‘Tripled the sales.’ NJ business owner says TikTok is the best way to market his products

Skip Chapman uses TikTok Live to sell his skin products to thousands.

Jim Murdoch

Jan 13, 2025, 10:41 PM

Updated 14 hr ago

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News 12 has previously reported on how a potential TikTok ban could impact some storefront business owners. But what about direct marketers, for whom TikTok is their main source of revenue and advertising?
Channeling the late Billy Mays, Skip Chapman has taken the old-fashioned sales pitch into the digital age.
“Look how this goes on, almost like a cream or lotion. That's because of the coffee oil in the product,” Chapman said during one of his two-hour TikTok live sales pitch videos.
“I jumped on, started doing this. We doubled our sales in one day. Then tripled the sales. Then, OK, I get it…Now I go six or seven days a week,” explained Chapman.
No store, no sales reps, just Chapman and his five employees and crates of his KAFX skin products in a tiny space along Route 71.
“What you just saw here, there’s $0 invested. I have no ads spent on TikTok, there’s no money out of my pocket outside of their percentage for using the platform,” said Chapman.
During his two-hour live TikTok broadcast, Chapman managed to reach 7,000 potential customers and sold dozens of orders.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the threats and risks the U.S. government says TikTok brings to Americans, as well as the First Amendment arguments made by the TikTok lawyers. The Chinese-owned social media platform is set to go dark on Jan. 19 in the U.S. unless the Supreme Court issues a stay, as requested by President-elect Donald Trump, an action Chapman believes will happen.
“I am hoping he gets involved and follows through on what he’s saying and that he’s able to come up with a negotiation strategy to kind of calm this whole thing down,” Chapman says.
He says his options are limited if TikTok goes away.
“I can market to the 10,000 people on my email list. I can use my website, I can use Amazon, I can use Facebook but that will cost a lot of money to do that,” he says.