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How retailers can build demand on TikTok · The Resilient Retail Game Plan - retail insights, retail trends and best practices

• 0:00
  Right now, 3,000 creators are waiting to promote my guest Luke's product.
• 0:05
  This episode is about how you build that kind of demand on TikTok.
• 0:10
  Welcome to the Resilient Retail Gameplan.
• 0:12
  I'm Catherine Erdly, and this podcast is here to share retail industry
• 0:16
  trends, insights, and best practices for you, the retailer who's serious
• 0:20
  about building something that lasts.
• 0:24
  Luke Arnall-Cameron spent years in retail as a buyer at John Lewis and as
• 0:28
  a marketing director before launching Yas Clean, his own cleaning brand.
• 0:33
  Now he's using live shopping and TikTok Shop to do something most brands only
• 0:37
  dream about, building a loyal customer base from scratch in real time and
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  not relying entirely on ad spend.
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  In this episode, Luke breaks down how discovery commerce works, why 45% of
• 0:49
  his December customers came back to buy again, and how he thinks about building
• 0:53
  a product range, not chasing virality.
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  Just applying the same logic that every good retailer already knows.
• 1:00
  Whether you're evaluating TikTok Shop as a channel, considering how you can use
• 1:04
  live shopping, scouting for brands that are genuinely resonating with consumers,
• 1:08
  or just trying to understand how building a fast-growth business really happens,
• 1:12
  Luke's story is one of the most insightful you'll find, because he really understands
• 1:17
  the market and how to master fast growth.
• 1:20
  In just its first year of trading, Yas Clean notched up over 650,000
• 1:25
  orders, launched across five European countries and the US, and sold cleaning
• 1:30
  and laundry products faster than Luke could get them back into stock.
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  He also won the TikTok Breakout Seller of the Year Award, so who
• 1:37
  better to explain how this platform can lead to massive growth?
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  So we launched November 2024, so just over a year ago.
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  Uh, we launched in the UK.
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  Our first live stream, we did £70,000.
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  So that was the first time we'd launched the brand.
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  Bearing in mind we sell scent and cleaning products, so a lot of blind faith from a
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  lot of people to invest in our products considering they'd never existed before.
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  We sold out of 50% of our stock in our first day.
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  That had a run rate of three months, so there was lots of mass
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  ordering after that live stream.
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  And in our first year, we've done over 650,000 orders.
• 2:16
  Wow.
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  We've launched in five European countries and also launched in the US.
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  Wow.
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  I mean, how do you even keep up with that level of demand?
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  Uh, it's a lot of stress.
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  A lot of out-of-stocks.
• 2:29
  Yeah.
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  Many products go in and out of stock because we just can't keep stock in.
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  I'll give you an example.
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  No.
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  So we launched a degreaser, and it's incredible, and it's so good that you can
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  spray your oven and after t- 20 seconds you can wipe it clean with one swipe.
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  Obviously, that- Mm ... very much leads and lends itself into
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  TikTok content and video content.
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  We sold 10,000 bottles in seven days.
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  And it's actually only coming back into stock next week, and it's
• 2:56
  been out of stock for three months.
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  So- Right ... it's been a challenge, and my whole life is
• 3:02
  stock and keeping stuff in stock.
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  That is my biggest challenge in life, but it's a, it's a
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  beautiful challenge to have.
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  It does, and I think there's also, like, multifacets to it.
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  It's stock, obviously.
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  Mm. Keeping best-selling products in stock is always a, a challenge, especially for a
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  small business when you're looking at cash flow, and you're also looking at growth.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And part of what we do is we sell cleaning products, but we're in a market
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  that's so fast, especially when you look at social selling- Mm ... that people
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  get bored very quickly, and they get bored of scent, and they get bored of
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  ... They're a- they want the next thing.
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  So it's a minefield- Mm ... and a constant balance between maintaining
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  ens- ensuring we have enough stock for regular rate of sale, not
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  taking into consideration- Mm-hmm
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  the massive peaks of virality, but then also being able- Mm-hmm ... to have enough
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  capital to invest in product development and launching new products regularly to
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  keep- Right ... customers coming back, to keep them interested, to bring new
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  customers into the business, but also kind of grow- Mm ... and expand the brand.
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  So that is always a challenge.
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  That stock pressure is the hidden cost of the kind of
• 4:14
  growth most brands dream about.
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  Luke has an unusual perspective on it.
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  He started his career as a graduate buyer at John Lewis and worked his
• 4:21
  way up to director of marketing for a major commercial retailer.
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  But before any of that led to YAS CLEAN, his TikTok story began during
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  lockdown almost entirely by accident.
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  Prior to doing all of this- ... and TikTok and even being a content creator,
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  I was director of marketing for a very large commercial retail brand.
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  Mm. Okay.
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  So I oversaw all areas of marketing.
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  So I went from- Right ... the buying side into marketing and PR as a natural
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  progression of my career because I felt I was more creative and suited to that role.
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  And yeah, worked very hard at a very young age and, and got up to
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  director level, and that was amazing.
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  Then COVID happened and lockdown happened.
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  And we were exploring lots of new ways to reach our customers, and TikTok, which
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  was musically, was one of those avenues.
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  But I wanted to be prudent, and instead of signing the brand up on
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  TikTok, because it was so new, I decided to create an account for
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  myself personally to see how it worked.
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  How do you post?
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  What's the algorithm like?
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  How do you do hashtags?
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  Like, all of those things a marketeer wants to know on a new
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  platform, which it was at the time.
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  I had about 40 followers.
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  It was friends and family.
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  I was posting silly things just to ... I wasn't do- doing anything to go viral.
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  I was just trying to see what happened Then I got influenced by a TikTok,
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  uh, made me buy it, and bought- I've got dog's messes behind me.
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  Bought a carpet scraper to get dog hair out the carpet, and I was like, "You know
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  what? I'm just gonna film this. I'm just gonna film it, like see how it is." Filmed
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  it, and I will always remember this.
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  9:00 at night, filmed it.
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  Clumps of hair came out of my carpet, and I Hoover daily, right?
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  I was mortified, and you could see my genuine reaction on camera.
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  I posted it.
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  No link, 'cause TikTok Shop didn't exist then.
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  No link, nothing.
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  Just, "Oh my God, look at this carpet scraper. Look at all the dog hair
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  that came out." No hashtags, nothing.
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  I posted it about 10:20 at night.
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  I was tired, 'cause I go to bed early.
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  Went to bed.
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  Woke up to 1.8 million views and 10,000 followers overnight.
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  Wow.
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  Where- Like, just kept going and going and going, and I freaked.
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  I was like, "Oh my God." Then I realized the power of that platform.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  What happened for me personally was that lots of people
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  were like, "This is amazing.
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  You should try this.
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  Is this real?
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  Does this work?" So I started just buying stuff on Amazon, 'cause I was bored.
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  We were locked down at home.
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  So I started posting more review videos, honest review videos.
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  I'm not joking, within three or four weeks, brands started emailing me.
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  "We would love to send you this for free.
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  We'd love to send you that for free." And I was like, "Oh my God.
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  Okay, yeah, sure.
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  I'll... If you wanna send me something for free, of course.
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  I'll buy it next.
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  But yeah, send it to me." Then that was going and I got
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  to about 150,000 followers.
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  Then TikTok Shop happened.
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  It launched in the UK.
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  It was the first country in the West that launched.
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  So I was headhunted.
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  I was reached out to.
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  The number one... There was... They set up an- TikTok set up an agency.
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  So the agency reached out to me, which I still work with today, and said, "TikTok
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  Shop is launching. We've identified you as a potential seller. Would you
• 7:27
  be interested in doing it?" Mm-hmm.
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  Now, I actually thought that it was a scam, and I thought it was fake, and
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  I almost didn't sign the contract.
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  My sister's best friend is a lawyer, so I got her to read over it.
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  And I remember sitting there at my dining room table, like I am now, and
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  the words I said to myself were, "In for a penny, in for a pound. If it goes
• 7:43
  wrong, it goes wrong." So I signed it.
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  Uh.
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  Went down to TikTok's office.
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  Did my first live stream.
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  Uh, I was on camera for four hours live shopping, and I was the person that had
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  the least amount of followers on that day.
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  There were people live streaming on TikTok Shop that had 4
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  million, 5 million followers.
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  I was the highest seller on the day And I think it shocked all of
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  us because they were expecting a higher number of follower count to
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  equate to a higher number of sales.
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  But I think because I had a dedicated following of people that trusted that
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  I reviewed products and bought from me because they would use other affiliate
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  links, I think that was what did it, and they realized they needed people
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  that were doing this to be successful.
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  I then became the number one seller in the UK within that year, and
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  I... TikTok shop was my life.
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  I left my job.
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  I did it full-time.
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  I was making 10 times more than I was in my regular job, then decided I can see how
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  many more people are joining TikTok shop.
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  Lots more creators are joining, lots more brands are joining.
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  So it's gonna become more competitive for me as a creator to cut through
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  the noise, even with a big following.
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  So I was like, "I really wanna be a brand owner," because now is the time to do it.
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  Now I, I've spotted an opportunity that now is the time to become a brand
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  owner because so many more people are promoting products on TikTok shop.
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  So actually, we didn't do Yaskleen first.
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  Uh, we did Not Without Loves.
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  We started selling gadgets and viral gadgets.
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  We made a million.
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  That was my first million I made ever.
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  Then took that money and that profit and decided the smart thing to do was
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  to not make products that go viral and a one-time purchase to create a
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  product range and a brand which is repeat purchase, a consumable product.
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  Makeup and beauty was saturated, but I spotted that cleaning
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  wasn't I love cleaning.
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  So with no knowledge and no experience, I went on a year-long journey prior
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  to launching YAS CLEAN into reaching out to the right manufacturers to
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  partner to create cleaning products.
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  Lots of learns, lots of lessons learned, uh, and a year in development, and we
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  launched in November 2024, and it was clearly the best decision I ever made.
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  The rest is history.
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  A year of development, the right manufacturer, and a
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  clear gap in the market.
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  After first testing the model with a viral gadget brand that hit
• 10:09
  seven figures, Luke had both the proof of concept and the capital to
• 10:13
  build something with staying power.
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  I asked him how he thought about creating product range in a category
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  already dominated by household names.
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  So I think cleaning is cleaning, right?
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  And I think it- unless you're gonna spend a lot of money on research and development
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  and- Mm ... patent acquisition, it's very difficult to come up with something new.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  I find it really interesting when, especially people in business are
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  like, "I've got this great new idea."
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  And actually, there are some times when a brand-new idea, which is fresh
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  coming to the market, is the, is great.
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  Mm. But there's also times when actually you can take something
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  that already exists and just make it better or put your spin on it.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And haven't really done anything innovative.
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  I haven't got...
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  I mean, lots of research and development goes into the product,
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  and actually- Mm, yeah ... there are innovations coming out now.
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  But when we first launched, we didn't do anything innovative.
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  I just did something that where I wanted to listen to my customer.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  So I was previously promoting cleaning products from other brands, and I think
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  what I was very conscious of is creating something that aligned with me- Mm-hmm
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  and aligned with my husband, but also aligned with my
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  community and was listening to what was going on in the world.
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  So we created a fun, fabulous, and affordable brand, and that is products
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  that have great efficacy, that work, products that have strong smell
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  because lots of people in the United Kingdom love a strong-smelling cleaning
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  product, and creating moments, so looking at what scents people love
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  in that moment and then replicating that in cleaning where others weren't.
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  So creating coconut and sea breeze and cherry blossom, and we're
• 11:54
  working on oud at the moment.
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  So taking those moments, but making the product smell great.
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  And we are very, very scent-orientated as a brand.
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  We do have some unscented products, but as you know from our scent boosters, it's
• 12:08
  about scent, but it's also about value.
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  So our scent booster tubs are two and a half liters.
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  We were the first people to make a two-and-a-half liter tub of scent
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  boosters, and they are incredibly affordable, but they smell amazing.
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  And for me, it was about marrying those two together to give great value but
• 12:23
  also give great product, and that's kind of how we position ourselves.
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  We're not the cheapest, but we're not the most expensive, but we
• 12:30
  sit in the middle at great value.
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  Fun, fabulous, affordable, and genuinely scent-led in a category that had never
• 12:37
  really treated scent as a brand identity.
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  That positioning is converting people away from household name
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  detergents and fabric softeners that they've been loyal to for years.
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  If you look, there are big brands in the market, right?
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  And, and they dominate, and you'll get people that will only use one detergent,
• 12:52
  only one- use one fabric softener.
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  And I think a big feat for us is that we've managed to convert
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  people from those brands to ours, which is incredible, right?
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  But I think it comes down to those three points and standing up and
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  saying, "We make great products," and not afraid to shout about that.
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  If you look at beauty and care, there are so many niche
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  indie brands, which is amazing.
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  There isn't the same in our industry and in our sector.
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  There is room in everyone's cupboard for my multipurpose cleaner and somebody
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  else's and another small brand's, and I think that's really important.
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  But I think it's also important that, you know, we stand by what we started and
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  we just continue to make great products.
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  And I think that in itself- Let me give you a stat.
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  Last month in December, obviously, we are not a gifting brand, so
• 13:41
  cleaning is not top of everyone's priority to spend money on.
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  45% of our sales come from repeat customers last month, which is insane.
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  45% repeat customers in December, the hardest trading
• 13:53
  month for a non-gifting brand.
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  Which leads to the question every TikTok brand eventually has to ask itself:
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  Is virality a strategy or a trap?
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  Virality is beautiful, but also an absolute pain because as a retailer,
• 14:09
  as a brand, how do you manage your stock, your rate of sale?
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  Like, you can't.
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  Like, you can never predict it, and we now live in a world where things can go viral.
• 14:19
  And actually- There are times when I have a hunch that I think this potentially
• 14:25
  could go viral, but a lot of the time now I'm listening to our customers, listening
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  to ... We have over 4,000 creators that work with us on a regular basis.
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  I actually put a message out to all the creators yesterday.
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  I want you to tell me what products you think we should be making this year.
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  Tell me what you want.
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  Because it's not about going viral with, with everything.
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  It's also about creating a brand and a range of products across
• 14:50
  multiple different areas of cleaning.
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  So that's about building a range.
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  Not everything's gonna go viral.
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  You're, you're gonna have dead stock.
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  You're gonna have slow sellers.
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  You're gonna have stuff that is just ticking over every day that people
• 15:01
  just buy when they stock up, and you're gonna have those viral moments.
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  It's about all elements.
• 15:06
  And traditional retail has that as well, right?
• 15:08
  You'll have that hero product.
• 15:10
  You'll have that product that doesn't sell that you put into
• 15:13
  sale or you send to outlet.
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  Like, that's just retail, but it's about building a range and a brand arc
• 15:20
  and a, and a price arc. And I guess because of my experience, I know that
• 15:23
  and understand that, and what we're doing now, we're- we've had a capsule range.
• 15:29
  We've worked out what sells, what doesn't sell, what people want,
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  and we're now building on that.
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  Building a range, not chasing spikes, and having the retail
• 15:36
  literacy to know the difference.
• 15:38
  Luke has now been on both sides of TikTok as a creator and as a brand owner.
• 15:43
  Here's how he describes the model.
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  To start off with explaining, so obviously creating a brand on, on the platform are
• 15:48
  obviously very different but very joined.
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  TikTok describe it as what's called discovery commerce.
• 15:53
  So instead of the traditional approach to how you would sell a
• 15:56
  product or market it, and let's just take e-commerce as an example, a
• 16:00
  lot of that is around SEO or SEA.
• 16:03
  So you're, you're talking about keywords and getting up rankings on search engines,
• 16:08
  or you're paying for advertising, cash for an advert TikTok is very different.
• 16:13
  TikTok shop is very different.
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  Your marketing budget is spent on sending samples to creators.
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  That's where you spend your money.
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  So instead of spending, I don't know, 1,000 pounds a day on ads, you would
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  spend 1,000 pounds a day sending out the equivalent of free samples to creators.
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  That's how it works.
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  And then a creator takes the products, they promote it.
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  So the more products you've got in creators' hands, the more you will
• 16:37
  be across the For You page on TikTok, the more customers will see your
• 16:41
  product, the more they'll be reinforced video after video to then hopefully
• 16:46
  be convinced to buy your product.
• 16:48
  Obviously, there's lots of other factors in that, but that's a
• 16:49
  very dumbed down, simple version.
• 16:51
  Yeah.
• 16:51
  So you, as a brand, you set how much commission that creator earns.
• 16:55
  Coming from a creator side, I know what it's like to work with good brands.
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  I know what the average commission value and rate is.
• 17:02
  I know what looking after creators look like because I've been
• 17:05
  looked after by brands myself.
• 17:07
  So when I created the brand, I wanted to be customer-focused and creator-focused.
• 17:13
  Yeah.
• 17:13
  So when we went into this, we approve more samples than lots of other brands.
• 17:18
  We give extra value, whether that be of creators' live stream.
• 17:23
  We give them free giveaways.
• 17:23
  There's a tool where you can give a free giveaway to a creator.
• 17:26
  We give free giveaways to our creators as a thank you for supporting us.
• 17:30
  There's lots of tools within TikTok where you can support creators.
• 17:33
  We are creator first.
• 17:35
  I put creators first.
• 17:36
  At any given moment, around 3,000 creators are actively requesting
• 17:40
  YAS CLEAN samples, but Luke isn't putting all his eggs into one TikTok basket.
• 17:46
  The brand also sells on Amazon, its own website, and both
• 17:49
  Tesco and B&Q marketplaces.
• 17:51
  He's de-risking his platform strategy and building his range.
• 17:55
  But one of the most interesting operational advantages Yaskleen has built
• 17:59
  is something that most businesses on any channel simply don't have access to.
• 18:04
  Always listening, and I think that's the beauty of live streaming.
• 18:08
  So we are live pretty much all day, every day, seven days a week.
• 18:11
  So I would say we're live from like 7:00 AM till 10:00 PM.
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  And whereas that is a sales channel, all of our live streamers, so we have a
• 18:19
  team of expert live streamers that we've hand selected, um, that work for us.
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  They have a 50%/50% job.
• 18:27
  50% of their job is to sit on live and sell, but 50% of their job
• 18:31
  is customer service and feedback.
• 18:33
  So we have a WhatsApp group that is currently around 20 messages deep as
• 18:36
  I'm looking because I've asked them a question about asking customers
• 18:39
  what they think about new scents, what they think about new products.
• 18:42
  Do they like it?
• 18:42
  Do they think we should change anything?
• 18:44
  What's their feedback?
• 18:45
  What do they think we should work on next?
• 18:46
  Constant, all day, every day, and that real time element is that a
• 18:52
  customer can go on our live stream, "My order hasn't arrived." "No problem.
• 18:56
  The team are available now.
• 18:57
  If you message here, they'll get back to you in five minutes," or, "No problem.
• 19:00
  Give our phone line a call." Lots of shops on TikTok Shop don't have phone lines.
• 19:04
  I want, um, I want you to come and know we've still online because if we're
• 19:07
  live and someone has a problem with their order or they have an idea or a
• 19:11
  suggestion, give us a call right now.
• 19:15
  Because if one of the experts on the live can't do that, I've got a team
• 19:18
  of people behind the scenes that can.
• 19:20
  So for me, every day is feedback in so many forms, but our live is so important
• 19:29
  to that because I get feedback all day, every day from it in real time.
• 19:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:34
  Yeah.
• 19:34
  And so did you build out all of this entire infrastructure in the last,
• 19:38
  like, 13 months- Yeah ... or did you have some of this before from- No.
• 19:42
  No?
• 19:42
  Sweet.
• 19:43
  Yeah.
• 19:43
  Well, we did have some, but yeah, most of it was built in the last-
• 19:47
  Yeah ... in the last year, yeah.
• 19:49
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:50
  Been a busy year.
• 19:50
  We don't sleep.
• 19:54
  Fresh skincare is on things I'll say.
• 19:55
  Good skincare.
• 19:56
  That's what I'm gonna say.
• 19:57
  Good, good skincare.
• 19:59
  At any given moment, around 3,000 creators are actively requesting YAS
• 20:03
  CLEAN samples, but Luke isn't putting all his eggs into one TikTok basket.
• 20:09
  The brand also sells on Amazon, its own website, and both
• 20:12
  Tesco and B&Q marketplaces.
• 20:14
  He's de-risking his platform strategy and building his range, but one of
• 20:18
  the most interesting operational advantages YAS CLEAN has built is
• 20:22
  something that most businesses on any channel simply don't have access to:
• 20:27
  real-time feedback seven days a week.
• 20:30
  That is a level of customer listening most businesses can't get close to.
• 20:34
  While not everyone has a business model that works for this type of viral growth
• 20:38
  on TikTok, it's certainly food for thought for anyone who wants a clear line
• 20:41
  of communication with their customer.
• 20:44
  Thanks so much for listening.
• 20:45
  Don't forget to go check out YAS CLEAN on their socials or online
• 20:49
  and see what an amazing job that they do selling the product.
• 20:53
  And of course, if you have a moment to like, follow, or subscribe,
• 20:56
  you'll be the first to know about each new podcast episode every week.
• 20:59
  And why not come along and say hi to me on Instagram, @resilientretailclub,
• 21:02
  and let me know what you took away from today's episode