants are free to continue with their existing fulfillment setups.
The company wrote in an e-mail to sellers:
“We are writing to clarify the current status of Seller Shipping following our previous communication regarding potential updates. At this time, Seller Shipping remains unchanged, and previously shared deadlines are not going into effect. In the meantime, please continue operating as usual. We will provide further details.”
Honestly, what were they thinking? Someone will likely get fired over that debacle.
Amazon FBA grew to become a dominant player in logistics by offering a better mousetrap for merchants, not by forcing it on them. It was a serious misstep by TikTok to even consider the idea, let alone bring it to light. Is this the kind of genius work we can expect moving forward from the new US team? If so, yikes!
