Last Updated on May 4, 2022
Welcome to my Shopify Affiliate Program Review!
Want to buy the latest fashion trends at the mall but too lazy to go out? Yeah, me too. Every one of us becomes lazy at some point. What’s the point of getting out of the house when the whole market can be within your grasp? We are now living in the age of e-commerce.
We have witnessed how e-commerce was built from nothing into the worldwide phenomenon it is today. Millions of people became patrons of online shopping due to the convenience it brings to our lives. Also, with that in mind, hundreds of thousands of merchants built their own forts in the e-commerce market. Shopify is one of those who has stood highly in this field.
For now, stay with me as I introduce you to Shopify, how it works, and everything about their affiliate program for you to see if it is one of the best in its niche, or if it is simply just the worst. All of that in this Shopify affiliate program review!
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First of All, What is Shopify?
Shopify is claimed to be one of the greatest platforms in which you can open your own online store. Shopify has powered over 600,000 businesses worldwide, with over a million active users and has sold at least $55B+ worth of products ranging from electronics, accessories, fashion, apparel, home, garden and many more! Since it was established in the year 2006 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake in Canada, it has exponentially grown to a whopping 243,000 active Shopify stores.
Building an online store through Shopify gives you 120 perfectly crafted themes or templates all available just for you to choose from. You do not even need to manually create an aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly online store. Whether you are an entrepreneur or a really large enterprise, you can create your own store as Shopify offers you different types of plans to choose from. It’s a party for everyone!
- Shopify Lite
- Basic Shopify
- Shopify
- Advanced Shopify
- Shopify Plus
The Shopify Plus plan is made for very large companies handling massive volumes of transactions. This could cost a large amount of money, so you have to contact their sales team to know their prices.
Long story short, these plans start at $9 per month with Shopify Lite and reaches to a $299 monthly fee with Advanced Shopify. If you are just starting as an entrepreneur or a small business, Shopify Lite is perfect for you.
As you grow with your business, you could upgrade to more advanced plans. Good news is before you could completely purchase a plan, you can try out the platform for yourself with a 14-day free trial. Awesome!
With Shopify, you could choose to open your very own online store, or you could choose to apply for their affiliate program. Now that we have a brief overview of what Shopify is all about, let us set that aside and talk about the Shopify Affiliate Program.
What is the Shopify Affiliate Program?
Before we delve into this any further, some of you may be scratching your heads and asking yourself “What the hell is an affiliate program?”. Well, to put it simply, if you are an affiliate of a certain company, you have the responsibility to refer customers to the products and services of the company.
How do you ought to do that? If you own a blog, you can promote these however you want to, and simply link their website. If you have built influence in social media, you can use your voice to market them. You earn a commission every time a referral purchases under your name. Sounds cool, right?
Shopify’s Affiliate Program is not that much different from the usual system of how affiliate programs work. The difference here is, for you to earn a commission as an affiliate, you have to persuade your audience that Shopify is the best e-commerce store builder platform and have them sign up for any of the plans Shopify has to offer.
Take a look at this video for a quick overview of the Shopify Affiliate Program.
How Does the Shopify Affiliate Program Work?
Shopify encourages you to ‘use your voice to inspire entrepreneurship with the ‘Shopify Affiliate Program.’ You can monetize your audience, and earn commissions for every referral that signs up. Let us look into detail how Shopify wants you to do just that.
Creating an Account
Well, first and foremost, you have to create an affiliate account. You don’t have to worry about anything because signing up is free! But it doesn’t get easy from there, just because you have signed up doesn’t mean that you are automatically eligible to be an affiliate. There is an application process.
When you apply, make sure that you have an active and relevant website. Your website has to be relevant in the sense that you make your audience understand the concepts of online business. You must also include how you intend on promoting Shopify and indicate your past experience in digital marketing.
If you are lucky enough to be accepted, you will receive an email two business days later from Shopify with your own affiliate link of Shopify.
Resources
Shopify won’t let you figure out everything for yourself because they will hand out to you resources that will be useful in your affiliate journey.
These are some of the tools they provide to their affiliates.
- Marketing Collaterals like banners, templates, and handouts you can apply to your website or blog
- Monthly Affiliate Newsletters for informing you regarding the upcoming events, and new features of Shopify
- Shopify Affiliate Dashboard which lets you keep track of the amount of money you have earned
Plus, you don’t have to worry of feeling lost along the way. Shopify will provide you with your own affiliate manager to assist you all throughout.
Affiliate Links
Your referrals can be tracked using the affiliate link, provided by Shopify, which also includes your unique referral handle. You must always use your affiliate link so that you will be given credit for those referrals of yours who choose to sign up as a merchant of Shopify.
This is how an affiliate link would look like:
https://www.shopify.com/?ref=[YOUR_UNIQUE_REF_HANDLE]
Within the 30 days in which a visitor clicks on the affiliate link, he must sign up for a paid plan or else you won’t receive your affiliate bounty. Even if he signs up for a 14-day free trial, you will still be credited for that! How dope is that?
Commission
Whenever you refer your visitors to Shopify and they sign up for a specific plan of their choice, your commission will be twice the monthly rate of that particular plan. Take for example, if they sign up for an Advanced Shopify plan which costs $299 per month. Double that and you are left with a heaping $598. Hot damn!
But that was just an appetizer. The main course is when your referral signs up for a Shopify Plus account. If you are an existing Shopify Plus partner, and your referral signs up as a Shopify Plus partner as well, 20% from the plan they sign up for will be your commission. You can earn an approximate $2000 for this!
To sum all this up, you can earn 200% per sale up to $2000 through the affiliate program. Nice!
Pay Out
Let me tell you a sad story. Before you could pay out, you need to have a balance of at least $25. If lower than this, your payout will be held until the next month. So, you better work your ass off before the payout period!
Speaking of which, there are actually two payout periods per month. If you earn credits from the 1st to the 15th day of the month, the payout shall occur five business days after the 15th. If you have gained credits between the 16th up until the last day of the month, the payout will occur five business days after the end of the month.
Also, remember your referrals through the affiliate links? You will receive your commission two months after they have signed up. I know, such a long wait, right?
All of the payouts are fast since they will transact the money through PayPal only.
For you to continue receiving commissions, you have to be an active partner of Shopify. Now, there are certain requirements you have to meet so that you won’t be deemed inactive. Within a 12 month period, you need to have a development store referral, affiliate rink referral, and you have to upgrade or refer an existing merchant to Shopify Plus.
Other Ways to Earn Money Through Shopify
Development Store
In the affiliate program, you refer one of your visitors into signing up as a merchant and that’s it. Building the online store is totally up to them. Here, you are the one to create a store for a customer. You are only able to do this if you are a Shopify partner. You can earn up to 20% commission for your services.
Theme Sales
If you are one of those creative and artsy people who like to create themes and templates, this is perfect for you. You can earn up to 70% commission for every Shopify theme you sell.
Mobile App Sales
Earn up to 80% revenue share for each app you build to work with Shopify.
Why Should You Become A Shopify Affiliate?
Shopify is Simply Great
Shopify is a market leader in the niche of e-commerce. It has made a reliable reputation as an online store builder. You can choose to be a customer or an entrepreneur. Find tons of options for your shopping, or be the one in charge! If you choose the latter, Shopify will help you in achieving your goals with their no coding required system, centralized control, secure payments, and their award winning customer service.
Passive Source of Income
Being an affiliate requires only one thing. An audience. If you have an audience and have an influence on them, your medium such as a blog or a social media platform will give you a fair pay as long as you market your merchant properly.
Free Signup
No pesky and suspicious signup fees. Just enter your best email and then you are good to go! You are also given your own tools to promote Shopify however you want. Neat!
Pays Well
I mean, if you could earn twice the signup fee of your referrals, that would be great if you could score a referral signing up for Advanced Shopify. Also, if you could get a referral to sign up for a Shopify Plus account, a heaping $2k would come rushing to you!
Don’t Leave Me Alone!
As you embark on your journey, you are not alone! Shopify offers you an affiliate manager just for you. Plus, if you need quick answers regarding the affiliate program, their live chat feature will be of utmost help.
Do Everything You Love at the Same Time
Think about blogging or engaging with your followers while also earning money from it. Yep, that’s an affiliate program for you. I think this is why affiliate marketing has significantly boomed. There are hundreds of affiliates all across different platforms.
People just love the idea of doing what they love and earning money at the same time. If Shopify does not appeal to you at all and you want to be one of those people, I have the best recommendation for you. Just check it out and try it out for yourself! It won’t disappoint. I promise!
Things to Think About Before Becoming a Shopify Affiliate
Deep Linking
Wait, what is deep linking anyway? This is the practice in which an affiliate creates a link to a specific page on the website of the merchant. As an affiliate, you have to option to deep link.
This deep linking increases conversion. However, Shopify’s Affiliate Program’s deep linking feature is kind of disorganized.
When you are just starting out as an affiliate, you are not introduced to this idea. You are only given your own unique affiliate link that is set to land your referral to the signup page of Shopify. For you to know more about their deep linking feature, you have to search deep and wide on their website.
Cookies
These tracking cookies are only set for a maximum of 30 days. However, it takes a while for the website to be informed that your referral has already signed up for a plan. If the 30 days had ended and the website still isn’t informed, your commission will be just thrown outside the window.
Shopify Affiliate Program Review Verdict
It surely is not the worst, and it surely isn’t the best, as well. But, I do recommend the Shopify Affiliate Program for anyone. Signing up is free, you are given tools to start promoting, and you’ll be assisted with your own affiliate manager along the way.
It compensates you well, and payouts are fast. And if all these do not appeal to you, you can also choose to earn money through other methods.
Still not sure after reading my Shopify Affiliate Program Review? Don’t worry! I got your back with my no. 1 recommendation to make money online, Check it out!
