Rye: Blog | $0 to $1M: Scaling automated selling on TikTok Shop

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$0 to $1M: Scaling automated selling on TikTok Shop

Wally is a team of 4 that turned an idea into a platform moving $1M GMV in just 3 months. By enabling creators to sell virtually any product in their social channels, Wally has established themselves as a top 20 store on TikTok. Discover how Wally went from a startup idea, rapidly scaling their infrastructure, to having $7M in annual run-rate.

Kisum Chan

Head of Growth @ Rye

Nov 14, 2023

3 min read

Products used

Sell Anything API

Sync API

Industry

Social and creator platform

Company Size

Startup

Table of Contents

Challenge

Initial Validation and Growth

Solution

Results

Conclusion

Automated & reliable Amazon Business ordering

99.9% successful order placement

1-click install

to earn commissions from partner merchants

Developer-ready

Powered an early builder on TikTok Shop before it was even launched

Scalable

One integration that delivered the end-to-end shopping experience

Ready to get started?

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Challenge

Turning a loophole into an opportunity

After spending a long time talking to and understanding the problems influencers faced, the Wally team discovered there was a major flaw in how influencers currently monetize through creator store platforms like LTK and Amazon Storefronts. These platforms help influencers create their own store, curated with products they’d promote to their audience and get a small cut from every sale.

However, creators felt that sales were being lost because shoppers had to navigate through many links before they could complete a purchase. Most shoppers needed to take 3 actions: from a TikTok video → bio → link-in-bio → creator store! Influencers also voiced dissatisfaction with unreliable and insufficient affiliate rewards.

Becoming one of the first developers on TikTok Shop

The launch of TikTok Shop intended to solve the convoluted user journey. Creators can tag products directly on relevant videos. Users can immediately purchase that product and complete checkout natively on TikTok. Less clicks = more sales.

However, it suffered from low creator adoption. Why? The products available were… not great. They were typically low-quality products sourced from Aliexpress.

Spotting this gap, Wally hypothesized a solution to help source higher quality products leveraging existing marketplaces.

“Back then, TikTok Shop was was just entering beta in the US. So we had the idea to basically onboard a lot of merchants quickly using Rye’s API, to bring high quality products into the TikTok Shop ecosystem and drive sales for them” - Mayank, CEO of Wally

Turning a loophole into an opportunity

Becoming one of the first developers on TikTok Shop

However, it suffered from low creator adoption. Why? The products available were… not great. They were typically low-quality products sourced from Aliexpress.

Spotting this gap, Wally hypothesized a solution to help source higher quality products leveraging existing marketplaces.

Turning a loophole into an opportunity

Becoming one of the first developers on TikTok Shop

However, it suffered from low creator adoption. Why? The products available were… not great. They were typically low-quality products sourced from Aliexpress.

Spotting this gap, Wally hypothesized a solution to help source higher quality products leveraging existing marketplaces.

Initial Validation and Growth

Manual inventory management and fulfillment

Wally tested this idea out by collecting product requests from their influencers and manually listed them on their TikTok Shop. They also priced products above MSRP and passed this margin to creators as incentives.

To add requested products, the team manually copied and pasted product titles, descriptions, images from marketplace product listings. Then, they listed the products on TikTok Shop for creators to tag in their videos.

Once a shopper purchases a product on TikTok, the Wally team would manually find the product on a marketplace like Amazon, and ship it out to the original shopper.

Experiencing Rapid Growth

This approach quickly gained traction; influencers started posting tagged videos, and shoppers started actually purchasing products. They had proved their model.

The Google sheet used as the temporary order tracker was crashing due to the extraordinary volumes. It was clear that manually placing the 100s of orders on Amazon was near impossible with their team of 4 people.

Now, it was time to scale.

Solution

Automate Amazon Business Ordering: Wally turned to Rye's Sell Anything API to automate their product ordering flow. In less than 2 days, the Wally team built their systems so that everytime a shopper makes a purchase, an order would automatically be placed to Amazon Business and be fulfilled by the Amazon seller.
Automate Product Listing: Listing new products on their TikTok store was the next biggest operational bottleneck. Wally built a system for influencers to request new products simply by copy & pasting an Amazon product URL on their Wally dashboard. With the Rye’s Sell Anything API, Wally was able to automatically and instantaneously fetch the product data to be listed it on TikTok Shop.
Earning additional commissions: Wally has also begun earning commissions on sales through brand partnerships. Their partnered brands simply install the Rye Shopify app and set a % of commission in < 2 minutes. The Shopify connector app not only unlocks order placement directly to the merchant’s backend, it also automatically distributes commission to Wally upon each sale.

Client Testimonial: “Rye's swift and supportive response was pivotal in our journey. Their APIs not only simplified the complexities of online retail but also played a crucial role in enabling Wally's rapid growth and operational efficiency.” - Mayank, CEO of Wally

Automate Amazon Business Ordering: Wally turned to Rye's Sell Anything API to automate their product ordering flow. In less than 2 days, the Wally team built their systems so that everytime a shopper makes a purchase, an order would automatically be placed to Amazon Business and be fulfilled by the Amazon seller.
Automate Product Listing: Listing new products on their TikTok store was the next biggest operational bottleneck. Wally built a system for influencers to request new products simply by copy & pasting an Amazon product URL on their Wally dashboard. With the Rye’s Sell Anything API, Wally was able to automatically and instantaneously fetch the product data to be listed it on TikTok Shop.
Earning additional commissions: Wally has also begun earning commissions on sales through brand partnerships. Their partnered brands simply install the Rye Shopify app and set a % of commission in < 2 minutes. The Shopify connector app not only unlocks order placement directly to the merchant’s backend, it also automatically distributes commission to Wally upon each sale.

Automate Amazon Business Ordering: Wally turned to Rye's Sell Anything API to automate their product ordering flow. In less than 2 days, the Wally team built their systems so that everytime a shopper makes a purchase, an order would automatically be placed to Amazon Business and be fulfilled by the Amazon seller.
Automate Product Listing: Listing new products on their TikTok store was the next biggest operational bottleneck. Wally built a system for influencers to request new products simply by copy & pasting an Amazon product URL on their Wally dashboard. With the Rye’s Sell Anything API, Wally was able to automatically and instantaneously fetch the product data to be listed it on TikTok Shop.
Earning additional commissions: Wally has also begun earning commissions on sales through brand partnerships. Their partnered brands simply install the Rye Shopify app and set a % of commission in < 2 minutes. The Shopify connector app not only unlocks order placement directly to the merchant’s backend, it also automatically distributes commission to Wally upon each sale.

Results

Rapid Growth: From MVP to a scaling venture in a few months.

Revenue Milestones: Achieved six-figure revenue in the first two weeks; approached half-a-million in the first two months.

Operational Efficiency: Over 99.9% automation in Amazon Business product orders after complete integration.

Market Position: Ranked a top 20 TikTok Shop by transaction volume.