I am a member of Shopify App Developers Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/shopifyappdevelopers). This is a pretty useful group for new developers and Shopify partners. Occasionally on the group I read someone discovered that a Shopify partner used a trick to get reviews, not for the quality of the app (this method violates Shopify’s policies). The strange thing is that these types of partners are growing very strongly and they don’t seem to care about Shopify’s policies. The exchange can be seen in the reviews left by customers. I think this is a serious form of market manipulation that needs to be stopped, otherwise other partners will follow and destroy Shopify App Store in the near future.
A typical article recently mentioned AVADA partner, most of this partner’s apps use trick to get reviews. By leaving the app free and talking to the customer to remove the copyright, they can earn hundreds of reviews for their apps and as a result, their apps will climb to the top of the rankings.
Imagine what the App Store would be like if every partner used this way to get reviews!
The post on Facebook Group:
"
Hi everyone,
I would like to mention a Shopify partner named AVADA.
They a partner with quality products and investments, but I did not expect that their apps are creating an unfair competitive advantage over other partners by exchanging remove AVADA branding and allow to use all features of the application to get reviews. Obviously this is a serious violation of Shopify’s policy.
Most of their reviews come within minutes of the customer installing the app with the content removing AVADA branding and allowing full use of the features.
Their app released recently but reviews increase very fast with this trick, and they always leave it FREE until they reach a few hundred reviews and the app reaches top 1. Assume Shopify app market has many partners like AVADA, what will it be like?
I urge you to stop this immediately and I urge the Shopify partner community to condemn this action by reporting these partners to Shopify.
I also tested to install their app, one staff member assisted in removing the AVADA branding and allowing full use of the features, then asked to leave a review and called the support staff’s name in the review content. "
Am I misunderstanding Shopify’s policies? Please comment everyone!