I just learned about Shopify Collective the other day. I'd not heard of it before, but quickly began doing some research and have come up with the following initial thoughts.
What is Shopify Collective?
Shopify collective is not a new 'platform'. It is a way for brands/creatives with Shopify websites to 'share' their product listings with other retailers, and equally for online retailers to 'take' product listings from brands to sell on their store.
Wait, what?
Shopify Collective works in two directions:
Retailer who takes product listings from suppliers or Supplier who gives product listings to retailers.
I'll go through both of these directions, including the suspected pros and cons that I can identify this early into my investigations.
Shopify Collective for Retailers
You are basically working on a commission basis. You can host the product listings on your website, with no up-front costs, and all sales get pushed through to the supplier who will be responsible for fulfilling the order. The person buying the item pays you, and you are then responsible for paying the full amount minus the commission to the supplier. This can be done automatically in some cases.
For example, on my Shopify website I have now used the Shopify Collective to stock the Bitch Shop with product listings from Richard Moonstreet (who is not a client but makes products that I adore).
Pros:
✨ Easily implement huge numbers of product listings onto your online store
✨ You don't have to pay anything up front
✨ You don't have to hold the stock
✨ You don't have to ship the stock
✨ You don't have to deal with returns
Cons:
✨ You should edit the product listing content to avoid duplicate content
✨ No ability to quality assure or check items before they're sent
Shopify Collective for Suppliers (Creatives/Brands)
Ok so lets say you make greeting cards, and you sell them on your Shopify website (along with other platforms, probably.) Through Shopify collective, you can allow other shops to import your product listings to their own Shopify websites, so that they can sell them online on a commission basis. This is an alternative to selling stock with fees up-front, or to sending out stock on a commission basis that you just have to hope the shops sell (or don't ruin).
The biggest danger here from an SEO perspective is that any retailer who imports your product listings will get access to your product description content, ready to publish on their own website. If you have spent time carefully writing optimised product descriptions, they can take all your hard work for free.
You can hope that they will edit the content on their website but in reality, they probably wont. The best option is to stack your product descriptions full of backlinks back to your own website to get the SEO benefits and hopefully steal the buyer back to your own website. Of course, it's super easy for retailers to delete these links, too. If you've learned the benefits of doing your website SEO through the SEO for Small Business Masterclass, you'll know the potential dangers here.
Pros:
✨ Make it really easy for shops to sell your products
✨ Potentially set a lower commission rate than usual
✨ Fill your product listings with backlinks to your own website
✨ No need to produce any extra quantities of product
Cons:
✨ Your website content will be duplicated on other websites (potentially tanking your google rankings)
✨ You have to ship the products
✨ You have to deal with returns
Shopify Collective Opinions
In short, I think that Shopify Collective is really amazing opportunity... for retailers. You don't have to pay anything up front, content is free, and you don't have to do any work at all in terms of producing the product, shipping or returning it. If you own an online gift shop, I'd for sure use the app to get way more product listings on your website (though still recommend editing the content).
For suppliers/brands/creatives? I'd be VERY careful about who you provide your listings to, and on what kind of commission basis. If you already work on a commission basis, this may actually provide a much lower risk than actually sending out products to online retailers. However, if your website traffic is part of your business strategy and you make a lot of sales through our own website, I'd be super hesitant and only work with retailers who you KNOW will re-write their content.
Like me! I'm going to work together with my favourite brands and suppliers if possible to list their products on the Bitch Shop. And I will be re-writing content and ensuring the listings have backlinks to your website. For me, the benefit is not to necessarily sell lots of products, but to promote the work of brands I love, to align my brand with other awesome brands, and to add a lot more pages to my website that i can use to reinforce my own innerlink strategy.
For example, I could add a link reinforcing my homepage keyword of SEO for small creative businesses on each product listing. Isn't that neat! I'll add more thoughts about the Shopify Collective as I dig deeper, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Email me to bee@seo-bitch.com with your perspective!
Love you,
