TikTok Shop Upgrades Branded Marketplace Model: Enables Country-Specific Pricing, Separate Venue Settlements, and Self-Set Marketing Event Pricing

Following the launch of its 'Branded Marketplace' model last year, TikTok Shop has recently rolled out three major upgrades to the service: first, support for independent pricing in different countries; second, support for separate settlements between the content venue and the shelf venue; and third, support for independent pricing for various marketing activities.

It is understood that the 'Branded Marketplace' is a service offered by TikTok Shop for merchants aiming to build global brands. It retains the advantages of the managed model—merchants hand over cross-border logistics, warehousing, and customer service to the platform. Simultaneously, merchants can bind their brand accounts, perform store decoration and product detail editing, participate in autonomous product pricing, and enjoy greater autonomy in content, advertising, and major promotions.

Currently, this model supports merchants from Mainland China and Hong Kong SAR to settle in markets including the United States, the United Kingdom, four EU countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain), Mexico, and Japan. Leveraging the Branded Marketplace model, TikTok Shop has successfully incubated multiple brand blockbusters generating millions in sales. For example, the women's wear brand Parthea saw its GMV exceed $50,000 on its brand day, achieving growth in both brand impact and sales performance.

The latest upgrade to the Branded Marketplace capabilities focuses on enhancing merchants' operational flexibility and efficiency, introducing three core feature updates. Specifically:

1. Dual-Track Settlement for Shelf and Content Venues. To help Branded Marketplace merchants flexibly adapt to the platform's dual-scenario ecosystem of content and shelf, optimize profit structures, and reduce operational costs, TikTok Shop has launched a new dual-track settlement system. This system matches the operational needs of different sales scenarios, making the cost and revenue of each transaction clear, traceable, controllable, and calculable. Merchants can independently decide the scenario placement of their products based on product characteristics and freely choose whether to list products in the content venue (e.g., livestreams, short videos).

The scenario-based settlement rules are: For sales through the content venue, Content Venue Settlement Price = Recommended List Price - Logistics Cost - Operational Cost - Tariff Cost - Content Venue Cost. For sales through the shelf venue, Shelf Venue Settlement Price = Recommended List Price - Logistics Cost - Operational Cost - Tariff Cost. For sales generated through merchants' own operations (via their bound official or channel accounts), since no creator commissions or content costs are incurred, the settlement follows the 'Shelf Venue Settlement Price' to maximize the merchants' self-operated revenue.

2. Greater Autonomy in Multi-Country Pricing. This upgrade focuses on multi-market pricing capabilities, moving away entirely from a fixed single-country pricing model. It supports merchants in tailoring differentiated supply and pricing strategies for different country markets, flexibly adapting to cross-border multi-market operational needs and their own profit goals.

On one hand, it enables country-specific pricing, allowing separate adjustment of product sale prices and settlement prices for different countries/regions, eliminating the need for a 'one-size-fits-all' approach. This helps adapt to local market environments and competitive landscapes, making pricing strategies more targeted and boosting conversion rates and sales across multiple markets. On the other hand, it offers a unified management entry point. Product prices for all countries/regions can be viewed and modified centrally on a single management page, eliminating the need to switch between multiple interfaces. This significantly saves time in multi-market operations, reduces management costs, and improves pricing adjustment efficiency.

3. Full Opening of Event Pricing Permissions. This upgrade fully opens event pricing permissions, breaking previous restrictions. It allows merchants to participate more proactively in various platform marketing activities, using flexible and controllable pricing strategies to efficiently boost sales during major promotions and daily events.

In addition to these three core feature upgrades, TikTok Shop is also offering multiple policy supports for Branded Marketplace merchants targeting the upcoming spring sales season. These supports cover aspects from new product cold start and sales explosion to event exposure, helping merchants quickly popularize new products and achieve steady sales growth.