Welcome to the Executive Focus Group, a Glossy+ member-exclusive series driven by monthly focus groups with subject matter experts. The bi-weekly series offers actionable takeaways for business leaders navigating the rapidly evolving beauty and fashion industries.
This month, Glossy brought together a group of leaders from brands investing in TikTok Shop. TikTok Shop has grown rapidly in the last two years, reaching 47 million shoppers as of spring 2025. The leaders who joined Glossy’s focus group spoke about investment in time, money and content needed to make TikTok Shop worth it.
Below is a recap of a part of the conversation dedicated to what strategies are working when it comes to TikTok Shop.
Focus group members
Rosalia Bucaro Polizzi, chief merchandising officer at QVC. QVC has swiftly become one of the top-selling companies on TikTok Shop, according to the company.
Katie Tripodi, director of U.S. digital merchandising and e-commerce expansion at HanesBrands. Hanes has made TikTok Shop a major focus, adopting the platform in the last six months and already seeing big returns.
Katia Rudnick, founder and CEO of the jewelry brand Katia Designs. Rudnick has been using TikTok Shop from the first day the platform launched and makes multiple appearances per week on her brand’s TikTok channel.
Glossy: How would you characterize the investment needed in TikTok Shop to make it work?
Tripodi: “It is really unlike any other platform. Meta doesn’t have shops. YouTube isn’t a marketplace. It’s such a heavy lift, and you have to invest so much, from a dollar standpoint and resources. It can be a bit scary for some people. I won [higher-ups at the company] over by just saying I didn’t need that much, maybe $30,000 just to try things out, and that ended up being kind of a lie. It takes a lot of resources and investment, but it helped us figure out exactly what it would take to get bigger on the platform. “
Bucaro Polizzi: “The most important thing to know is that it requires an incredible amount of content and commitment. We have actually changed our studio and how we produce content to ensure we’re producing it in the right format for TikTok Shop. There are a lot of ways to sell, and our content is less scripted in nature on TikTok. We stream on TikTok 24/7. When you’re just getting onto TikTok Shop, you need to understand the volume of content you need on a daily basis.”
Tripodi: “It’s not just content, but product, as well. In the first month, I had $10,000 worth of product to put behind TikTok Shop. So, it started piecemeal, and then it started speeding up. Now we need 1,000 samples a month to keep up with orders. It’s really based on how much restriction you have on your budget. A sample budget and a media budget are often managed differently, and I had a lot more flexibility with the sample budget. I was getting a 15x return on $10,000. Now I’m saying, ‘Can I get more money and see how much more I can drive?'”
Glossy: Are the returns you see immediate, or do they ramp up over time?
Rudnick: “You definitely have to put time and effort. When you first start and you don’t see success right away, it’s easy to give up. But you have to stick to it and do it regularly. It’s proven that the longer you stay and the more you do it, the more effective you are. TikTok rewards you. The platform wants to build you up over time. There are a lot of advantages to sticking to it and not giving up.”
Bucaro Polizzi: “It really takes time to build that momentum. The more people you have creating content around a product, that’s what creates virality. And certainly some categories are more outsized than others — beauty is a big one.”
Tripodi: “The model is definitely: send out samples, generate content, get eyeballs, drive sales. And it took us several months to identify that sending samples to get content meant sending out 1,000 samples one month, then 1,500 the next month. You have to just keep ramping it up.”
