Practical steps for opening a Douyin store without supply, a must-read for opening a store!

Share the practical steps of Douyin store ’s no-source project!

There are too many projects and too many cases without supply. Taobao has no supply, JD.com has no supply, and Pinduoduo has no supply. I will not go into details about what the no-source project is.

Douyin Store’s no-source projects are the same as other platforms’ no-source projects. It does not require a source of goods, which means there is no inventory pressure. This project is now in its very early stages. ByteDance only started to focus on the e-commerce sector this year. There are still many imperfect rules for Douyin Stores, which means that the restrictions on Douyin Stores without sources of goods are much smaller than those on other platforms. Compared with traditional e-commerce platforms, this project is also unique. It does not have an independent shopping mall, nor does it rely on search terms to enter the store for transactions. Its transactions are mainly dependent on the promotion of experts.

So this brings up another advantage of Douyin stores without source of goods. Because we rely on influencers for promotion, we ourselves do not need to be able to make videos or do live broadcasts, and we do not need fans for that. And because we rely on influencers for promotion, the influencers act as our customer service, so the amount of customer service in the Douyin Store project is very small.

Here is the data of our new store which we have run for one month:

I won’t waste any more time and will share with you the practical operation of running a Douyin store without source of goods!

1. Preliminary preparation

1. Business license of individual business owner

This is for opening a shop. This can be done online, it is not expensive, about 300 yuan per card. It is important to note that it must be done locally!

2. A computer with internet access

At the beginning, one store only needs one home computer. Later on, when performing batch operations, multiple computers will be needed. Using multiple computers for multiple stores is to prevent being judged as a studio by Douyin. The first store uses its own computers. If you buy a new computer, you can buy a second-hand complete set for 1,200 yuan.

3. A mobile phone with internet access

There are no configuration requirements for the mobile phone. It just needs to be able to access the Internet and download apps. Be careful not to use the mobile phone to connect to wifi. This is to prepare for later batch operations, for the same reason as computers. You also need a SIM card and a mobile phone (you can use your own in the first store). If you are buying a new phone, a second-hand iPhone 5s costs around 500 yuan.

4. Store working capital

This part of working capital is used for purchasing expenses, that is, the funds we need to go to the previous store to buy goods after the customer purchases in our store. This part of money circulates in the store and is not an expense. In the early stage, you don’t need to spend much, just 10,000 to 20,000 yuan will be enough. When we purchase, we can use Huabei and credit cards. Before the Huabei and credit card bills expire, we can also withdraw the sales fee of our store and use it to pay off the debt. Of course, I still encourage everyone to have real liquidity, so that our bills will be clearer. If you don’t want to invest so much, Huabei credit card is totally fine!

5. Store deposit

The deposit amount for Douyin store varies according to the category. I paid 5,000 so that the categories are more comprehensive. The deposit can be fully refunded when the store stops operating.

6. Software costs

In store operations, we need to purchase software to assist our operations, such as uploading products, placing orders, and shipping. Without the assistance of these software, when our store is flooded with orders, one person will not be able to complete the purchase and shipping. These softwares are not expensive, only 50 yuan a month in total.

7. Sample procurement fee

In Douyin, if we want to sell our products, we cannot do without the anchors, so we need to send our products to the anchors. However, our products are generally priced between 0-50, which is not high. We set this price because it is a hot-selling price range on Douyin. So you only need to prepare 1,000 for sample purchase costs.

Now let’s calculate how much money it costs to open a Douyin store with no supply? If you have a mobile phone and a computer, you only need to prepare an individual business license and a store deposit of 6,300 yuan in total (5,000 yuan deposit is refundable). This is all the funds to open a Douyin store without any source of goods. Is the starting capital particularly small? You can no longer make excuses for your laziness and not having money, hahaha!

2. How to do it?

Step 1: Open a store

First, use the mobile phone card we issued to register a Doudian account. Please note that it is a Doudian account, not a Douyin account. Of course, you can use the Douyin account to open a Douyin store directly, but I suggest that you re-register with the mobile phone card we issued for your own convenience. Once again, do not use your mobile phone to connect to WiFi. This is all to prepare for our batch operations in the future, so if we prepare in advance, we will save a lot of trouble. To register for Doudian, just search Baidu Doudian and follow the steps to register on Doudian’s official website. I won’t go into detail about how to register, just follow the steps on the official website. After registering a Doudian account, log in directly to the Doudian backend, and then use the individual business license we have issued to complete the store registration in the backend. Registration is very simple, just follow the registration prompts.

If you have any questions about registering a store here, you can leave a comment and I will answer your questions as soon as possible.

Step 2: Select the product

We select products that we think will be hot-selling from Alibaba, Taobao, and Pinduoduo and upload them to our store. So what kind of products can be hot-selling? The hot-selling products on Douyin all have one characteristic: they are new and unique, fresh and unique products + reasonable pricing. The probability of products selected based on these two criteria becoming hot-selling products will be greatly increased.

For example, we search for dresses directly on Taobao, and then find a dress with a very novel style while browsing the products. Secondly, based on the quality of the dress, there is room for price increase. At this time, we can copy the product link of this dress and put it into our product selection table. Of course, we don’t just choose one product, we need to choose hundreds of products of different categories, different prices, and different styles. Here I am just taking a dress as an example. It doesn't have to be a dress. You can choose any product you want. It really depends on personal preference. Our selection of products is not about quantity but quality. Don’t just buy a product when you see it.

Of course, there are many ways to select products, but this method is most suitable for novices. What other product selection methods do you know? Type it in the comments section so we can communicate.

Step 3: Upload products

In the service market in the merchant’s backend, there are several different software for uploading products. Their functions are similar and none of them stands out. Just choose one that is comfortable for you and is free. We use software to upload the links of our selected products directly to our store. There are two points you need to pay attention to when uploading. The first point is the most important: the delivery time must be 5 days, because Douyin has strict control over logistics. The only fine my store has received now is because of logistics.

5 days gives us enough time to prepare for shipment, so we don’t have to worry about a surge in orders. The second point is to set the upload price to 2.5 times the price of the previous product. This multiple is not a constant. When we encounter products with particularly high profit margins, we can even upload it at 10 times the price. I made a spreadsheet myself to calculate pricing. If you need it, you can private message me and I will send it to you privately.

Now that we have the goods and the store is open, how do we sell the products? The following is the most important point! Pay attention, blackboard! Listen carefully!

Step 4: Add selected alliances.

The Doudian platform has a selected alliance, which is like Alimama. Anyone who has worked on Taobao knows that this is a platform for connecting merchants and influencers. After the merchants set the commission for the products, they will be placed in the selected alliance. The expert anchors will then choose the products they want to promote in the selected alliance and put them in their own showcases. The anchors will promote our products through live broadcasts or videos. As long as there is a transaction, the experts can receive the commission set by the merchant. This is the role of the Select Alliance.

We need to put the products in our own store into the selected alliance. Of course, the first thing to do is to join the Select Alliance. Joining the Selected Alliance is in the marketing center section of the Douyin store backend. Our new store’s entry into the Selected Alliance is a trial version. You don’t have to worry about anything bad with the trial version. In terms of function, there is no difference between the trial version and the official version. After joining the alliance in the background, add our products to the general plan and set the commission rate.

The commission rates for different products are different, so you need to calculate them yourself. The calculation process is a bit complicated, so I won’t go into detail here. The principle of calculating the commission rate is to control your profit margin at around 30%. Only with this profit margin can you ensure that the final price is not too high, making it easier for the anchors to sell goods. Here we can use the pricing form mentioned above – the cost-profit calculation form. This form can quickly and clearly calculate our profits, commission rates, and pricing.

One table has three uses. If you need it, you can send me a private message and I will send you the calculation table privately.

Step 5: Order and Shipment

This is the last step and also the simplest step. After the customer takes a photo in our store, we need to take a photo of the product the customer needs in the previous store and ship it. Some people may have questions. We have so many orders in our store every day, and we have to fill in information with the upstream seller for each order. How can we complete this?

Don't worry, order placement and delivery are all assisted by software. The order-taking software can automatically help us fill in information such as phone number, name, address, etc. We just need to check the information and make the payment.

Shipping is even simpler. The software can automatically detect whether the upstream seller has shipped the goods. After the upstream seller has shipped the goods, the software will automatically help us ship the goods in our store, and we don’t need to do anything else. These software can be found in the service market in the backend of Doudian. There are several newly launched auxiliary order placement and delivery software in the service market. Their functions are similar. It depends on personal choice which one you like to use. I will not advertise them here. The software has greatly improved our efficiency, and most importantly, it is not expensive, and some of it is free.

At this point, the complete operation process of Douyin without source is completed