TikTok Shop outlines its safety playbook for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Heading into the holiday rush, TikTok Shop’s governance team, which oversees everything from seller vetting and product screening to returns and refunds, is gearing up to handle an expected surge in traffic and fraudulent activity.

“The volume of sales and fraud attempts goes up during this period,” said Nicolas Waldmann, the head of TikTok Shop’s global governance and experience external affairs team. “We stop millions of potentially problematic products before they go live, and take action against sellers and creators who violate our guidelines.”

The heightened vigilance comes as TikTok Shop continues to cement itself as a major retail player: Last Black Friday, the platform drove $100 million in single-day sales in the U.S. But its rapid rise hasn’t been without growing pains. Since launching in the U.S. in September 2023, TikTok Shop has faced persistent seller complaints over its AI-powered algorithm, which can erroneously flag products as policy violations or “restricted” items, and over a surge of counterfeit and “dupe” listings that have frustrated brands and creators.

Modern Retail spoke with Waldmann about TikTok Shop’s holiday preparedness, how it vets sellers and how its safety and compliance efforts are evolving. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How has TikTok built out its safety and compliance team as the marketplace has scaled?
“When you think about governance and experience, it deals with anything that needs to be governed or controlled. It starts with the seller. We have a team dedicated to seller onboarding. Once sellers start listing products, we have a team focused on listing and product governance, including prohibited and infringing products, since there’s a broad range of items you’re not allowed to sell on TikTok. 

These products get promoted by creators, so we also have a team dedicated to creator and content companies. Then, there’s the customer experience side, which handles everything after the sale, like returns, refunds or cancellations. We ensure we have the right sellers, the right products and effective support throughout the process.”

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest shopping days of the year. How do you prepare for the increase in volume and risk of fraud this time of year?
“We have a risk mitigation framework that addresses abuse and attempts of fraud on both the seller side and the product side. During peak periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, everything operates as usual, but we expect a higher volume of transactions as well as products and content that need to go through our controls and systems. All our teams are mobilized and ready to screen these transactions and products. Our goal is to identify and stop anyone from circumventing our systems as quickly as possible.

We also carefully select sellers and creators who are part of the holiday campaign. They have to meet several criteria, including being able to fulfill a high volume of orders, ship on time and provide strong customer service. For additional support, we extend our platform and seller support hours, and offer an extended return period: Anything bought between November 12 and December 30 can be returned up until mid-February.”

How do you balance making returns seamless for shoppers while protecting sellers from abuse?
“If you get a fraudulent return, we have a team that specializes in buyer reviews and fraud. Buyer fraud and reviews are important issues, especially as attempts to return fraudulent or not-as-described items may increase.

Sellers have the ability to report issues, and we’ll investigate. We have detection systems in place that monitor factors like how many returns a buyer is making, the types of items being returned and whether the seller is accepting returns. We gather signals to identify potential fraud and then take action, and we basically compensate the seller.”

How long do investigations usually take?
“It depends, because we need to accumulate enough signals to be able to investigate. But as soon as we have enough, then we start investigating and making decisions. Sometimes, if the behavior or product is clearly not allowed, the investigation can take just a few seconds. In other cases, it can take up to 24 hours, depending on the complexity of the case. We typically use a combination of human moderation and automated systems.”

If a brand spots counterfeits or receives a fraudulent return, how do they report that?
“If you’re a brand owner, you can register on our Intellectual Property Protection Center. You’ll need to get verified to register, and then you can upload your trademark and start reporting any infringements on the platform. That’s what most brand owners do. You need to protect your IP, your brands, your logo, your trademark. Once you’ve done this, we’ll take down items as appropriate, following our guidelines.”

Walk me through what the seller vetting process is like. If I’m a brand or seller and I want to start selling on TikTok, what are the specific steps I have to take?
“You need to go through what we call the Seller Center. There, you have to disclose information about who you are, who your authorized business representatives are and what you’re planning to sell. You’ll go through a number of verification steps. We’ll verify that your company exists, that you’re actually selling what you claim and that your business representative is legitimate. Both the company and the representative need to submit documentation.

Once you complete these steps, you become a seller. But you’ll still be subject to a probation period of at least 60 days, during which there are certain limitations based on your sales and performance. After that, you can fully graduate out of probation depending on your results.”