Shopify Collabs

I had a shopify partner log into my store after they did some work, approve a copon harvester to take commission out of my store $352 down so far.

Complete scam, do not download this app. Waiting on shopify support now however I am not hopeful.

Don't loose your money here. "influencers" will receive the product and your money is gone if you don't have a contract. If you are big enough to have contracts you wouldn't use this anyway. Shopify must force creators to do their job or we should be able to impose the ones by leaving a feedback about them and other sellers should be able to see the reviews of that creator.

If you want to lose business, hurt the relationship you have with possible influencers and allow Shopify to charge you up to $10,000 while holding the funds and not paying influencers for over 6 weeks - then download this trash of an app. It has been the worse decision my business ever made. Please please please do not make the mistake of EVER using this.

The Collabs interface and overall app is very helpful and easy to use - however it feels extremely limiting in terms of how brands can search for and discover creators that fit what they're looking for.

Priority suggestions/wishlist from a brand using Collabs:

-Better/more demographic search filters (Age, Interests, Local Regions)

-Would love a "Top Suggested Influencers" page or tab that offers intelligent suggestions on creators we should reach out to

-Make it easy to see when creators are ACTIVE on Shopify Collabs or add a "Badge" to creators who are more active than others (this would be HUGE for brands using Collabs)

I’ve been using Shopify Collabs with the expectation of partnering with genuine creators to help promote my store and drive sales. Unfortunately, my experience has been far from ideal.

First, I received no email updates or notifications regarding commissions paid or orders generated through referrals. This lack of communication meant that I was completely unaware of how and where these commissions were coming from. By the time I realized what was happening, I had already paid out $648.25 in commissions for orders I never approved and from "creators" that were coupon farming code websites.

It wasn’t immediately clear that these so-called "Creators" were actually discount-farming websites, not influencers promoting my products in good faith. This wasn’t something I could notice easily—I had to spend considerable time investigating the issue deeply on my own to uncover the fact that coupon code sites were essentially hijacking the affiliate program and benefiting from commissions.

This experience has been extremely frustrating, as the Shopify Collabs program was intended to connect merchants with legitimate influencers. Instead, it’s being taken advantage of by bad actors looking to exploit the system. While I appreciate Shopify’s willingness to provide preventive measures for the future, this doesn’t address the financial losses already incurred due to this oversight.

If Shopify had better systems in place to vet creators or provide clear notifications about referral activities, I could have avoided this situation entirely.

Shopify is taking no responsibility for protecting merchants from these issues and is unwilling to refund any of the fraudulent commissions that were paid.

9/3/2024 Update - I had a very nice video call with a Shopify rep. They are genuinely trying to improve this app, which is giving us hope. We're updating our review to 5 stars in hope of a brighter future here!

I don't like writing 1-star reviews, but this app is useless. We spent serious time looking up applicable creators and offered them free $250 products, but had no responses.

Now we're just getting spammed by "beauty" influencers who have zero applicability to us.

It seems like Shopify didn't actually verify any of the creators. They either didn't sign up or are fake accounts looking for free things.

Beware!!!! Echoing countless other shop owners, this program allows scammers to promote your products using pre-existing discount codes and then pays them commissions automatically without disclosing it to you. By the time we realized this was happening, we had already paid out hundreds of dollars to "creators" who had never applied to work with our brand and were never approved to earn commissions. The majority of the payments went to a scam website that hosted FAKE reviews of our product. When I brought this to Shopify's attention, they told me that we were at fault for not "catching" the affiliate payments earlier and that there was no recourse to recoup the funds. Furthermore, I am still being charged for additional "affiliate commissions" after completely removing Shopify Collabs from our account and reporting all of this to Shopify Support. Stay away from this app.

2.9 star average rating tells you everything you need to know. It's exactly what others are saying. This app is knowingly hosting scams. Shopify isn't filtering the "creators" at all so you just get people that are coupon harvesting. Money gets paid out and Shopify does nothing to protect the stores that pay its bills. We've lots thousands because we foolishly put our trust in this app because it was built by Shopify.

Please read all reviews before installing, as they are all accurate representation of the app. This app is useless. 1) There is no vetting of the influencers- most are looking for a free product, will never post, and will never drive traffic to your store. 2) Random "collaborators" appear (even if you have never accepted their application), attributing organic sales (customers land via my own marketing efforts), and no notification is ever sent to the merchant. The only way of having any sort of control is by proactively checking ALL the time, the payouts. It's absurd. I uninstalled the app, and all of this happened while the app WAS NO LONGER INSTALLED ON MY SHOP.

It's pretty smooth except we really, really, really need two features: a way to offer our affiliates a spot bonus and a way to give them a minimum threshold each month. These features would make such a difference for us!