Shopify Collective

Get app... it is working well... the only issue I have is a shopify Design issue and I don't know how to change it.
When customers place orders, many suppliers have marketing programs that follow up with customers on the order and on future marketing. Because the order is through our store, all of those emails come to us... they don't go to the actual customer, and our inbox gets stuffed with basically junk emails... Not sure if/how this cna be stopped, or if there's a way to pass it through to the actual customer. But it would be greatly appreciated. I know there would be a lot of moving parts ( so to speak) to make this happen, but I can't be the only person dealing with it.

Thanks for the Reply... Maybe Shopify could send out info to those participating in the Collective and tell/ask them not to market to Collective orders... I think it would carry more weight coming from Shopify.

It's a nice way to add other products to your store that complement your inventory. Increases AOV for our store.

You should have the ability to adjust the price, but it’s crucial to pay attention to supplier margins. When margins are already low, shipping costs can easily wipe out your profit — sometimes leaving only a few dollars, or even putting you in the negative. More and more suppliers are dropping margins to around 20% (I even saw one as low as 8% tonight), which is really disheartening. It makes it hard to stay motivated with retailers, because this could have been such an amazing opportunity.

As a retailer, we'd love to be able to change prices!

Could also use more support from Shopify, as sometimes we have questions that are hard to get answers to.

Otherwise, it's an amazing collaborative platform and we love it!

Great seamless way to connect with brands/retailers that are an organic fit for your audience without changing anything for either party. We've already seen sales from most of our collective partners.

So far, I have imported products, not put mine on the app. So I can only speak to being a merchant that carries others.

It's easy- although I wish there were some standards for the descriptions, a minimum each product needs to have. I often have to go searching for info that I know my customers would want. Maybe Shopify can require this moving forward?

Shipping Charges will kill you. Need more transparency upfront when importing goods.
Don't waste your time on anything with less than a 40% margin, its a waste of time.
Importing products is not as straightfoward as it seems. Tons of issues with getting variant selectors to work on a storefront.

Bottom line, proceed with caution but there are good partners out there

A nightmare with suppliers and VAT collection. Cue bills where Collective sells items for less than it costs you.

The way our world is right now we need to help each other with our small businesses. This Collective app is such a great way to be able to do just that! While I'm trying to build my inventory I am able to load other people items that fit well in my store & get a % of each sale. If you are like me & love to help others, try out the Collective app! I love that I'm able to get many different types of inventory that I know will not take weeks for my customers to get & I don't even have to worry about shipping! Win Win, Luna

UPDATE after 20 sales: Shopify Collective is gravely flawed for UK and European retailers, giving misleading margins that ultimately result in losses.

The app defaults to treating supplier prices as excluding VAT even when those prices already include VAT. This was confirmed by a Shopify Support Advisor after I provided an example of a supplier product priced at £115 with a supposed 10% margin (£11.50 profit) - the price is clearly VAT-inclusive on the supplier’s website, yet Collective treats it as tax-exclusive:

“The most important point is that Shopify Collective treats all B2B prices from suppliers as tax-exclusive, regardless of how the supplier lists prices on their own website.

So, just as you calculated, when Collective imports the product at £115 (listed as excl. tax), it calculates your cost first (which is £115 minus your 10% margin, so £103.50). Then, it adds the 20% B2B VAT on top of that cost. This results in the £124.20 total cost to you, which, as you correctly identified, can lead to a loss if you sell the item at the £115 price.”

I honestly do not know how this is even legal.

Like many retailers, we offer a 10% newsletter-signup discount. All our chosen suppliers offer margins of 20% and above, so we assumed we were safe. In reality, we made a loss on every sale with a supposed margin below 28%, and even above that threshold the profit was marginal.

To give a real-world example of a “positive” case:
A £479.99 VAT-inclusive item from a supplier offering a 30% margin. Collective displayed: Retail £479.99 excl. tax (although the price already includes VAT), Cost £335.99 excl. tax, Profit £144.00.
The customer used a 10% discount and paid £432. Shopify Payments fees were £13.64, giving us a payout of £418.36.

However, Shopify Collective charged us £335.99 (their margin-calculated cost) plus 20% VAT (£67.20), debiting £403.19 to pay the supplier — leaving us with a profit of just £15.17 on a £432 order.

Other sellers have reported the same issue, for example here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/490734433258832/posts/974975578168046/

Shopify Collective could be a great tool, and perhaps it works as intended in the US. But in the UK, where retail prices are VAT-inclusive, the current model is essentially unworkable — and borders on being a scam.

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INITIAL 3-star review: Interesting so far and I look forward to seeing results.

I would like to see a few improvements (if anyone from Shopify is reading...):
- The "excl. tax" is confusing as looking on the supplier website the same price is advertised to the public, including taxes.
- It would be very useful to be able to sort products by Inventory during import (that's particularly important with large inventories).
- Sorting by Retail price or Profit would be great too.
- For suppliers with multiple margins, would be very useful to filter out products with margins below X amount.
- The Recommendations on the Discovery page should exclude my existing Suppliers - also, would be good to be able to filter these by ratings