Case Study — Vax
Entering a category owned
by global giants.
Leaving it in second place.
Vax is the UK's leading floorcare brand — known for performance and reliability across cordless vacuum cleaners, carpet washers, and steam cleaners. Entirely new to TikTok Shop, the brand had watched competitors — most notably Shark — build significant commercial momentum on the platform and decided it was time to move. The challenge was not just entering TikTok Shop, but proving that high-consideration home appliances could genuinely thrive in a social commerce environment.
Enter a floorcare category already occupied by well-resourced global brands, establish a dominant presence from a standing start in Q4 2025, and aggressively capture market share in a category where consumer consideration cycles are long and average order values are high. The brief demanded both quick commercial traction and a sustainable long-term platform presence.
The strategy was built around a dual engine growth model: high-performance paid media running in parallel with a structured, incentivised affiliate ecosystem — each amplifying the other. Neither in isolation would have been enough to challenge the category leaders. Together, they created a flywheel that drove consistent daily revenue from the outset.
Affiliate Tiering & Ecosystem
Rather than running a flat affiliate programme, a sophisticated tiering system was implemented — linking creator GMV milestones directly to scaled commission rates and exclusive monthly incentives. This gave creators a clear commercial roadmap and real motivation to perform beyond the initial content drop. Alongside this, the sample approval process — a friction point that can slow affiliate programmes significantly — was redesigned. Vax were understandably cautious about open affiliate approval; a structured process was put in place that gave the brand the oversight they needed without creating bottlenecks that damaged content velocity. The result was immediate: high-quality content generating early commercial returns within weeks of launch.
Paid Media — The Flywheel
Paid spend was deliberately synchronised with peak affiliate content activity — amplifying the moments when organic creator content was already generating traction. This created a flywheel effect: affiliate content drove organic reach, paid media extended that reach commercially, and the combined activity drove consistent daily GMV rather than peaks and troughs. As the account matured into 2026, the focus shifted to lifting the daily GMV baseline through progressive testing and establishing TikTok Shop as a core long-term revenue channel for the brand.
Strategic Gap Analysis
Beyond day-to-day execution, work was undertaken to help Vax understand the commercial gap between themselves and the category leader — Shark — and map out the levers that could meaningfully close it. This included identifying influencer activation as an underutilised growth driver, and building the roadmap for affiliate LIVE commerce as a significant Q3 opportunity. The platform strategy evolved to match Vax's wider competitive ambitions, not just their immediate revenue targets.
The Results
A £99 AOV in a social commerce environment is not a given — most TikTok Shop success stories are built on impulse-price products. Vax proved that with the right affiliate ecosystem, the right paid media flywheel, and a strategy built for a considered purchase journey, high-ticket home appliances can compete at the top of the category.
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