--- title: "Should Amazon Sellers Add TikTok Shop? With Graeme Paddock and Rafay MH" slug: "add-tiktok-shop" type: "podcast" url: "https://globalfromanywhere.com/podcasts/add-tiktok-shop/" canonical_url: "https://globalfromanywhere.com/podcasts/add-tiktok-shop/" date_published: "2026-09-08T10:35:10.221740" date_modified: "2026-09-10T03:55:15.012358" description: "After an Amazon suspension, Mike asks Graeme Paddock and Rafay MH how sellers can tell whether TikTok Shop fits their product and team." image: "https://media.globalfromanywhere.com/6b231c5f382b4e378164937a40b6ed91.webp" episode_number: "497" duration: "34:11" audio_url: "https://m.globalfromanywhere.com/hYUL2jqBzQBp.mp3" --- # Should Amazon Sellers Add TikTok Shop? With Graeme Paddock and Rafay MH A few days before this interview, Esatto's Amazon seller account was suspended over an INFORM Act documentation problem. We got it back, but those stressful days made one question feel much less theoretical: how much of our sales channel do we actually control? That question was on my mind when I sat down with Graeme Paddock and Rafay MH, co-founders of [The UpTik](https://theuptik.com/), for GFA497. We talked about TikTok Shop from the point of view of an established Amazon or Shopify seller, not someone chasing a lucky viral video. Graeme and Rafay explained why some products are much easier to sell through short-form content than others. Their three tests are practical: Can the product be demonstrated? Can the customer see a before-and-after journey? Is there already a group of people who care deeply about the problem? We also got into the part sellers often skip. Who will make the content? How will creators be chosen? Is the traffic borrowed through affiliates, bought through ads, or owned by the brand? And who inside the company is responsible for learning the channel every week? I went into the conversation wanting another channel after a rough Amazon week. I came out with a better question. TikTok Shop may be available to a brand, but is the product and the team actually suited to run it? ## In this episode - Why Amazon demand and TikTok discovery require different selling habits. - The three product tests Graeme and Rafay use before recommending TikTok Shop. - What borrowed, paid and owned traffic mean in practice. - Why matching a creator to the customer problem matters more than follower count. - What has to live inside the company if TikTok Shop is going to become more than an experiment. Graeme will continue the discussion at [Cross Border Summit 2026](https://2026.crossbordersummit.com/) in Chiang Mai. His final session title is still being confirmed. ## Transcript **Mike Michelini:** Thanks everybody for tuning into our Global From Anywhere show. We have two partners here who are experts in TikTok, a topic I've wanted to cover for a while. I'm primarily an Amazon seller, and my account was suspended this past weekend. I got it back in a few days; it was paperwork, nothing too serious. But it reminded me that we need to be multichannel. It's perfect timing to have Graeme and Rafay from The UpTik on the show. What I like is that they don't offer only consulting. They coach and work with sellers to help them build their own operations. Graeme, you're in Sydney, Australia, and Rafay, you're here in Thailand like me. Welcome to the show. **Rafay MH:** Thanks for having us, man. I'm excited to dive in. **Graeme Paddock:** Thanks for having us. Awesome. **Mike Michelini:** Yep. **Mike Michelini:** So Graeme, I know you're very passionate about this as a seller yourself and your positioning is a little bit unique, 'cause I know there's a lot of agencies that help people full service, set up content operations. You wanna give us some insights of- Yeah ... of your story here? Oh, **Graeme Paddock:** yeah. For us initially our background for Rafay and I is building and selling e-commerce businesses, and that's how we met actually because Rafay in our partnership is respectfully the mad scientist. So he he's been a TikTok old school since 2020, 2019, which is only six, seven years ago, but there's not many around that have been in the TikTok e-commerce space longer than Rafay. So- Okay ... we met because he was helping brands, I was in the Amazon network, actually get attention \[00:02:00\] through what was at the time starting to evolve organically in regards to what's this new platform everyone's on. And then that's how we met, and our business came about through, yes, consulting with other brands, but maybe not at the business to start off with, maybe just with some general advice. But through word of mouth, Mike, like anything, when you start getting results, it's so funny because it's such a big world, but so small in the e-commerce space. So many brand owners know others. So from that, then that's how our business got built. But no, we're not an agency. We actually, we consult with multiple agencies to give them the systems and the strategies they execute for their clients. But what we do, it's about empowerment. So we love TikTok. I al- I always say about how many people would buy your product or service if they actually knew you existed, right? But that's what it is. It's discovery. People spend so much time on obviously the product and everything else, which is lovely, but most times they're playing in the red ocean, which is I'm on Amazon, which we call a search, find, buy platform. The only people going there already know what they want to buy. Then they go to page one, they look at the reviews. There's a \[00:03:00\] Chinese competition, which is part of the game. There's the price points, and they go through and make a decision. But TikTok's I didn't even know you existed. What a great idea. So TikTok is an opportunity for blue ocean organically, not pay to play. So our whole game and what we do in our business is we show people an almost like a handholding experience. Depending where you are and depending what your product is in your niche, this is what you need to do step by step to get attention. And then through that attention, of course, we want you to be successful on TikTok shop. But consumers buy where they choose to buy. So most of our members who are really starting to get traction say, yes, TikTok of course, but their Amazon's organics have increased dramatically because there is a huge piece of the TikTok community we'll say that might see it on TikTok, but I'll just go buy it on Amazon because it's easier for them. But that's the key. They would never have known about you if it wasn't for the organic attention. Got **Mike Michelini:** it. But **Graeme Paddock:** that's that's our game and that's what we do. **Mike Michelini:** Nice. Nice. So mad scientist here. Yeah. How did you get \[00:04:00\] started? What was, what attracted you into TikTok earlier on? **Rafay MH:** I think the biggest thing for me was like... Though firstly it was my wife, to be honest. She was obsessed with Instagram at the time, and then all of a sudden she was on this new app called TikTok, and I only heard of it because there was, like, this chair challenge that was going viral at the time. Then she made me do this chair challenge, which apparently women can do and guys can't, because they fall over while doing it. So I did the challenge, and of course I fell over. And we had a laugh, but the thing that was most interesting was it changed her behavior from an app she was, like, addicted to, which was Instagram, to immediately switch over almost exclusively to TikTok within a week. And n- in the entire l- time I've known her, she's never seen something on Instagram and asked me to do a type of challenge in the real world, but within a week she did that in TikTok. So it got my brain juices flowing. It made me think about, oh, okay, if this is making people change their behavior in the real world right now, what else could it do if you're able to drive that attention to something, like a product? Because obviously \[00:05:00\] I was already selling, I had multiple brands at the time. And so I just dove in, man. I realized if you're only selling on Amazon, which is where I started as an e-com seller, you're only fulfilling existing demand and you're not, creating demand, which means you're always at the mercy of the platform on whether you get suspended, whether you make money or not. If they increase fees, you can't do anything about it, because you don't own the eyeballs before they decide they need the product, and that's really what got me interested in the first place. **Mike Michelini:** Okay. That's cool. Yeah. I'll be a little bit honest. I- And I actually s- had a little dinner with some sellers last night here in, in Chiang Mai, and we were saying, we s- we still, I guess maybe the hesitancy, we feel a little bit more stable on Amazon. Like TikTok to me is confusing 'cause there's stores and personal accounts, and I think there's even another kind of account. And we feel like you gotta have 100 phones. There's always those people that show- Yeah ... up with 100 phones in a room, and they're like- Yeah. I've seen that ... what **Rafay MH:** are the... \[00:06:00\] **Mike Michelini:** And you gotta have like- Yeah you gotta go to T-Mobile in the US, and you gotta get a new phone number, and then you gotta get a VPS on your router, and you gotta take that same router to Thailand, and then you gotta connect. I don't know. Yeah. I hope I'm wrong. I, And then you get banned, okay, and just another account. Like I don't know, I just feel we said it last night, we just felt like it it's not as... I did just get suspended on Amazon. Luckily it's back, but- Yeah ... i... But it is becoming a viable storefront, right? We can't ignore it anymore, right? It's 2026. **Rafay MH:** Yeah. **Mike Michelini:** I can't believe I'm still not on it personally and others. So it's a viable- we'll **Graeme Paddock:** get you there ... platform. Yeah. We're gonna convert you. That's why we're here. **Rafay MH:** Yeah, exactly. But- yeah, sorry Graeme. Go for it. **Graeme Paddock:** Oh, I was just gonna say, I think, Mike, like it's like a lot of things. You don't know what you don't know, right? Quite simply. But they did $50 billion in the first six months of this year on TikTok. 50 billion. Yeah. Here's another statistic too. Of the 50 billion, more than \[00:07:00\] 50% were buyers over the age of 27. **Mike Michelini:** Oh. **Graeme Paddock:** So this is the thing where everyone thinks, oh, TikTok, it's all kids and stuff. Yeah, **Mike Michelini:** that's, that's- **Graeme Paddock:** No. So $25 billion was made from purchasers over 27 years old So these are things where it's like, yes, you can have the whole, oh, it's too hard, but that's because you guys have respectfully probably an unconscious knowledge now around Amazon. So like this is easy for you. But you have to remember someone from the Shopify world will be looking at Amazon and be like, "Oh my God, look how hard that is." And unless you use FBA, I'm not gonna get, think whatever else, and I don't understand all the keywords and everything else. I understand Google it. So it's again, you don't know what you don't know. Yes, there are certain things that you need to do like any business, any platform that is successful, but it's worth it obviously like I said, if you get it right. Sure. And- because as we were mentioning, chatting about earlier, Amazon does not give you what Raph Tokum spoke about with the discovery. And that's the key. How many people would buy your product if they knew you existed? All you're doing is fighting amongst the red ocean on Amazon, where TikTok you have \[00:08:00\] the opportunity to two part, one, put yourself in front of the consumer to show them, "Hey, here's something that solves a problem for you," but even better, and this is obviously what we teach, is your content shows them a problem they didn't even know they had. So this is a thing. You show them a problem they didn't even know they had, and that's amazing. Oh, by the way, we also have the solution for it over here. These are things that you just can't do on Tik- on on Amazon. But yeah, it's not as easy as just you know what, just jump on today and start selling tomorrow. But that's in any business, right? **Mike Michelini:** Yeah. **Rafay MH:** And one thing I'll have to say, Mike- Go ahead ... is that, that phone farm stuff is just, it's a tactic. It's not the way you launch on the platform. And most sellers, I notice they love geeking out and tinkering on these like edge case tactics. And they're like, "Oh, I'm gonna do this 'cause this is what's gonna be my edge." But they'll spend all their effort and time doing this, but they don't build the foundation of what like a proper scalable TikTok shop brand actually looks like. And so yes, you could do that, but we've helped brands get to well \[00:09:00\] beyond seven figures a month without ever using a phone farm. Like it's just not necessary to have or not a prerequisite to success. So don't feel like, oh, I need a phone farm of 100 phones to make this thing work, for sure. **Mike Michelini:** That's reassuring. I lived in China for over a decade and even not just TikTok, Amazon or social media, they always, Chinese always like to do that. But it, I guess probably people around the world figuring that out too. I've seen it- Yeah ... outside of China too. **Graeme Paddock:** Yeah. **Mike Michelini:** I know you guys, Graeme and I have been chatting about finding the right brand for TikTok. But you just said even over 27 now. So it's not about kids or women. It's like, what, what kind of demographics should you look for? How do you decide if your brand is the right one? **Graeme Paddock:** I don't know about demographics, but Raph will speak better on this in regards to... We always look for three core pillars. You just wanna dive into that, Raph? **Rafay MH:** Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I don't really look at my target demographic first. I look at, okay, would this product actually fit on TikTok? And there's three pillars that we go through every time. \[00:10:00\] Obviously, there's sub-pillars if none of them fit. So the first is this product demonstratable? Can I see clear before and... like a clear this is a use case, I do this, and I can show it visually 'cause it's a visual first platform. Most products fit that obviously 'cause it's a physical product. But the second one is can I visually demonstrate the before and after of the customer's journey using this product? So I'll give you a simple example, and I'll give you a hard one. A simple one is skincare. Let's say I've got wrinkly skin, then I've got smooth skin. That's obvious. But what if you don't do that? What if you're selling supplements? So let's say you're selling a sleep supplement. Can I visually show c- getting a lack of sleep and then getting good sleep? Of course I can. I can show someone spinning around in bed and someone sleeping peacefully. That's an example of before and after. So that's the second filter. And the third, and this is arguably the most important is the problem space that my product lives in, is there a passionate audience talking about that? So I'll give you an example of what that means. So let's say I was selling teeth whitening products. The passionate audience I'd be looking \[00:11:00\] for is two. Are people talking about looks maxing and confidence? Are they talking about oral health? Just creating content about this problem space. If I see very little of that, that would mean it would be me fighting uphill launching that specific product on TikTok. But if I do see that, it's a hot knife through butter. And that's the first three filters that I look through when we're helping a brand launch. **Mike Michelini:** Okay. Yeah. Very helpful, very **Rafay MH:** helpful. Sure, man. **Mike Michelini:** And- **Rafay MH:** Well- **Mike Michelini:** Oh, go ahead, Graeme. You have something to add? What's that? Brad, sorry. **Rafay MH:** Yeah, no, I was just gonna say Mike, for you, I know this is something, and this might be useful for the listeners, is that- ... you've been thinking about pulling the trigger on TikTok Shop as an Amazon seller, where the vast majority of your revenue is coming from there. Apart from it's a new channel and I'm not sure, what's been your hesitancy, or what's been the biggest blocker for you to actually say move forward with it? And maybe we can address that right now. **Mike Michelini:** I'm in Thailand and I wanna sell in s- US. I don't wanna sell in Thailand. **Rafay MH:** Oh, just the international aspect? That's a \[00:12:00\] solved problem. **Mike Michelini:** Okay. **Rafay MH:** That's... Yeah, that's a solved **Mike Michelini:** problem. See, I tried with the VPS, VPN. My friends used US routers, and they had their house, somebody at their US turn it on for them. Even last night at dinner they said that they have, they pay somebody in the US to have the phone with their number posting for them. **Rafay MH:** So- That's a different problem than launching on TikTok Shop. So if you have a brand account that's posting, that's a s- different thing. To be able to sell on TikTok Shop as an international seller, it's possible. It's a solved problem, so that can be done. And so the things that you're talking about at dinner is just about geo-locking your content account where you're posting, but not where you're hosting as a seller center. So those are two different things, so I think there might be a bit of a- Yeah, no, I, I- ... a, yeah, confusion between the two. Yeah, for sure. I, **Mike Michelini:** I'm not gonna hide, I don't really... I just feel confused. I'll be honest. I'll probably could figure it out, but I'm not pretty smart, but I've tried, I've used... i'll be honest I use US VPNs for Amazon too. I have different- Yeah ... accounts. So I tried those same \[00:13:00\] profiles, but they're much... TikTok seems much more difficult to, **Rafay MH:** Yeah ... **Mike Michelini:** change the geogra- **Rafay MH:** The b- ... geogra- **Mike Michelini:** geographic from- **Rafay MH:** For sure. There's a very specific process to be able to do that, to be able to change your geo-locking. We can go into the details of that, but I think what that's not the point of what you're saying. What you're saying is that the first steps of entering TikTok Shop are so different from Amazon and confusing that it makes you feel like, you know what? It's not worth it. I'll, might focus on other areas of my business. That's what it sounds like. Would that be true? **Mike Michelini:** And not just me. There's just five of us. We have these advanced seller dinners, and another guy- Yeah ... he's a manufacturer of clothing here, and he sells- ... a lot in the US market, and he says he doesn't... The TikTok says you gotta sell on Thailand, and he wants to s- **Rafay MH:** Oh, no **Mike Michelini:** US- **Rafay MH:** He's just doing it the... Yeah, he's just, it's just the sequential process of setting up. He's just done it in a different way. But that question, if that's the only gap, that's a solved problem for sure. I don't know, Graeme, if you wanna jump in on that at all, but obviously that's like we've, we have so many international sellers- I think it goes back to **Graeme Paddock:** what **Rafay MH:** we said beforehand- So **Graeme Paddock:** \[00:14:00\] many of us around it's just you don't know what you don't know, and so many brands- ... **Graeme Paddock:** Just try stuff rather than actually, like they try and understand the right formula. But this is what we teach, right? So yeah. Correct. Don't, **Mike Michelini:** Good to know ... **Graeme Paddock:** don't stress about those kind of things. **Mike Michelini:** Okay. Yeah ... I think the confusion is we see these videos or photos of phone farms, and then you hear people talk about, IP address and **Graeme Paddock:** geo- It's called clickbait. Yeah. Because they sh- show that because it's clickbait, and then people get engaged upon it. But yeah, it's like Raf said beforehand it's like those people specifically are trying to find the silver bullet or the hack- Where there's a whole heap of foundation needs to be set beforehand. Those kind of things come and go, but that's just all clickbait. That's all. **Mike Michelini:** Okay. Okay. This is great to know. I think the other one is the amount of content you need to make. It is a shift. Amazon sellers Can be a little bit lazier where we like ... I don't wanna say I'm lazy, and I'm not trying to say Amazon sellers are lazy, but we do like the inbound, like the inbound, the search my buy- as Graeme \[00:15:00\] said. Whereas seems like TikTok you have to create content to get sales. And- **Graeme Paddock:** ... You do. **Mike Michelini:** I think a lot of Amazon sellers I'm not as bad. We're doing this podcast. I actually do more content for my kinda seller communities than I do for my brand. First even myself I could show you. So I think that's another transition that we need to make. You have to create content, or can you just have- ... influencers do it, or do you need to do it, or should you do both? I think these are z- lo- questions. **Graeme Paddock:** The, the- Yeah ... the easy way to think about it, 'cause you got a couple of questions there, is to simplify success on TikTok it's content and volume. Everything else is noise. Still needs to be done, but content and volume is you need to have the right sort of content for your product, for your niche to connect with them. Because you can keep making lots of videos, but if it doesn't connect with them you won't get any virality and things will just keep spinning past. But also the volume is the noise factor you need to break through, and every niche is different. So if you're launching in supplements right now, I don't care how good your content is, \[00:16:00\] you're gonna need a specific amount of volume just to be seen quite simply because of the competition in that space. But if you're going into a different niche where it's somewhat new in the TikTok world, yes, you'll have to make great content to connect with your audience still, but the volume needed to be made is a lot less because there's less noise to break through to be seen. So I think a big thing with Amazon sellers if they're trying to think about what's going on with obviously all these different pieces, simplification of yes, you need to first of all understand before you go into the game what are the rules of the game. Because to jump on the TikTok and have no idea what sort of content you need to make to connect with your audience or also how much volume you need to make beforehand means you're throwing darts against a wall and being like, "Oh, like I'm just- I'm hoping something hits." But then you might get one, then it goes off. It's like that whole thing, what you're digging for gold and you're almost there but you give up 'cause it's all too hard. But if you knew beforehand actually this is the road that I need to get through at a minimum to be seen, you would at least play it out. The brand channels for the second piece you \[00:17:00\] mentioned around so you've got your own brand channel which you represent, but also you've got creators who actually post on their channel. So on the brand channel we always talk about this is where you want to actually show off how great you are as a brand, but you're not selling. So everything that you do is gonna be about the brand itself, yes, but most importantly it's educating and entertaining all the time, but we're not selling directly immediately. That's what the creators do. And that goes back to brand building, 'cause brand building is never what you say about yourself. It's always what other people say about you when you're not in the room. **Mike Michelini:** Yeah. **Graeme Paddock:** So the creators are the ones who are saying things about you when you're not in the room. If you get on your brand channel and say how amazing you are all the time, that'll only get you so far, right? So there's this, all these different pieces that you need to break down step by step because then the execution that you mentioned earlier around where do I start, what do I do next, it's much easier when you have a roadmap, right? **Rafay MH:** Yeah. **Graeme Paddock:** So there are just a couple of things to think about. Raf, you wanna add to that? **Rafay MH:** Yeah. I wanna give the listeners a, like a concrete \[00:18:00\] takeaway and framework to think about content on TikTok Shop. So like just jumping off what Graeme was saying, there's three types of traffic on TikTok. There's borrowed traffic, where you're working with affiliates, where you're borrowing their traffic. There's paid traffic, where it's paid distribution. And then there's own traffic, where you create your own content. I don't want sellers to think, "If I go on a TikTok Shop, I must be a content creator." That's not necessary or a prerequisite for success. It is a benefit and an edge as you start scaling to have your own audience, of course, but not a prerequisite. So what I would recommend for those brands is you want to be able to work with affiliates that are either look identical to your target avatar or are speaking to your target audience in the same problem space that your product lives in. That's ideal. That's like step one. That's the people that we wanna reach out to. And so when we're launching on that platform, we have three filters of what product works, and then we have the three types of traffic levers, borrowed, paid, and owned. And we're gonna, inside of borrowed, focus on the creators that either look exactly like \[00:19:00\] our avatar or speak directly to our audience and talk about our problem space. That's like a practical takeaway as the starting point. Hopefully that helps. **Mike Michelini:** Yep. That helps a lot because I'm not even shy. I'm on my brand. I'm like a brand s- if my Amazon listings, I have my face, my stories. Not all of them, two, two out of the three. But, ... I know a lot of sellers, especially Amazon, are, like very private. They don't wanna make, put themselves on the brand. I always wonder why. I think it's 'cause they wanna sell their brand, so they don't wanna be attached- ... to it. But a lot of the sellers I know don't wanna be on, do content or be on content. **Rafay MH:** Yeah. But you can always hire an internal creator to be a- A character that is the face of it, right? That is aspirational, the aspirational end result for what your brand represents, and so they're the ones that create content. So it doesn't always have to be you as the brand owner, of course. **Mike Michelini:** Cool. Are there ones that would just not work or, \[00:20:00\] what are some of the better ones, maybe even examples or stories versus ones- that might not be the right ones for TikTok? **Rafay MH:** Do you mean products or brands? **Mike Michelini:** Is that what you mean? Brands or examples, products or brands, whichever- **Rafay MH:** Yeah ... **Mike Michelini:** you're willing- **Rafay MH:** I think- ... **Mike Michelini:** or able to share. **Rafay MH:** Yeah, for sure. There's a lot of niches that you wouldn't think absolutely crush on TikTok, but they do. There's obvious ones like beauty and supplements, of course, on every, any platform, that's just gonna do really well. But you'd be surprised kids craft and kids niches work really well on TikTok. Books do really well. Snacks like actual snacks do really well on TikTok even though it's not necessarily... I don't generally buy cons- like, eatable things online if I can help it. I just don't, right? Yeah. But in the States, especially on TikTok Shop, crushes for some reason, right? And so when I'm thinking about, okay, what products and niches work, the worst thing you can do is not look at what's actually happening currently. So \[00:21:00\] anytime you listen to what this podcast, for example, you might be listening to this podcast maybe four or five months down the road. This is not what's happening right now as you're listening to it. So how do we check cross-reference to the reality? First thing is if you haven't downloaded TikTok, please do, and if you haven't bought something on TikTok Shop, buy one. Figure out how to do that so you know what your customer's going through. And then the third thing is scroll through your niche. Engage in content that's specifically relevant to your niche so your For You page and feed starts showing you content that's actually being converted and has engagement. And then the fourth piece is just use any tool, like FastMoss or Kala Data, for you to understand the volume of content that's being created. This lets you know what niches are working, what types of products are working or not working, and you don't have to walk the same path that other competitors have or the mistakes that they've made. And so the question isn't necessarily what products work and what don't. I can tell you very clearly if a product doesn't pass those three filters and it doesn't \[00:22:00\] have good content ability, which means it can be shot in many different locations, it's a more difficult road to scaling on the platform. **Mike Michelini:** Got it. That was very helpful. Thank you. Let's talk about in-house, doing this in-house, right? I think that's one of the themes of this show, and I think what you do- I think about Amazon seller, a typical Amazon seller that I would know, even seven-figure, even eight figures, they're small teams, right? They're, like, really lean. ... They're able to do, mostly what we do is product research, product development so basic logistics, PPC launch good listings. And that, I think that's the ... In my experience, most of the most core teams of Amazon sellers are good at. So what kind of Do I hire somebody? Could I use that kind of skill? What kind of people in my team would I need to have ready or maybe hire or prepare for TikTok? **Rafay MH:** Graeme, I'll let you take it 'cause I took the last couple. **Graeme Paddock:** Oh, that's right. I- so it's one of those \[00:23:00\] things where if you had to jump in the car and get to a destination, but you didn't have a road map, you could be driving around for a while knowing it's over that direction somewhere, 'cause I might try this, try that. Yeah. It's one of those things where it's like how many people do I need in my team? My biggest thing is how much education and direction does that team actually have? That's probably the bigger question for me. Because if you know exactly where you have to go and it's pure execution, things take less time with less people, quite simply, and if you have obviously all the tools, systems, and procedures. Versus it's over that way, you figure it out, then of course there's gonna be so much more trial and error. I would say on average and how our business has evolved in regards to the consultancy, because we are very specific, so our mentorship has three core components that we take brands through, and this is at all different levels. So we only work with brands who are existing. It's not try and find your next million-dollar product. You need to have a brand that we're gonna help you scale with, and we need to believe in it too, quite honestly, because there are some brands who are like, "I need to get on TikTok," but if we don't feel they're a good fit \[00:24:00\] for their team or product-wise, it's just wasting each other's time. But we have brands doing any- like starting off doing maybe only 10, 15 grand a month. But then I have other brands that I work with who are doing near $2 million a month now through TikTok. Grace & Stella just hit $100 million driven from TikTok over them in the last 18 months I think it was, Raph. So if you get it right, the numbers are quite ridiculous. But again, it's the attention. So I think we spoke about this offline, but just to give the, the listeners some context where are we in now? September '26. So the latest numbers in September '26 from TikTok directly was it's nearing 200 million users in the US, but the most alarming thing is the average time spent per day is three hours per day. So if you think about the Gary Vee speech around attention is currency, and if I want more people to get to know me, as Raph said, people don't go on TikTok to buy stuff. They're there to be educated and entertained. But there's three hours of attention that your avatar's on there. And the other big piece, as we spoke about as well, $50 billion in the last \[00:25:00\] six months, yet more than half are f- are people over 27 years old. That's crazy. So it's not just kids dancing and stuff anymore, right? So what we do is we have in our mentorship, we have a foundation learning, we have a playbook that we write for each individual brand, 'cause it's never one size fits all. So we need to work out what are your goals, where you're at, what's your niche, and we write a playbook, and then there's one-on-one coaching. And we like the empowerment because we work with a lot of brands who may work with an agency but then took things back in-house. **Mike Michelini:** Yeah. **Graeme Paddock:** Because maybe the agency was doing a good job, maybe they weren't, but the problem, the biggest problem is the confu- the the brand owner had no idea. Because they get a fancy report and say, "We've done this- Is that good or bad? Are you on track or off track? I don't know. So now it's like what we teach is be like these are the benchmarks based on what other people, as Raph mentioned, other brands have done before you. If you're not here at a minimum, you should be. But hang on a second. Is your input enough? Because if it's not, don't expect the same output, right?\[00:26:00\] So all these things that we measure. But as a helicopter view, that's how we work on a consultancy basis, quite simply that we empower the brands to know exactly what they need to do, but execution wins. Everyone knows that in business, right? Ideas are great, but nothing without execution. **Mike Michelini:** Especially in today's world, I think, especially with AI and everything, you can get all the information or if you don't take action. That's what I say a lot on the show. **Graeme Paddock:** 100%. **Mike Michelini:** I think we covered most, most of it. One part I have on my list, I think we did cover it a bit about Cross Border. So I think others have mis- at least in Southeast Asia, been confused, like I said, at a dinner I had, even me. So it's... You don't have to be some kind of super hacker to sell in the US market from, No. No? Okay. No, definitely not. **Graeme Paddock:** No. **Mike Michelini:** Okay, that's good **Graeme Paddock:** to know. At Cross Border coming up, no, we'll, we will give clarity. So anybody who's gonna be there is gonna be in the room and be like I know I wanna get on TikTok," or if you don't we'll probably give you some alarming statistics why you probably should be considering it. But most \[00:27:00\] importantly, we will 100% show you the system, not guesswork, obviously exactly what you need to do step by step to get your shop up and running and keep it up and running legally. No hacks, no dodgy stuff. That's only gonna get you so far. **Mike Michelini:** Okay. **Graeme Paddock:** But as we spoke about, Mark, you don't know what you don't know, but they will know after the event. **Mike Michelini:** Awesome. Awesome. I'm excited. Really great to have both of you on the show today, and yeah, we'll see you in November. I'm excited. So for, **Graeme Paddock:** Likewise. Looking forward to it. **Mike Michelini:** We'll also link up your s- your site, but maybe you can give a, a link for people who wanna find your a bit more about you guys. **Rafay MH:** Yeah, for sure. Just go to The UpTik, T-H-E U-P-T-I-K.com, theuptick.com, and then just shoot us a message or shoot us an email and it'll probably be myself or Graeme just responding to you. Yeah, and I think whether you decide to work with us or not, if you are a seller who's primarily on Amazon, decide what you, what game you wanna play, whether you always wanna be dependent on a platform that fulfills existing demands so you're \[00:28:00\] dependent on the whims of that platform, or you wanna go into the driver's seat and get in front of the customer before they decide to make that purchase. And so each game has its own difficulties, but just whatever fits you, the faster you make that decision, the more at peace you'll be and a lack of FOMO, and you'll actually get- make progress in whatever you wanna do. So just make that choice, make that decision, **Graeme Paddock:** perfect. Thanks so much. And just one thing I'll add on that reminded me, Raph, just quickly is- again, this whole TikTok game, it's yes, it's another avenue for revenue if you get it right, but as Raph mentioned about what your goal is, I can tell you, because we work with so many aggregators now, is one of the things they're looking at is, yes, omni-channel, but like in the Amazon world, we were putting in the insert cards and trying to skirt the rules to try and get our own database. That's what we're doing. But on TikTok, you have the client. So this is a thing where it's like, it's almost like another email list when you get it right. One of the key things which I learned recently, which I thought was really interesting, is now that if you're looking at expanding or even exiting, by having a TikTok shop \[00:29:00\] that's generating not only income there but also creating a halo effect to your other channels in discovery, it increases your multiplier, which is big obviously on your exit. But the other piece about it is the first thing, number one thing that all retailers are looking at now for potential shelf space is show me your TikTok presence. And I know this because I've been in boardrooms, because they're like when a consumer comes to our retail because they saw you on TikTok, what else do they buy when they're in here?" **Mike Michelini:** Yeah. **Graeme Paddock:** So because of that, we want shelf space for brands who are crushing it on TikTok because quite simply, that is cheaper for us than going to the old advertising and billboards. So much to one of our clients' kids' craft brands signed a contract with TJ Maxx, TK Maxx. And in the contract, their benchmark price, their wholesale price is benchmarked against what TikTok presence they have. **Mike Michelini:** Huh. **Graeme Paddock:** So they've incentivized the brand owner to be like, "We will increase the, your wholesale price based on your TikTok attention." Because again, the more traffic that they see you over here, the more will drive to our store. How interesting. That's **Mike Michelini:** interesting. **Graeme Paddock:** \[00:30:00\] So it's, there's so many other pillars now, it's not just a revenue channel. It feeds everything else in the ecosystem. **Mike Michelini:** Nice. **Graeme Paddock:** Anyway, I just, most people don't realize that. And again, I'm always learning and so is Raf as well, but it's amazing when you sit down with brands and obviously aggregators about this is what they're looking for now. **Mike Michelini:** It's really it's really motivating and, yeah, empowering. I like you said, you empower sellers, and that's what I'm about too, so pleasure having you on. **Graeme Paddock:** Knowledge. **Mike Michelini:** And, **Graeme Paddock:** Knowledge is empowerment, ... **Mike Michelini:** I'm really excited. Thanks for joining me. **Graeme Paddock:** Thanks for having us on. We can't wait for the event. We'll see you in a couple of months. **Mike Michelini:** See you.