Most Malaysian sellers are still running their LIVEs the old way pre October 2026 : one host, a tray of products, and a lot of “add to cart now ya.” The new tools change what a LIVE can do. You can run an auction, sell the same product as a fixed price and an auction at the same time, lock stock for LIVE-only buyers, and run interactive promos like Group Deal and Price Cut that pull viewers in instead of just talking at them.
What’s new in TikTok Shop LIVE
Four things to know before you set anything up:
- Temporary Listings for Auction. One entry point to create both Buy Now and Auction listings for a LIVE, usable on the TikTok app and on LIVE Manager on PC. You can now add images while creating the temporary listing, and on LIVE Manager PC you can bulk upload multiple listings via Excel or CSV.
- Fixed price and auction (the same product, two ways). You can sell one product as a normal Buy Now listing and as a LIVE auction at the same time, so shoppers either buy it outright or join the bidding.
- Reserved Quantity. Lock a slice of stock so it is only available to your LIVE audience, which protects your auction and keeps you from overselling the same units in two places.
- Group Deal and Price Cut. Two interactive LIVE promo tools that turn pricing into a game the viewers play: buyers form small groups to unlock a price, or watch the price drop in real time.
None of these replace good hosting; they just give a good host more to work with.
How to set up a LIVE auction (Temporary Listings for Auction)
An auction works best for one-of-a-kind or limited stock: preloved items, bundles, refurbished units, a small batch of a new SKU. Here is the flow.
- Open LIVE Manager on PC (the desktop tool gives you the most control) or the TikTok app before you go live.
- Create a Temporary Listing and choose the Auction format. Set your starting bid low on purpose: a low opening bid pulls more people into the first round, and the price climbs from there.
- Add the product image during listing creation so viewers see what they are bidding on.
- Set your auction time limit and format. If you are running several auctions in one show, use the bulk upload (Excel or CSV) option on LIVE Manager PC so you are not building each one by hand mid-stream.
- Rotate your rounds. Short, back-to-back auctions keep the room active far better than one long one.
Keep the starting prices sensible for your margin. An auction can run below cost if you open too low on a hot item with few bidders, so set a floor you can live with.
Sell the same product two ways: Fixed price and auction
If you want the auction energy without betting your whole stock on the bid, this is the setting to use.
On Seller Center (PC), create or edit a product and choose the sales method “Fixed price and auction.” That lets the same product sit on your LIVE as a normal Buy Now item and as an auction listing at once. Impatient buyers purchase straight away; the rest join the auction. You can bulk-edit the auction time limit and format across listings so your whole LIVE is set up in one pass.
Then use Reserved Quantity to ring-fence the stock you want kept for the LIVE. Set it on Seller Center or LIVE Manager PC. This is the step sellers skip, and it is the one that saves you: without reserved stock, the units in your LIVE auction are the same units on your shop front, and a sync lag can oversell them. An oversell means a cancellation, and cancellations are a store-health problem, not just an awkward message to the buyer.
Group Deal and Price Cut: how to run the interactive promos
Group Deal and Price Cut are interactive LIVE promo tools rolling out to eligible Malaysian sellers. Check your eligibility in Seller Center and make sure your listings are compliant before you plan a show around them. Here is how each one actually runs on air.
Group Deal. Viewers form small groups to unlock a deal price. Keep groups small, around three people, so they form fast. Spend the first ten minutes or so educating the room on how it works before you open the first group, then announce each successful group live so people see it happening and want in. The social pressure is the point.
Price Cut. You drop the price in rounds during the LIVE. Visualise every cut so viewers can see the number falling, keep the Price Cut product pinned so latecomers land on it, and run a giveaway between rounds to hold the room while the next cut loads.
For context, TikTok has published its own seller cases on these: a Singapore women’s-bags LIVE reported a sharp lift in orders per hour using three-person Group Deals, and a Malaysian refurbished-computers LIVE reported strong jumps in average concurrent viewers and LIVE GMV using Price Cut rounds. Those are TikTok’s own figures from their seller cases, not ours. The useful part is the pattern: small groups, visible drops, and something happening every few minutes so nobody leaves.
A quick pre-LIVE checklist
Before your next LIVE with any of these tools:
- Confirm which tools are available to your shop in Seller Center (auction, Fixed price and auction, Group Deal, Price Cut).
- Build your auction and promo listings in advance, bulk upload on LIVE Manager PC if you have several.
- Set Reserved Quantity on anything LIVE-exclusive.
- Set a price floor on every auction so a low opening bid cannot run below margin.
- Plan the dispatch for a spike: stock reconciled, packing staffed, courier pickup booked.
- Check your dispatch and cancellation metrics the morning after.
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