E-commerce entrepreneur shares why TikTok Shop is one of the best platforms to start selling today, and how to quickly turn a small startup into a six-figure business.
By 2029, Europe’s e-commerce market is entering a new growth cycle, with revenue projected to double to nearly €565 billion annually. Traditional marketplaces with high competition and complex entry barriers are gradually giving way to new platforms where sales happen more organically through direct customer communication. TikTok Shop has become one of these platforms.
We spoke with Yernur Nurmukhambet, entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Piera, an international company specializing in online sales through marketplaces and social platforms about what TikTok Shop offers beginning sellers. Yernur started his e-commerce journey in late 2024, betting on TikTok Shop as an emerging marketplace platform. By his second month, he hit a major revenue spike, generating a 100x return on his initial investment.
In this interview for Business Matters, the expert shares his personal experience launching a business on TikTok Shop: the decisions he made early on, which strategies worked, and how he validated demand without investing big budgets.
European e-commerce saw notable growth this month. You also experienced a sharp sales spike, despite your business being just over a month old. How did you manage to catch this growth wave so precisely?
Actually, this growth was largely expected. February brings Valentine’s Day to Europe and the United States, and dates like these traditionally drive spontaneous, emotional purchases. People are looking for gifts, making decisions quickly and less rationally than usual. I built this seasonality into my launch strategy from the start, knowing demand could spike in February. I was selling gift boxes with jewelry that men bought for their girlfriends and wives.
Major holidays like Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Easter, they all follow a similar e-commerce pattern. Platforms and sellers amplify the sense of urgency: limited-time offers appear, gift formats emerge, “what to buy” guides pop up, and short promo windows open. Social commerce amplifies this effect: short videos, product demonstrations, and creator recommendations turn gift ideas into impulse purchases within minutes, especially when a product is easy to explain and its value is visually clear.
Looking at the bigger picture, e-commerce growth in Europe and the US is also driven by online shopping becoming the standard: delivery and returns have improved, trust in online payments has grown, and competition between platforms has made offers more visible and convenient for customers.
You chose TikTok Shop for sales, although it’s a new channel without an established community or proven case studies yet. What do you see as its key advantage over Amazon and Shopify for beginning sellers?
Compared to Amazon, these are fundamentally different models. Amazon is a classic “search” marketplace: buyers arrive with formed intent and choose from a list of offerings. For new sellers, this means a high entry barrier: fierce competition, requirements for reviews, listings, and logistics, plus the need to invest more time and budget before reaching stable sales.
Shopify, on the other hand, is an excellent tool for building a brand, but it doesn’t provide ready-made traffic. Sellers are responsible for attracting audiences through ads, content, and influencers essentially building the entire customer flow from scratch. It works, but requires resources, experience, and a longer payback horizon.
TikTok Shop works differently. It’s not just a marketplace, but part of a social network where sales are born from content. The entry barrier is lower and there are far more opportunities to quickly test hypotheses through video: you can rapidly understand how audiences react to a product, which format hooks them, and what offer works.
Additionally, in its early stages, the platform often offers more flexible terms and support tools, and scaling happens through content and creators rather than just paid traffic. For a starting brand, this is critical, you can validate demand faster, find a working offer, and start growing without immediately hitting high advertising budgets.
You’ve managed to reach over $100,000 in sales and achieve a 100x return on your initial investment. What exactly did you direct those first investments toward, and what enabled such a quick payback?
I used those funds very pragmatically: purchasing test batches of several different products. The goal was to understand in real conditions what resonated with audiences and had sales potential.
I didn’t attract outside investment, the entire launch ran on my own funds. The logic was simple and, in my view, universal: first a quick test, then scaling. Once one product showed stable demand and good metrics, I started increasing purchase volumes and expanding sales based on confirmed data.
How exactly did you test products on TikTok Shop to determine which would be most profitable?
I structured testing through a rapid MVP approach from the start: launch a minimum viable product version and see if the market confirms actual demand. In practice, this looked like: I’d choose a product or category, form a basic offer, think through positioning, packaging, and use cases, then adapt everything to short video format. Next came a test launch with small volumes and limited budget to see real audience reaction as quickly as possible.
I watched demand signals closely: how quickly first sales appeared, how people reacted to content, how well views converted to purchases, whether there was repeat interest, and how stable demand was after the initial spike. Based on this data, I gradually refined the offer by adjusting price, presentation, creatives, and content format.
If metrics confirmed potential, I moved to scaling: increased purchase volumes, expanded work with creators, and brought the product into wider circulation. My main principle here is simple: don’t invest in scale until the market shows the product is needed. Like with costume jewelry, that was my first big win. It just clicked with the video format: easy unboxing shots, you could show it on a model, and it had that immediate wow factor that stops people scrolling.
Based on your experience, what products sell best on this platform?
Platform users readily buy products that immediately trigger an emotional response and where you can easily show their effect in a short video: transformation, before-and-after, instant results, anything that turns simple curiosity into an immediate desire to buy.
It’s important that the product solves a specific problem and is simple to understand: the clearer buyers see what task the product addresses and how it makes life easier, the higher the conversion. On TikTok Shop, the first seconds decide everything, which is why unusual appearance, interesting shape, or mini-“magic” on camera that stops the scroll all matter.
You’re soon launching your first TikTok Shop training course, where you’ll teach beginning sellers how to register a company, source products, and promote them. What three main pieces of advice would you give those just entering this market?
Don’t fall in love with a product idea: validate demand first—scale later. Only invest in volume once you’ve confirmed the market is hungry for your product.
Master video marketing. On TikTok Shop, the first seconds matter: a clear hook, understandable pain point and benefit, demonstration of use and results. The ability to package a product’s value into short format is key to conversion.
And finally, learn to work with creators and bet on content volume: the more quality content goes out, the higher your chance of reaching the right audience and finding a format that really “hits.” Creators need clear instructions: what to show, which points to voice, what script and call-to-action to use.
Ultimately, success on TikTok Shop is systematic work: test, learn, scale, and create content that solves the customer’s problem. Do that, and you’ll definitely turn a small startup into a stable six-figure business.
