From Farm Fresh to Khairul Aming, how local brands and entrepreneurs are leveraging on TikTok Shop

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 30 — Short-form video hosting service TikTok now offers users more than just entertainment as they are now able to they shop via TikTok Shop in the app.

TikTok Shop is a one-stop, seamless e-commerce ecosystem where users can go from discovery to action in a matter of seconds - driven by TikTok's unique content ecosystem.

This shopping feature gives brands and sellers a new way to reach an engaged community and drive sales directly through entertaining short videos and livestreams, on their own TikTok accounts or in collaboration with TikTok creators.

From initial customer engagement to final purchase and product shipping, TikTok Shop provides a seamless, in-app shopping experience that shortens the customer journey and drives conversion for brands and sellers.

With TikTok’s unique, diversified and interest-based recommendations, users can easily discover new and familiar products while they watch, create and share content on TikTok, and shop directly without leaving the app.

Products are recommended to TikTok audiences through shoppable content formats such as in-feed short videos (embedded with product links), live shopping events, as well as a marketplace through the new Shop Tab.

Following its first year anniversary in June, TikTok Shop recently organised a one-day TikTok Shop Summit 2023 held at Bangsar South to celebrate and empower its sellers, creators, and brands.

The summit saw a series of TikTok Shop Award recognitions, including Best Performing Brand, Rising Star, and Inspirational Icon, were awarded to deserving creators, brands and sellers who displayed outstanding achievements in the past year.

Amongst the award recipients includes local dairy company Farm Fresh Malaysia for Best Performing Brand in the Fast-Moving Consumer Good (FMCG) category as well as famous entrepreneur Khairul Aming who was awarded the Inspirational Icon award.

Making the best out of TikTok LIVE and content sharing

(Ledt to right) KM Fashion co-founder, Cris Low, Zucca chief operating officer Yap Minton, content creator and entrepreneur Khairul Aming, Farm Fresh head of brand and marketing Charmaine Chow, TikTok Shop creator Huda Ahmad and Farm Fresh head of e-commerce, Kenneth Chiew. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin.

Khairul Aming, the founder of the best-selling Sambal Nyet who often does TikTok Livestream sessions (TikTok LIVE) to sell his sambal, shared that TikTok Shop has managed to close the gap in making sales.

Audiences can seamlessly purchase his products in real time without having to click on a separate link that would bring them to another e-commerce platform.

“Another thing about the TikTok LIVE, it helps in garnering new customers, as previously it was like a one way communication.

“Now, through TikTok LIVE, we’re able to answer customer’s questions in real time and explain to them with more details, so for me, that’s one of the main unique selling points of TikTok Shop.”

He said that he would often do sharing sessions with his audiences whether through sharing recipes or knowledge instead of just pushing his products.

This is so the buying process becomes more natural and his audience don't feel forced to buy his products.

Farm Fresh Brand and Marketing head Charmaine Chow said that TikTok Shop itself offers a highly engaging and immersive experience to its users through visuals and storytelling.

She said that the option to personalise their own content is what sets TikTok Shop apart from other e-commerce platforms.

Farm Fresh have deployed several strategies on TikTok Shop in order to keep their audience's engagement including consistently putting up content and having a good livestream moderator or host.

“You really need to know how to position your products. Like for us, we are Farm Fresh, we have multiple Stock-Keeping-Unit (SKU), so we need to think of ways of pushing one flavour after another.

“To keep the interest going amongst users, we always have to make it exciting.”

Its Head of E-Commerce Kenneth Chiew said that TikTok Shop also provides sellers with real-time data on their product’s engagement.

This includes being able to see which products are currently getting the most engagement with audiences which helps them in deciding on what product to push on next.

The impact of TikTok Shop

Local content creator and entrepreneur Khairul Aming shared that 76 per cent of his Sambal Nyet sales was made via TikTok LIVE this year. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin.

Khairul Aming shared that since he began selling his product on TikTok Shop, the conversion rate has grown up to three times higher compared to previous experience in the e-commerce landscape

Amongst his notable achievements via TikTok Shop includes managing to raise around RM200,000 in sales in less than an hour of live streaming, with a staggering 76 per cent of his sambal sales this year made through live streaming.

Local modest fashion company Zucca’s chief operating officer, Yap Minton at the TikTok Shop Summit 2023. — Picture by Sayuti Zainudin.

According to Zucca Chief Operating Officer Yap Minton, during their 11.11 sale last year, the brand saw a 340 per cent increase in sales via their livestream.

He also said that previously they had only managed to sell around 1,000 pieces of clothing per day but the number can now reach up to 20,000 pieces in a single day.

Their most notable achievement on TikTok Shop was during this year's 3.3 sale where sold over 20,000 clothing items in a single live session, amounting to an impressive RM320,000 in revenue

“For Zucca, consistency is key and we have done a lot of planning and built up a few teams with specific tasks. We would do our live streaming daily from Monday to Friday, 8am to 10pm daily and we might extend the live streaming during the campaign period.

“Another reason we feel that we are doing better is because of the TikTok Shop itself. They have a professional team that handles the platform setup as well as their own TikTok Shop Academy which includes webinar training for us.

“This is definitely a new achievement for us as we don’t usually sell through live streaming and we had just started just before Ramadan this year,” he said.

“Through this data we can see that the market is shifting towards live streaming now. That will be our new benchmark where if we were to introduce our second product, it will be made available on live streaming as well,” he said.

Zucca, which won Best Performing Brand under the fashion category at the TikTok Shop Summit 2023, has seen a significant growth in sales especially on twin dates sale.

“As sellers, it made us feel less worried and gave us confidence to put more of our products out,” Yap said.

For more information about TikTok Shop, or to find out how to become a seller, visit the

TikTok Shop Seller Centre here.