What does true incrementality on Amazon look like?
10 Sept, 2026
On Thursday 3rd September, Patrick Murray hosted the latest event built for our Marketplace Leaders community. Sponsored by POTOO (Protect your brand. Win the Buy Box. Master your marketplace.), SPS Commerce and Xnurta, we brought over 120 ecommerce professionals on a boat cruising the River Thames. Whilst aboard, they had the opportunity to connect, share and learn from industry leaders about the latest trends in the sector.
Our first panel discussed the impact TikTok is having on Amazon businesses. Patrick was joined by:
- Lauren Watters, Ecommerce and Amazon Director at Wella Company
- Marcos Rios, Founder of Flouu Agency
- Kit Savatherajan, UK Market Lead at Grant Digital
Together, they discussed:
- TikTok and the impact on your Amazon business
- The power of TikTok Shop LIVE
TikTok Shop and the Amazon halo effect
The Amazon "halo" effect is an indirect sales boost where external marketing or advertising of one product drives organic purchases for a brand's entire Amazon catalogue.
Social commerce is a key part of your overall digital performance and is crucial to driving traffic to marketplace channels. This is particularly the case in the relationship between TikTok Shop and Amazon.
On the face of it, TikTok and Amazon operate on fundamentally different logic. While TikTok is algorithm-based (meaning you're mostly told what you want), Amazon remains search-based (meaning you already have an idea what you're looking for). As Lauren Watters put it, "People go to TikTok to discover things they didn't know they wanted, whereas Amazon, although it started out as more of a search platform, is now very much a high-conversion platform where people know what they want."
How to succeed on TikTok as a retail brand
TikTok's greatest strength as a social media platform is arguably its authenticity. Moving from traditional retail to TikTok Shop requires a huge mindset shift for consumer brands. You have to let go of perfectionism. Rough and ready is preferable to refinement.
"The content that does the best on TikTok is the authentic content," said Lauren, "It's not perfectly polished. It hasn't taken weeks and weeks to create. If you're going to do it, you want to do it properly and you want to respect the platform for that inspirational content."
To illustrate the point, Marcos Rios shared a story of a Marketing Director who was alarmed when an influencer posted an off-brief video they'd filmed casually in their car. But the creator's off-the-cuff approach was justified when the video generated £150,000 in sales.
Of course, creators need to be managed, directed and monitored but over-controlling them takes away TikTok's greatest strength. Emphasising the importance of the right brand-creator dynamic, Kit Savatherajan asserted that although some brands launch on TikTok Shop without a handle, "it's so much better to have the handle so you can talk on the platform the way that you want your product [to be] spoken about and give that example to creators."
Where Amazon fits in the buyer journey
TikTok and Amazon aren't competitors. They're complementary platforms that represent two stages of the same journey. Even though a product is advertised as a TikTok exclusive, for example, a significant portion of the audience will leave the TikTok app to look for it on their preferred, more trusted shopping platforms. Kit explained, "Whether it's a clear launch period or a select bundle, we've always noticed that there is an exact correlation between that search and their own D2C or with Amazon."
A brand will often launch a product on TikTok and within a couple of weeks, notice a sharp spike in demand on Amazon. TikTok is serving as the discovery platform, and customers are converting in their preferred environment.
Therefore, growing companies shouldn’t view TikTok as a threat to their existing channels, rather an opportunity for Amazon-focused teams to get their products to market. With TikTok Shop basket values now sitting at £30 - £40, the platform is also a useful marketplace, supplementing the more established, trusted Amazon environment.
How do you make TikTok Shop and Amazon work together?
How can brands convert TikTok-driven demand into Amazon sales? Our panel offered three main tips:
- Match your stock and imagery: Brands often mistakenly reuse direct-to-consumer (D2C) imagery on Amazon, when the Amazon imagery is actually a lot more effective due to previous social proofing and value creation.
- Treat TikTok like a search engine: With TikTok often used as a search engine, product titles need the same keyword depth as their Amazon listings.
- Give TikTok its own expert: TikTok and Amazon are very different platforms, so rather than expecting the owner of Amazon within your business to own TikTok as well, you should have a designated TikTok Shop Manager, just as you'd have a premium retail expert.
The power of live streaming
There was a feeling among our panel that daily live streaming is overlooked as a growth generator. Live streaming isn't just about selling natively on TikTok Shop. It functions as a mass awareness funnel that captures potential buyers who prefer to complete their purchase on Amazon.
If TikTok Shop is about discovery, TikTok Shop LIVE is where the real brand connection happens. Marcos sees this as the modern evolution of in-store retail: "That is the role of live stream, to make it short and simple. It's the opportunity to truly connect with a human being using a digital interface. Think about the equivalent of having the salesperson in a retail space, but now digital."
Is TikTok Shop LIVE the next incarnation of QVC?
Many dismiss TikTok Shop LIVE as QVC for a new generation. Well, it's the same basic idea – a host selling products on a live platform – but it works completely differently. While QVC is highly produced, expensive, professional and scripted, TikTok live streams tend to be the opposite. As Marcos put it, TikTok "is more real, authentic, raw, less polished, but more effective because at the end of the day, you want to have a conversation with a human being."
TikTok's most successful streamers work with the bare minimum of equipment, bringing genuine energy, passion and a rapport with their audience. That authentic conversation and human connection is what builds trust and drives the purchase.
How to be successful on live streams
When you're starting out, don't worry about perfection, it's far more important to be persistent. You need to recognise that you're on a journey, so you mustn't get demoralised if you're not getting much engagement in the beginning.
Being successful on TikTok Shop LIVE takes time, resilience and community.
Understand the numbers
Live streaming isn't cheap, and it takes time to show its full impact. When talking about the ROI, Lauren said, "It does come, but be prepared to invest and make a loss in the first six months to a year potentially [...] Your ROI is also going to come from your brand awareness, from your brand equity, from the demand generation that might be paying off in other channels, but it's not always going to show you immediately that return in TikTok."
While senior management can be focused on short-term numbers, the real payoff is long-term demand generation and retention. Once a brand has invested in its own live-streaming set-up, the costs will stabilise over time in a way that doesn't apply to influencer marketing.
Build your community
Relationships are crucial when it comes to collaborating with creators. Rather than working with a large number of disconnected creators, it's best to build productive relationships with a tight-knit group who understand your brand. This ensures they represent you in the most engaging way.
More than ever, people are attracted by individuals rather than by brands. Regular viewers will return to a live stream due to their affinity with the host. "When you do live streams and have the same person," said Marcos, "people come back to the live streams to have a conversation with the person that did the live stream yesterday."
You're simultaneously strengthening brand awareness and building an engaged community by leveraging the personal brand equity of your creators.
How to manufacture demand through TikTok Shop LIVE
Live streaming goes beyond generating awareness of your products. It can even create demand.
Perhaps the most appropriate analogy was that of a body and skincare brand that decided to launch a fragrance line purely because it had 3,000 units sitting in stock, not because fragrance fit the brand's identity. But through consistent live streaming, the entire stock across TikTok and Amazon sold out within days. This example demonstrates the platform's ability to manufacture demand that didn't previously exist, provided brands are prepared to do the work.
Create a successful TikTok Shop and Amazon buyer journey
Ultimately, it’s clear that TikTok Shop and Amazon can work together to deliver increased growth, demand and sales. But, to create a cohesive strategy, you must have the right teams and strategies in place.
Whether it's on TikTok Shop or daily live streaming, it's important to put in the work, resist the urge to over-polish, and treat TikTok as a demand-generation engine rather than a like-for-like replacement for Amazon. The two channels feed each other:
- Discovery on TikTok
- Conversion on Amazon
By investing in authentic content, posting consistently and building real creator relationships, you can truly harness the power of TikTok as a sales generator.
About 3Search Events
Many thanks to our panel for their time and insights on the day. We also want to extend a huge thank you to POTOO and our fellow sponsors for helping us put this event together. This event is just one of the ways we bring together our ecommerce community.
If you're looking to build your marketplace, ecommerce or digital marketing team, our specialist Amazon and Marketplace recruitment consultants can support your growth.
