The size of the channel, so you do not dismiss it lightly
Before the fine print, a figure to place yourself. TikTok Shop stopped being an experiment: in the United States it reached 11.8 billion dollars in GMV in the first half of 2026, up 103% year on year, double what it was in 2025, and on track for around 100 billion globally. Behind that are more than two million affiliate creators, who drive 42% of those sales. In Spain and across Europe it is growing too. This is not a channel you get to when you can: it is one you either arrive ready for, or it eats you.
Before the first sale: VAT, invoices and what the taxman watches
Here is what almost nobody tells you, and it is the first thing you should look at. TikTok Shop is not advertising that sends people to another site: it is the whole shop inside the app, which means every sale is your sale with all its obligations. If you are going to sell, you need to be registered as self-employed or as a company, charge the VAT that applies and issue an invoice. A TikTok sale counts the same as a sale through your website or your counter: there is no tax shortcut for being a video app.
Ask yourself the uncomfortable questions before you switch the shop window on. Are you registered under the right heading? Do you know what VAT your product carries? If one day you sell to another EU country, are you clear on the threshold where VAT gets declared somewhere else? You do not need to be an accountant, but you do need to sit down with yours for ten minutes before the first sale, not after the first scare. Setting up the channel is half an hour; cleaning up six months of invoicing mess is another story.
Shipping and returns: the back room that eats your margin
The purchase happens inside the app, but you send the parcel. Logistics, deadlines, exchanges, complaints and customer support are your problem, not TikTok's. And that is where the real margin is decided. Take a small natural-cosmetics brand in Seville: if a video lands and 200 orders come in over two days, does it have stock, boxes and someone to pack? How much does each shipment cost, and how much a return, which in cosmetics is common?
Do that sum before you launch. Add the cost of the product, the shipping, the possible return and the affiliate commission, and see what is left. If the number is tight at a normal commission, it will run at a loss when you raise commissions to get going. Preparing the back room (spare stock for a spike, a reliable carrier and a returns process that does not ruin you) is not glamorous, but it is what separates a viral video that makes you money from one that leaves you out of stock and with angry reviews.
Affiliates and the cold start, with your feet in Spain
With the back room ready, now the engine: affiliates. 78% of people discover products through creator content, not yours, and the split is brutal: the top 0.5% of creators generates 38% of affiliate revenue. You do not need a celebrity, you need a volume of micro-creators. But every channel starts cold: without reviews affiliates do not pick you, without affiliates there is no reach, and without reach there are no sales or reviews. You break the circle by hand.
The plan for the first two months is concrete. The average commission is around 13-15%; raise it to 20-30% at the start so creators find it worthwhile. Give product to between 30 and 50 micro-creators instead of chasing one big name. Film the first 20 or 30 videos yourself so the listing is not empty. And guard the first reviews like gold: ship fast, fix problems without arguing, and ask happy customers for a review. When the circle starts turning, you drop the commission back to normal. In Spain, mind you, every euro of commission comes out after tax and logistics: do the full sum before you promise 30%.