How can I sell a friend's product in America on Shopify?

How can I sell a friend's product in America on Shopify?

Elliottroll94
Visitor
1 0 0

Hello, 

I am new to Shopify, My friend has a successful product over in the UK he has asked me to market and sell this product in America for commission. 

I'm not sure how I can do this as we are unsure how to determine if the sales came from myself or him. 

He already has a Shopify account in the UK and sell's his product via Amazon USA. Should I create my own Shopify account for the product over here in the USA and link it to his Amazon or is there a solution to this using just one Shopify account. 

Many thanks 

Elliott 

Replies 2 (2)

JoesIdeas
Shopify Partner
2427 225 652

I would have a good brainstorm session with your friend to decide what's best.

Couple common options:

A) You can be an affiliate, so you get a special link and sales are attributed to you. Refersion is the software I like for Shopify affiliate programs. This works well if you have an audience, website, blog, etc and promoting like that. You can also promote via PPC, either directly or building a feeder site where you build a content site and send traffic to the other site.

B) You could start a regional Shopify store. As the brand owner I don't think it's a good move in most cases, but it's a viable option I've seen work.

• Creator of Order Automator [auto tag, fulfill, connect FBA, daily jobs]
• Co-Creator of Product Automator [suite of features for products / collections]
• Shopify developer for 10+ years, store owner for 7 years
• Blog: Shopify Tips, Guides, and Automation Tools

Olivia
Shopify Staff
1725 148 314

Hey, @Elliottroll94

Welcome to Shopify! My name is Olivia and I work here. I’m super excited to hear that you are interested in using our services to promote your friend’s product. 

I love your question - there are so many different ways we can look at this to see which option best fits your needs like @JoesIdeas mentioned. Let’s dive right in and explore some of them together.

A. Set-up your own Shopify Store. This is a really great solution if you intend to use your store to sell other products and services under your own brand. If you are new to the industry this might be a decision you want to think about longer, but it’s always an option. Should you go this route, you can set up a custom fulfillment service for the product. Why is this helpful? It would let you control the product under your brand, but send all fulfillment requests to your supplier. When you get a new order, that order notification also goes to your supplier, who in turn sends the product to your customer. This not only saves you a tonne of time, but also saves you the cost of storing inventory. 

If you are looking for ideas on sourcing other complementary products, make sure to check out our Dropshipping with Oberlo Guide.

B. Become an affiliate for your friend’s store. This is right in line with @JoesIdeas's recommendation and truly a great option if you are looking to tap into your network and earn commission off of sales generated by your leads. For this to work, the store owner can use an affiliate app to track your sales and pay you commission. Check out some of these app options I found that would work: 

•   Growth Hero

•   Affiliate Marketing

•   Affiliatly

C. Get hired as an employee under your friend. Maybe your friend wants to set up a custom domain for the US market and hire you to lead marketing for that division. This way they expand their Shopify Store into multiple countries and still provide a fully customized experience to the target market. I might personally recommend this if you need staff permissions to access the store. This would allow you both to work as a team and collaborate on a deeper level.

I know that’s a lot to consider so make sure to connect with me and let me know what other questions this might bring up. I’d love to hear more about the product and what you’re leaning towards so we can explore that further.

Warm regards,

Olivia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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