Create a TikTok Shop App (OAuth client)

To make your first API call, you'll need a TikTok Shop App in order to request consent from a TikTok Seller and generate an access token. This is because a TikTok Shop App is an OAuth 2.0 client, and it's the entity that makes requests consent from a Seller or Creator to access their data. Once the Seller or Creator consents, the owner of the TikTok Shop App receives a credential in the form of an authorization code that they can then use to generate an access token and refresh token. At this point of your getting started journey, you may not know all of the details required to create your TikTok Shop App. If this is the case, you can create multiple TikTok Shop App. You can create a test TikTok Shop App for now, and create your real TikTok Shop App later. However, if you choose to create a test TikTok Shop App, you'll still have to pass all the TikTok Shop requirements to enable it. If this aligns with your getting started goals, you can continue with the steps in this tutorial. If you do know all the details and want to create your final, release TikTok Shop App as part of getting started, you can take a deeper dive into the details in TikTok Shop platform concepts. If this aligns with your getting started goals, return here and move ahead to the next steps section to create a test Seller account.

Step 1: Select App & Service from the navigation panel

Log in to the TikTok Shop Partner Center console. Image Select App & Service in the navigation panel.

Click the Create app & service button in the top right corner of the page. You now have a choice to make: a public or custom app. A public app will be available for download from the TikTok Shop App Store and can access the data of any TikTok Shop Seller or Creator that consents, but it must meet a set of requirements to be approved. A custom app is not available for download from the TikTok Shop App Store and can only access the data of the linked TikTok Shop Seller or Creator account. For getting started and testing, choose custom: it does not require app review and can immediately access the data of your linked test Seller or Creator account. You can create a public app later, when you are ready to distribute it on the App Store.

Select a Service category from the drop-down menu. Since you're creating a test TikTok Shop App, select the service category that most closely aligns with your business. If you're unsure which service category to choose, select Catalog->Product Listing as you'll soon be creating a test Seller account and this will allow you to view your test products. Next, enter a default name for your TikTok Shop App. Finally, click the Create button.

Select the market and the TikTok Shop seller type. At this point, you can simply select your local region for market and select local sellers for seller type.

Click on the control to enable API. Next, enter your redirect URL. The redirect URL is the URL that the TikTok Shop authorization server calls back when a TikTok Seller or Creator consents to share their data with your TikTok Shop App. This callback includes the authorization code as a query parameter, and you'll use it to generate an access token in the next section. Since you're just getting started and you'll be using your test Seller account to generate access tokens, you can simply use your browser to retrieve the authorization code. If you're further along in your getting started journey and you have an HTTP service running on localhost on your local machine, you can use that instead. If you don't have an HTTP service for your redirect URL at this point, it's recommended that you simply use the browser. In this case, it's best to enter http://localhost since it's not a real website and your browser won't be redirected to a real website. After the Seller consents, the browser is redirected to your redirect URL with the code appended to the address bar, for example http://localhost/?code={authorization_code}. Copy the value of the code query parameter directly from the browser address bar — you'll use it to generate a test access token in the next tutorial.

Click create to create your TikTok Shop App. When you're redirected to the confirmation page, you'll see two critical pieces of information:

• App Key
• Your app's public identifier. It is sent when calling APIs to identify your app, and is safe to expose.
• App Secret
• A private key used to sign your API requests and to exchange the authorization code for an access token. Keep it confidential — never expose it in client-side code or commit it to a public repository.

You'll need both of these to generate an access token, but you don't need to write these down; you can look this information up in the TikTok Developer Center Console.

Now that you've created a TikTok Shop App, you can Create a test seller account and use the test Seller account to consent to sharing data with your newly created TikTok Shop App.