Shopify Collective: Supplier

Honestly this app has been a bit overwhelming. The automatic ads fill my inbox and forces me to scrub the retailers a lot. Getting the hang of it but it would be great if it didn't just automatically add retailers. Shopify needs a better vetting system for these sites.

After using Shopify Collective as a supplier for approximately three months, I would like to share some feedback and suggestions that I believe could significantly improve the experience for both suppliers and retailers.

## 1. RETURN POLICY

I believe suppliers should have the ability to establish and clearly display their own return policies within Collective. A supplier’s return policy should not be dictated by the retailer. Instead, retailers should be able to review a supplier’s return policy before choosing to work with that supplier and decide whether those terms are acceptable to them.

Currently, retailers are able to set certain return parameters within Collective, which can create confusion. Retailers may assume that the return settings they select automatically govern their relationship with the supplier, even when the supplier has separately communicated a different return policy by email or through other means.

Allowing suppliers to clearly establish their return policy within Collective would eliminate this ambiguity and help ensure that both parties understand and agree to the terms before conducting business.

## 2. RETAILER COMMUNICATION & EXPORT

There is currently no convenient way for suppliers to communicate with all of their connected retailers at once. If I need to send an important announcement, policy update, product update, or other information, I have to manually copy and paste each retailer’s email address individually. This becomes extremely time-consuming as the retailer network grows.

I would suggest adding two features:

* The ability for suppliers to send an email or announcement to **all retailers or selected retailers** directly through Collective.
* The ability to **export retailer information** into a CSV or Excel file, including information such as retailer name, store name, email address, telephone number, website, and other relevant contact information.

These features would make retailer relationship management significantly more efficient for suppliers.

## 3. PRICE LIST ACCESS & PERMISSIONS

It would be helpful to provide suppliers with more control over how retailers access individual price lists and products.

For example, suppliers should be able to create different levels of access, such as:

* Public price lists
* Invitation-only price lists
* Price lists that require supplier approval before access is granted
* Price lists available only to selected retailers

This would allow suppliers to better manage which retailers have access to specific brands, products, pricing structures, or collections.

## 4. EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS / UNSUBSCRIBE OPTIONS

Because some of my price lists are public, I receive an email notification every time a new retailer connects or signs up. As the number of retailers increases, these notifications can quickly overwhelm a supplier’s inbox.

I would appreciate the ability to customize or disable these notifications. Ideally, suppliers should be able to choose which Collective notifications they would like to receive by email.

For example, notification preferences could include:

* New retailer connections
* New orders
* Return requests
* Retailer messages
* Product or price-list activity

Providing suppliers with more control over notifications would make it much easier to focus on the communications that actually require attention.

## 5. "CONTINUE SELLING WHEN OUT OF STOCK" / PRE-ORDER PRODUCTS

Another issue involves products that are set to **"Continue selling when out of stock."** This setting can create significant confusion for retailers and their customers, particularly when the retailer's Shopify theme does not identify the product as a pre-order.

Some of our products are intentionally offered for **pre-order** before inventory becomes available. In these situations, the product inventory may be set to zero while the **"Continue selling when out of stock"** option remains enabled so customers are still able to purchase the item.

On our own website, the Shopify theme we use recognizes this setting and changes the **"Add to Cart"** button to **"Pre-Order."** This makes it clear to our customers that the product is not currently in stock and that they are placing a pre-order.

However, this behavior does not necessarily carry over to a retailer's store through Shopify Collective. Depending on the retailer's theme, the product may simply display a normal **"Add to Cart"** button even though the supplier's inventory is zero and the item is actually being offered as a pre-order.

As a result, the retailer's customer may reasonably believe that the item is currently in stock and ready to ship when, in reality, it is a pre-order item. The retailer then has to find another way to communicate the product's actual availability, and they may not even realize that additional communication is necessary.

This can lead to:

* Customer confusion regarding product availability
* Incorrect expectations regarding shipping and delivery times
* Increased customer service inquiries
* Potential cancellations or disputes
* Retailers unknowingly representing a pre-order item as being in stock
* Confusion between the supplier and retailer regarding actual inventory status

I believe Shopify Collective should provide a more standardized way to communicate the supplier's product availability status to the retailer.

For example, Collective could include a specific **"Pre-Order" product status or setting** that is transmitted to the retailer along with the product information. Retailers could then clearly see that the item is a pre-order and either automatically display that status on their storefront or receive a warning that their theme may not display the pre-order status correctly.

At minimum, retailers should be clearly notified when:

**Supplier inventory = 0**
**Continue selling when out of stock = Enabled**

This would help retailers understand that the product may not actually be available for immediate fulfillment and that additional information may need to be displayed to their customers.

Ideally, Shopify Collective would support a dedicated pre-order field that could communicate information such as:

* **Pre-Order**
* **Expected Availability Date**
* **Estimated Ship Date**
* **Backordered**
* **Made to Order**
* **Currently In Stock**

This would provide much greater transparency between suppliers, retailers, and ultimately the end customer.

Overall, I have found Shopify Collective to be a valuable platform, but I believe these improvements would make it substantially easier for suppliers to manage retailer relationships, establish clear policies, communicate efficiently, control access to their products, and accurately communicate inventory and pre-order availability.

These changes would not only improve the supplier experience but would also help retailers provide more accurate information to their customers and reduce unnecessary confusion, cancellations, and customer service issues.

The prices and inventory don't sync in real time. There are a lot of chances of overselling. Changes in discounts don't reflect on the retailer's end. Need to make this better

This is an incredibly powerful tool that I wish more retailers and suppliers would utilize. Aside from a few manual processes, its primarily plug and play. If Shopify was to focus on one improvement I suggest creating a retailer level output that shows you which items they have published from your price list. This output could be in either csv or Excel formats.

Det borde finnas ett annat sätt att sätta priserna i prislistan.
I min butik har jag alltid sänkta priser, problemet blir då att butiken som vill sälja mina produkter får rabatt på det redan sänkta priset

As a merchant, its horrible experience, Before getting paid, the Fullfilment timer starts, thats badly impact our Fulfillment average ratings, also as a merchant we should not receive any order from retailer before getting paid, When status payment pending shopify still counts fullifilment time, Which is system bug, should resolved, some retailer place fake order and the payment never get settle, but shopify still counts its a legit order ( when payment pending, they also warn not to fullfil before getting paid), at the same time they count this order as fullfilment parameter to give you a average ratings we have to manually check every retaile, then cancel this fraud order, which will be never settle payment status to paid, So, as a merchant we should not get notified a newly order before getting paid or shopify should not count any order as before getting paid, (so we don't have to manually check the order status every time), some time we have to cancel this fake order (pending payment over 2 days), then manually cancel it, Support team also can not gurantee the payment settlement. They have no options to filter fraud retailer. So collective is not a functional b2b platform, plenty of issue to be fixed.

it would be nice to be able to use shopify catalogs to add products, or a specific collection, or even just a tag. Having to manually add products to this, when we're already tagging them and adding them to catalogs is an extra step.

We also have some "free shipping over $xxx" that doesn't integrate with this.

Other than that, it's pretty seamless and easy to use.

Collective is an absolute super duper app. I love how easy it is to set up. I have connected with so many retailers who are now selling my products on their websites. I am connected to some super prominent patriotic stores who use Collective as well through whom I get many orders. It is also so nice to be able to reach out to the retailers and introduce myself. There is no hassle if you have to disconnect your store or there disconnect from you. Thank you for making this app free for suppliers and retailers. It really helps us suppliers who are solo entrepreneurs.

They need to add different fulfillment locations so that you can toggle where it is coming from. This way, the app could be used for consignment at Boutiques or for shared/showroom style pop ups.

This sales channel is terrible, and so is the Collective app. In the app, the tags and metafields on the products that get shared with you, don't come through. So I have to add some kind of categorization MYSELF, on someone else's items, which is ridiculous when there are hundreds or thousands of items shared over. Also, in the Collective sales channel, when selecting products to share, the search can't be done by sku. It also can't be done by whether the item is active or draft and whether it has inventory or is at zero. The other HUGE issue in the Collective app is that if you elect to have items shared with you in Draft status, even if you put them in Active status, every time the other supplier updates their item, it comes back through as Draft. So then you have to figure that out and reactivate them. Which means I'm now babysitting another supplier's whole catalog, on top of my own. And a Shopify Flow doesn't work, because there are some items we don't want automatically turned back to Active. Please Shopify, make this whole concept easier to use!!