Spike-ready stock positioning
We hold a deliberate buffer on the SKUs most likely to move, positioned where it can dispatch fast, and we size that buffer against what a realistic spike looks like rather than a wish.
TikTok Shop
Built for the week a video actually lands.
Stock positioned before the spike, dispatch fast enough to hold seller metrics, and a plan for what happens when a SKU does ten times its normal volume.
The problem
What this actually feels like.
TikTok Shop demand does not arrive as a curve. It arrives as a wall, usually on a SKU nobody planned for, sometimes overnight, and often because a creator you do not have a contract with mentioned it.
The failure is always the same shape. You sell through the position in two days, dispatch times slip because the 3PL was not told to expect it, late shipment rate climbs, and the channel throttles your visibility exactly when demand is highest. By the time replenishment lands, the moment is over.
The other half of the problem is the aftermath: whatever you panic-ordered arrives four weeks later into demand that has already collapsed, and now it is dead stock.
What we own
Off your plate, not just advised on.
Fulfillment and dispatch cadence
Your 3PL or FBM operation is briefed ahead of campaigns and creator pushes, with cut-off times and capacity agreed in advance instead of discovered on the day.
Seller performance protection
Late dispatch rate, cancellation rate, and fulfillment defects are monitored daily during a spike, because these are the metrics that decide whether the platform keeps showing your product.
Post-spike unwind
When demand normalises, we decide what to do with the remaining position: hold, reallocate to another channel, or clear it. Deliberately, and while it still has value.
Cross-channel allocation
A viral SKU usually also sells on Amazon and your own store. We decide where the units go once, centrally, rather than letting whichever channel ships first win.
Month one
What you see in the first thirty days.
- A ranked list of which SKUs can realistically spike, and what stock position each one needs to survive it.
- A written escalation plan: who is called, what gets expedited, and what the cut-offs are.
- Daily performance monitoring in place during any campaign or creator push.
- An allocation rule across TikTok Shop, Amazon, and DTC so channels stop competing for the same units.
Proof
The planning behind this is the same forecasting and allocation work we publish on, including how seasonal brands model demand they cannot predict from an average, and how to keep multiple channels in sync from one stock position.
Questions
The ones we always get asked.
- Can you actually forecast a viral spike?
- Not the timing, no. What can be planned is which SKUs are exposed, how much buffer each one justifies, and how fast you can react when it happens. That is the difference between capturing a spike and watching it.
- Do you work with our existing 3PL?
- Yes. Most of this work is coordination: getting your 3PL briefed, capacity agreed, and cut-offs honoured before the volume arrives rather than during it.
- What about TikTok Shop fulfilled by TikTok?
- We plan for it the same way we plan FBA or WFS: what goes in, how much cover it holds, and how it is replenished against actual sell-through.
- Is this worth it if TikTok Shop is a small channel for us?
- It is worth the planning if a spike would embarrass you operationally. If the channel is genuinely marginal and you are content to sell out, it may not be.