Shopify Collective

We think Shopify Collective is a fantastic initiative and we're really looking forward to using it more across our store. The ability to connect directly with suppliers and streamline inventory, ordering and fulfilment within Shopify has a lot of potential and could save retailers a significant amount of time.

One feature we would really love to see added is the ability to link or map a supplier's Collective product and variants to an existing product/PDP already established on the retailer's store, rather than having to import it as an entirely new product.

For established retailers, this is incredibly important. We may already have a product page that has been live for a long time with its own URL, SEO history, Google indexing, customer reviews, analytics, custom content, imagery, bundles, upsells and conversion optimisation.

It can also have a major impact on currently running paid advertising.

For example, we may have established Meta/Facebook and Instagram campaigns sending traffic directly to an existing product URL, with substantial historical performance data behind those campaigns. Having to replace that product with a newly imported Collective listing and potentially a new URL can disrupt those campaigns and creates unnecessary risk for retailers transitioning an existing successful product into Collective.

The same applies to Google Shopping feeds, email campaigns, backlinks and other channels that may already reference the existing product.

Ideally, retailers could select an existing Shopify product and simply map the supplier's Collective product variants/SKUs to their corresponding existing variants. Collective could then manage inventory syncing, supplier ordering and fulfilment in the background while allowing the retailer to keep their existing customer-facing PDP, URL and marketing infrastructure intact.

This would be particularly valuable for businesses like ours that already have established supplier relationships and existing products, and simply want to transition the operational side of those relationships into Shopify Collective.

Overall, we think Collective is a great initiative and we're excited to use it. Adding the ability to connect Collective supplier products to existing retailer products would remove a significant barrier to adoption and make an already promising platform considerably more useful for established Shopify merchants.

Everything is great except the shipping costs need to be passed on to the brands and need to be able to partner with interantionally brands that are on shopify

I love this App. I have added 16 suppliers through Collective and have made more that 6k in sales in the last 3 and 1/2 Months. Collective makes it easy for order procurement and flows seamlessly, in the background. Suppliers ship the product and add tracking and payment to the supplier is deducted from the order payment. Collective makes it easy to make sales and earn an income!
Thanks so much!
Michelle
TheBackyardAura.com

Overall experience with shopify Collective is good. But it should protect retailers from unfair practices from suppliers. Should have proper policy in place to take action on suppliers , provision option to file charge back or remove them from collective so supplier should be held responsible for unfair practices., force them to follow same default return polices, tracking verification, timely refunds.

I would like more responsvie customer support and a major problem.

I have been asking for over a month to have a bug corrected.

When I send an invite to a Collective partner, The invite shows a different name that my business name.

My partners don't know it's my store.

Shopify "support" keeps telling me the same thing.

'The developers are aware of it, and it's a know issue.'

In the meantime, I am losing out on business partnerships, looking unprofessional and having to try to explain a difference in naming.

Another issue is that you cannot canel invites that you sent out. I was testing early, not knowing the invites could not be rescinded, and sent out invites to some partners I want to engage with.

However, now they are just dead invite sitting there and I cannot resend or do anything. Essentially, those partners are off the table by going through this system.

These issues that are simple text updates, and cancelations on things that I initiated, so I find that over a month and no results is unacceptable.

It's very frustrated being told the same thing over and over by different reps over countless attempts.

Overall my experience with Shopify Collective is positive. However, there needs to be a much stronger mode of communication between retailers and the suppliers as far as connection requests, no abrupt store disconnections, clearer requirements for shipping and returns, etc.

Great way to scale up product offerings and increase revenue. Wish there were more granular ways to control pricing, but overall this has been great for us.

I’ve experienced several issues with different distributors that have resulted in being charged taxes twice. Because of this, I made no profit on some sales, and on one order I actually lost money.

When I import products, Collective shows that I will make a certain profit. However, after the order is placed, I’m automatically charged taxes twice, along with additional shipping costs that were not disclosed beforehand. As a result, the final costs are higher than the expected profit shown during the import process.

Collective should address this issue by providing accurate cost estimates upfront and ensuring that all taxes and additional charges are clearly displayed before products are imported or sold. Otherwise, sellers can end up losing money on orders they believed would be profitable.

Overall it is great and simplifies product research. Only issue is many products you have to ask for margins and permission to add to your store, though small price to pay for the ease.

I absolutely love Collective. I has been very difficult to find reliable suppliers in the USA. I would recommend the following. Add products categories to individual Sellers so that it is easier to search their products. Add Best sellers based of sales data to Individual Sellers so we know what is selling. Automatically remove products that has Zero Inventory. Add more Suppliers that Sells Brand Name Products. Thanks. Good Job So far.