Best sellers, thin margins
The top-selling matte case carried a 38% gross margin — solid, but the volume was concentrated here rather than in the products with room to absorb discounting and commissions.
Client work · TikTok Shop growth
JeTech: the break-even ROAS comes before the ad budget
JeTech's TikTok Shop had volume — but it was concentrated in its thinnest-margin products, while the two highest-margin SKUs the team wanted to scale were barely selling. Phase 1 built the unit economics first, then audited the campaigns and the creative against them.
5 focus SKUs
6 Phase 1 deliverables
Built on client cost data
At a glance
- Client JeTech — phone and tablet accessories, TikTok Shop US (@jetech.us.official).
- Scope Unit economics, campaign audit, video audit, 15 video concepts, hook swipe file, posting schedule.
- Inputs The client's own landed costs, fees and SKU priorities.
- Output A cost-based plan the team could act on, not benchmarks.
The client
An accessories brand with real sales — and a margin mismatch
JeTech sells cases, screen protectors and bundles. The shop already had real sellers: a matte case ranked #1 by 30-day GMV, a privacy screen protector #2. The plan was to scale five priority SKUs on TikTok; the data showed the priorities and the sellers were not the same products.
High margin, no sales
The Samsung leather case (59% margin) and the 5-in-1 bundle (46%) — the team's #1 and #2 priorities — did not appear in the shop's top 20 products at all.
Bright spot in video
One priority SKU, the iPad privacy protector, drew about 20% of its GMV from video. It was the only focus product where video was actually driving sales.
The problem
Spending decisions were being made without knowing the floor
- No break-even ROAS: it was impossible to say whether a campaign at a given return was profitable or losing money at full price and at discount.
- Per-order costs — shipping, packaging, platform commission, affiliate commission, payment fees — were spread across different places and not combined into one margin per SKU.
- The highest-margin products had no creative pipeline, so the shop's ad budget kept flowing to its thinnest-margin best sellers.
- There was no structured plan for which videos to make, what hooks to test, or when to push creative into ads.
Why it happens
Seller Center reports GMV. It does not tell you which SKU is worth scaling after every fee is paid. Without that number first, campaign decisions become preference instead of arithmetic.
This describes the gap Phase 1 was scoped to close.
What we delivered
Six Phase 1 milestones
One onboarding document to collect the numbers that cannot be seen from outside the account, then six deliverables built on them.
1. Break-even ROAS per SKU
The return each product needs to be profitable — calculated at full price and at the discounted price the shop actually charges, from the client's real landed costs, fees and commissions.
2. Campaign audit
A keep / cut / limit recommendation for every campaign against the break-even lines, so spend stops going to products that cannot win at the current cost base.
3. Shoppable video audit
A review of the existing video library: what is selling, what is getting views, and where the creative is disconnected from the products the margins depend on.
4. Fifteen video concepts
Ready-to-film concepts for the top SKUs, built around the actual products and their selling points rather than generic accessory content.
5. Hook swipe file
20+ proven opening lines adapted to JeTech's products, so filming starts from tested hooks instead of blank-page guessing.
6. Posting and warm-up schedule
The sequence to publish and warm up organic videos before pushing them into paid, mirroring how the platform rewards engagement before spend.
Evidence
The data the plan was built on
Pulled SKU by SKU from the client's Seller Center for the 30-day window of May 10 – June 9, 2026, and delivered in the Phase 1 document.
59%
gross margin on the #1 priority SKU (Samsung leather case) — not in the shop's top 20 sellers
46%
gross margin on the #2 priority SKU (5-in-1 bundle) — also outside the top 20
~20%
of the iPad privacy protector's GMV was video-attributed — the only priority SKU where video converted
$0
video-attributed GMV on the shop's top-selling matte case ($588.09 from 62 units, almost all search and product card)
Verified build facts
These figures are the client's own Seller Center data for the stated window, used as the inputs to the Phase 1 deliverables. They describe the account before the plan, not a result we claim to have produced in Phase 1.
TikTok Seller CenterProduct AnalyticsUnit economicsBreak-even ROASCampaign auditCreative strategy
Honest limits
What this case study does not claim
Phase 1, honestly labeled
This engagement covers onboarding, unit economics, the audits and the creative plan. Phase 2 execution results are not included because they were not part of these deliverables.
Costs are client-provided
The break-even numbers are only as good as the cost data behind them. The onboarding document asks for landed costs and fees explicitly, and the figures are labeled as client-provided.
No invented benchmarks
Every recommendation in the document is tied to the shop's own SKUs, margins and analytics. Generic industry ROAS benchmarks were deliberately excluded.
FAQ
Questions about this project
Why start with break-even ROAS instead of ads?
Because it defines what "working" means before any money is spent. With a break-even number per SKU, every campaign decision — keep, cut, scale — becomes arithmetic instead of opinion, and you stop scaling products that lose money at the current cost base.
What was actually needed from the client to start?
Landed product costs for the top SKUs, per-order costs (shipping, packaging, platform and affiliate commissions, payment fees), and their priority SKU list. The onboarding document shows exactly where in Seller Center each number lives, so it is a short data pull rather than a project.
Do the video concepts use the existing catalog or new products?
Existing products. The concepts target the five focus SKUs — built around what those products actually do and who buys them, so filming can start immediately without waiting on new inventory.
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- Honest fit check — we will tell you if automation is not your fastest win.
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