How to combine sample orders

Product Overview

Group sample orders in Affiliate Center and save on shipping costs.

Benefits

• Ship smart and save: No more managing tons of tiny sample orders. Combine sample requests from the same creator and warehouse to save on shipping.
• Unlock a simpler workflow: Forget about manual workarounds and complex third-party tools. Grouping sample requests can now happen inside TikTok Shop.
• Stay in control:You can still approve samples at the creator or sample level. Approved samples within a five-minute window get auto-combined, giving you the benefit of combined samples, while still giving you the flexibility to approve more samples in the future.

How It Works

1. This feature will be default on for all sellers. If you want to change this, the toggle "Combine sample orders" is in the top right on the Sample Requests page.
2. Sample requests from the same creator that can be fulfilled from the same warehouse will be automatically combined.
3. You can choose to approve the creators' requests by checking the box next to the creator's name, or only approve specific samples for that creator.
4. If you approve a single sample, you have a 5-minute window to approve any other sample requests from the same creator. The system will hold onto these requests, getting ready to combine them for you.
5. The system does the rest. Once the 5 minutes are up (or if you don’t have any other samples to approve for that creator), the system will automatically group all of the approved samples into a single order ID.
6. Ship one combined order. Now, you can ship all the samples for that creator in a single package. This means you only need one tracking ID and you get to save on shipping costs!

Tips

• Set it and forget it! By default, this feature is turned on to make your life easier. Just approve samples as you normally would, and the system handles the grouping for you. You can turn this off if you'd rather create one order ID for each individual sample application.
• Keep an eye on the status. After you approve a request, you might see a "pending order" status. Don't worry, that just means the system is working its magic to combine the orders. The "Ship in Seller Center" button will be disabled during this short time, so you know exactly what’s happening.
• One order to rule them all. Even though the system combines the samples into one order ID, each sample application will still show up as its own line item in the Sample Request page. This way, you can easily see every single item that’s part of the larger group.
• Troubleshooting! In unique cases where a product may be out of stock or there are new creator violations, then the sample orders will not be combined and you will see the request again on the Sample request page. There will be an alert associated with it, and you can also use our filter options to identify these "failed" cases.

FAQ

What happens if I approve one sample and then a few minutes later I approve another from the same creator? When you approve the first sample, a 5-minute countdown begins. If you approve another sample from the same creator within that window, both samples will be automatically grouped into a single order.
What happens if an order fails to generate? If a sample request fails during the order generation process, it gets returned to the "To review" tab. You'll see a banner at the top of the page telling you which applications failed, and you can try to approve them again.
Can I still approve samples one by one? Totally! You can choose to use the default group setting or you can turn off the "combine orders" toggle if you want to create a unique order ID for each sample.
Does this work for all types of samples? This feature currently works for manual free samples. It doesn’t apply to refundable or mixed requests (where a creator may have both bought from your brand and requested samples).