Lessons from TikTok Shop beauty superstar P.Louise

On Wednesday 31st July, P.Louise sold two products every second during its TikTok LIVE festival, with top sellers including: P.Louise Makeup Mystery Box, P.Louise Bad B*itch energy Lip Duo, and P.Louise Spoilt for choice Cream Bronzer Oven.

During the shopping festival, the brand discounted some of its products to as little as £1, to allow new customers to experience the products for a fraction of the usual cost.

Founder of P.Louise Paige Williams commented: "My goal was to create the most engaging, exciting and rewarding experience that our community had ever seen. We gave away luxury items every 30 minutes as a thanks to the customers that joined us on LIVE and provided significant discounts on both our newly launched and best-selling items.

Even TikTok Shop’s head of beauty, Emily Caine, has weighed in on the news and said the “amazing new record demonstrates the true power of LIVE shopping on TikTok. P.Louise not only has an outstanding product offering, but they also make content that is engaging, authentic and fun. They brought this in spades to its 12-hour live marathon, through engaging live product demonstrations and lively interactions with hosts.

Williams, a 31-year-old makeup artist and beauty entrepreneur, started her colour cosmetics empire from nothing and earned £6m in her first year by selling her £10 eye base. Within the past year she’s reportedly sold over one million of her Bad B*itch lip kits.

We spoke to the self-made social media star about how she has built a captive audience that really loves her products.

Here are her tips...

Really know your USP & ‘non-negotiables’​

“Without this you lack authenticity and the ability to convince those on the platform that they should be a part of your community and spend money on your products. Also building trust within the community will keep the viewers coming back to purchase again and again.

I run my own page that's reflective of the brand, always sharing insight into my personal day to day and the ins and outs of the business, so that our followers and customers feel a part of our brand journey.

We also share a documentary every week on the main page, which our customers now look forward to. It’s important when you’re starting out on TikTok you know what it is that makes your brand unique. I would encourage all founders or brands on this platform to have their non-negotiables when it comes to developing. Ours are Price, Performance and Product and if we know we’re not the best at all three of these, we don’t go to market.” 

Own your mistakes and learn from them​

“I’d say my challenging childhood has taught me resilience and this has got me to where I am today, I’m confident in owning my mistakes and always use them to grow and make the brand better.

As we have grown, the biggest challenge we’ve faced is keeping up with consumer demand. With no external investors and no retail presence it means I can make decisions quickly, whether that be ordering more stock or changing packaging which means our customers are always getting what they want. We need to be reliable to keep them engaged. I learnt early on that if we cannot respond to their demand, they’ll find other brands that will, and keeping those customers happy has for a long time been my main priority.”

Closely follow and analyse customer feedback​

“As a founder, I monitor feedback daily, whether this be on the videos we post on our main social media pages or reviews we get in the cafe. I have to be there showing up for our brand and our community day-in and day-out to keep them engaged.

Selling via TikTok Shop is the by-product of this as we know what our customers want to see, and I encourage brands to do the same.”

Make sure you have ‘two-way’ conversations with customers​

“It’s important to adapt quickly to market demands while still staying true to the brand. For me, a key learning is listening to our customers and understanding their needs, if this means we cut a product and start again so be it. We have two-way communication through TikTok with the people who matter most to us, so listening to their needs is number one.

I’m on a mission to create an experience for everyone, to be known as the brand who gives back to their community. I’m always chatting to the viewers directly through videos and replying to their comments or questions. This then allows me to connect with the community and understand their needs. We’re always experimenting with new and exciting ways to engage the customers, getting feedback and always trying to improve for them. Our community knows we are going to launch things which are in demand, therefore they trust us and can always come to us for the products that they love!

We capitalised on TikTok Shop before the market became saturated because we knew it was going to be revolutionary and we reap the rewards. We have a full team creating content for the platform day in and day out, we’ve launched over 2,500 products, we’re always listening to what it is that our customers want and making it happen quickly. They trust us and they trust our products. It’s as simple as that.”