Ecom Unlock Ep.3:

Merchant of Record Explained: Why TikTok Shop Requires One

In this episode of Ecom Unlock, host Daniel Viniegra sits down with Seán Griffin, Head of Global Sales at ExpandNow, who spent years inside global ecommerce at companies like Digital River and eShop World, to unpack the piece of infrastructure sitting behind TikTok Shop: the Merchant of Record.

Unlike Amazon and most large marketplaces, which only need a local VAT number and a mechanism to import goods, TikTok Shop requires brands to be domiciled in the market they sell in: a local legal entity, a local VAT number, a local bank account, local ownership and trademark registration. Seán explains why TikTok takes that position, why it runs against how brands have scaled internationally for the last 10-15 years, and what a Merchant of Record actually does to solve it.