Shopify Collective

Overall it's been great but some of my requests to vendors have gone unanswered for months making me wonder if Shopify is doing enough to actually get vendors to accept new storefronts. Nothing I can do on my end either short of reaching out to the vendor directly which negates a lot of the convenience of the platform.

I loved Collective at first and encouraged my vendors to get on board so I could sell their products through the app. They did! I hired a team to inactivate the same products I was selling to use the collective app and recreated PDPs with collective. I sold through the app for 6-7 months ONLY TO WAKE UP ONE MORNING to see hundreds of products being DEACTIVATED with NO WARNING and NO solution. I have a generic note that says my store is not eligible and doesnt comply with collective. WHAT???? Even shopify cant help. I have a great business and i dont even know what policy i am not complying with. This is a disaster and I DO NOT RECOMMEND FOR ANY BUSINESSES.

Some of the vendors here only offer 5% profit yet retail price is supposed to be 3xs higher than wholesale or dropshipping. We have just started using this app and already dissatisfied with some vendors here. This is absurd. We have to get more profit as retailers. Some of the vendors are retailers too on their website but are doing dropshipping and wholesale. This is unacceptable in business. Retail profit can't be less than dropshipping or wholesale profit.

Some of the suppliers are great, however the ones that aren't can ruin your business! Beware! I sold two products from a shop on here and they shipped the WRONG product to the customer! I couldn't get through to anyone on email or phone and they never accepted the return so I am having to process it. I actually LOST money on this app. horrible. Shopify is NO help! I tried to contact them and there is only a bot that answers. Customer support is nonexistent unless you are a huge shop on Shopify Plus. Shame on Shopify for not helping retailers protect their store's reputation from horrible suppliers like this one!

Shopify Collective is a good app if you want to complement your store with products from other stores, as it simplifies cross-store integration. However, the risk for retailers is often much higher than the actual benefits.
Retailers can face chargebacks for mistakes made by suppliers, which feels unfair since these issues are outside of their control.

Additionally, some suppliers offer very low margins—sometimes even less than what they’d pay out for referrals—making it difficult to justify the effort.
Retailers also end up handling a large volume of customer inquiries and negative reviews caused by factors such as slow fulfillment and delayed dispatch, even though these problems originate directly from the suppliers.

Overall, while the app has potential, the imbalance of responsibility between retailers and suppliers makes it a challenging tool to use profitably.

I was really excited about using this app and recently partnered with a wholesale jewelry supplier who is on Shopify Collective. I was interested in doing dropshipping and they said they were on Shopify Collective. Having downloaded Collective and gotten approved by the Supplier, I quickly discovered this app is totally useless and ineffective for the dropshipping model. The supplier requires me to set a MAP (minimum advertised price) that is at least 3x their wholesale price for each of their items, because they are the wholesaler. I tried to do this, however, the supplier's wholesale prices are syncing into my Shopify store, and even though I input my desired retail prices, so I can make a profit when the item is sold, my retail prices keep reverting to the wholesale prices when I hit save and the supplier's wholesale price is overriding my retail price. I save $56.00 and it reverts to $7.00. When I reached out to Shopify Support, I was told that it's set up to sync prices from the supplier, so essentially that means Shopify Collective is not a purposeful app for the dropshipping model. If the wholesale or dropshipping price that is syncing from the supplier is $7, and I as the retailer can only sell the jewelry at that cheap price of $7, then there is no point in partnering with the supplier and selling any of their products using dropshipping, as the money generated will only go to settle the supplier's price. It really makes no sense. I wish Shopify Collective would take this into account and make this app friendly for suppliers and retailers doing dropshipping, so that if the retailer and supplier have selected "dropshipping" in the app as a model, the retailer is given the option to turn off price syncing for the products, and input their own prices. I contacted the supplier on Shopify Collective and they said they are trying to find an alternative solution, because they've run into this problem with other stores, where the wholesale prices are syncing into and overriding prices in retail partner Shopify stores. It's very unfortunate. I really had high hopes for Shopify Collective, but I am really disappointed. The restrictive price setting makes it useless for what I am trying to use it for.

The margins for pricing can't be changed and only benefit the vendor! I recently had a 300 sale and made $50 while the vendor made the rest. On top of that, the retailer pays shipping fees! I get they fulfill the order and it makes less work because you import the product however, you still have to spend a ton of time merchandising it into your shop, promoting it to customers and communicating to clients. Not sure I'll keep using it after being so discouraged my first sale.

It's great. Wish there were a way to nudge vendors who have not responded to requests.

We were among the first users of Collective and it's been such a lifesaver for our business. Gone are the days when we would send orders via email, copy and paste tracking numbers, pay vendors manually, update inventory manually or via scripts, and manually import products. Because of the native integration with Shopify, there is really no other app that has been able to match all of Collective's features.

Collective has been instrumental in building industry relations while providing our customers with a larger catalog of aftermarket performance automotive products.