A Definitive Guide to Shopify Partners and Experts
In this guide, we are going to discuss who Shopify Partners exactly are and how to become one?
Let’s get started with Shopify. It is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms that has made the lives of online sellers very easy. When it comes to entrepreneurs who are willing to make it big or merchants who are planning on going online, Shopify comes as one of the best platforms. Shopify is enormously popular in the industry, and the reason behind this popularity and success is that Shopify has created a platform that suits all kinds of merchants, no matter how big or small they are. Shopify has something for everyone.
It is well known that Shopify is best for the merchants in terms of pricing because the plans are designed by keeping in mind the needs of all kinds of merchants, starting from entrepreneurs and all the way up to established names. Shopify has been successful in building a broad merchant base. Shopify not only allows a merchant to sell his/her products but has also created a community of professionals from the e-commerce world who share information and skills to help each other grow. Community building venture is called the Shopify partner program and it has proven to be a great success in the market.
In this blog, we are going to talk about the Shopify partners program in detail. We will tell you pretty much everything you need to know about this special Shopify program so that you can use your skills for making profits. Heck yeah!
What are Shopify Partners?
Let’s dig a little deeper and try to understand more about the Shopify partners program and who these people are.
Shopify partners are people who are professionals in different fields of e-commerce. Shopify partners provide complete A to Z support and solutions to merchants. If you are an expert in one of the skills that Shopify and its merchants need, then Shopify partner program is for you.
Shopify Partners and Shopify Experts - What is the difference?
Shopify partners and Shopify experts have a lot in common but they are not identical. However, they can be considered as the two edges of the same sword. All Shopify experts need to begin their journey as a Shopify partner first and only after that, they can become a Shopify expert. The only thing that you need to do if you want to become a Shopify partner is to register a partner account. But if you want to be showcased at the Shopify Experts Marketplace, you need to be able to display a proven track record as an e-commerce consultant. To become a Shopify expert it also requires a separate application.
If you are looking for a Shopify partner to help you with shop development, see our services.
Shopify Partner
Everyone is allowed to become a Shopify partner. For that, you just need to register a partner account on the partners page after which you will gain the liberty to build an infinite number of development stores, earn money with referrals, and create apps.
Shopify Experts & Shopify Experts Marketplace
Shopify Experts Marketplace is a way to get more work through a huge sales channel. You already need to be an established freelancer or an agency before applying.
Here is how Shopify portrays the requirements on becoming an expert:
“Access to the Experts Marketplace is limited to skilled and experienced Shopify partners who have demonstrated a proven expertise in the services they offer. A limited number of applicants are given access to the marketplace. For each service you provide, you will also be able to upload up to 6 work samples related to the service.”
There are six different types of expert categories each of which provides a distant purpose as follows:
Marketing and sales experts – As the name suggests these experts will take care of the marketing of your Shopify store.
Store setup experts – These experts help you in setting up your store.
Development and troubleshooting experts – These experts help you when anything goes wrong with your Shopify website or if you want to get some applications created for your website.
Content and branding experts – This category of experts will ensure that you get amazing pictures of your products and that other visuals are of high quality.
Content writing experts – These experts provide content written for you in an engaging format.
Guidance experts – A little bit of professional guidance always helps and that’s what these experts provide.
How would I benefit as a Shopify Partner?
Being a Shopify partner, you will get exclusive access to the various free of cost training programs and a lot of other resources to help you learn a lot about Shopify and hence grow your business even more. What’s more, you will get insider information on the upcoming features and high priority support for your queries.
There are several perks that you can enjoy as being a Shopify partner such as the eligibility of getting a large number of discounts on numerous software as well as the services that are required for the development of your business, testing, product design, and project management. The perks are divided equally among the regular Shopify partners and the people who have turned to experts.
Yet another major benefit of being a Shopify partner is that you will be able to earn money through affiliate marketing and can generate revenue in the following ways:
By getting new customers to use the Shopify platform
By making attractive themes for the other users of Shopify
By building unique and helpful Shopify apps
By using your special marketing or design skills to help Shopify merchants
By promoting the pre-existing Shopify apps and making more people use them
How to become a Shopify Partner
Visit https://partners.shopify.com/signup
...and fill the application form shown below.
How to become a Shopify Expert
Visit https://help.shopify.com/en/partners/selling-services
...and click the link to the application form.
Shopify accepts new experts on a rolling basis, so prepare for a delay in receiving notice from Shopify.
Shopify Partners Dashboard
The Shopify partners dashboard is used to manage apps, track the installed apps, collaborate with other development teams, and to track your revenue. You can access the dashboard by logging in to your account on the partner’s login page.
- Stores – Manage the development and live stores
- Referrals – Create referral links and manage referrals
- Affiliate Tools – Manage conversions on your affiliate campaigns
- Apps – Manage Shopify Apps you have developed
- Themes – Manage Shopify themes you have created
- Payouts – Pending payouts and payout history
- Education – Interactive knowledge base showing documents based on your progress
- Support – 24 hours a day partner support
- Team – Invite and manage team members
- Settings – Manage PayPal and other account settings
How to Make Money On Shopify Partner Program?
As a Shopify partner, the money that you will make totally depends on the contributions and services that you have provided to Shopify and the merchants. If you are planning to sign up for the program and want to know about the payments process then we have all the answers for you.
The only thing that you need to start receiving payments via Shopify is 25$ credit and a PayPal Account. How you are making money on Shopify depends on the services that you are offering to Shopify and its merchants.
For example, if you are a website designer, then you need to be up to date with trends and changes that are being introduced in the website design landscape. Website design is one of the most important parts of e-commerce business and it makes sure that the visitor turns into a customer.
How does a Shopify partner get paid?
Shopify partners get paid through PayPal. Shopify asks its partners to have at least 25$ credit and an active PayPal account in order to receive payments. The payments made to partners are made on the following schedule by Shopify.
For the credits curated between the 1st and 15th day of a month, the payment is made after 5 business days after the 15th. These payments are made directly into the account of the partner.
Similarly, for the credits curated between 15th to the last day of the month, the payments are made 5 days after the last day of the month.
Categories of Shopify Partners
Let’s discuss the categories of Shopify partners and how they can help a merchant in order to create an online Shopify store and run it with profit. As a partner, you might fall into multiple categories.
Designers
Shopify Designers are one of the most popular and opted for categories of the Shopify partner program that directly benefits the merchants who are willing to open or modify a store on Shopify. These designers can help the merchants build a Shopify store from scratch and they can be hired to make a stunning website that stands out from the crowd. It is a well-known fact that website design plays an important role when it comes to selling a product online. In order to ensure that there is an engaging design for the customers, Shopify designers are the best way to go as they can architect the complete design of the website according to the needs of the client. Being experts in the field, these designers are always up to date about the latest trends and changes in the market.
Shopify designers are able to design the website according to the industry, in order to ensure that the store is looking awesome and free from all the errors that the merchant is likely to face. This important group of Shopify partners makes a website easy and interesting in order to attract more visitors and convert them into customers.
For not so tech savvy designers there is an option for creating Shopify sites.
LiquidBlox – Shopify Website Builder lets you create unique sites with visual design tools.
LiquidBlox also offers support and a partner program for designers.
Developers
The next, and one of the most important members of Shopify partners, are the developers. As the e-commerce platform is growing exponentially, many companies are launching their applications to make it easier for their customers to view their displayed products and also shop them. Shopify developers are the people who develop these apps and ensure that the merchant is able to boost his sales. Shopify Appstore has proven to be a great success for Shopify and the merchants. Developer partners can create apps for the Appstore. If the application meets the standards and is made into a public app in the Appstore, the developer starts earning money upon app installations made by merchants worldwide.
Apps that are not listed in the Shopify Appstore are called private apps. The Shopify+LiquidBlox integration for selling products on a website is a private app made by our developers at LiquidBlox.
To make it easier for the partners, Shopify offers a complete range of guides and tutorials to educate partners about Shopify development and work accordingly. Shopify also offers its customers an API that is used for building tools and integrations for better e-commerce business. The guides and tutorials also cover things like custom storefronts that help Shopify developing partners understand the shopping experience on different devices and platforms.
This success of the developers can be judged by the revenue that Shopify developers have collected. Statistics suggest that only in the year 2017, Shopify developers made around $47.2 million payouts for apps. By this, it can be guessed how rapidly the e-commerce world is changing and how good Shopify is for e-commerce developers.
If you think you can bring a change and help the merchants, the Shopify partner program has a lot to offer you. Enroll in the program and get connected to your clients directly via Shopify.
Marketing Partners
When a business walks into the e-commerce world, a lot of things suddenly change. Everyday well-established merchants are taking their business online and doing just fine, but are they making full use of e-commerce platforms?
If someone is an entrepreneur with a great business idea but not-so-great marketing skills then they may get disappointed on an e-commerce platform because when it comes to online business, market presence is very important and the backbone of the whole business structure. The market presence is created through some hardcore e-commerce marketing strategy.
The Shopify partner program has a marketing section that offers marketing experts to its merchants. These experts take care of a complete marketing strategy by helping merchants in creating an online presence in order to grow their business. A Shopify partner who is an expert in marketing will guide the merchant in many ways, he will tell them how to run campaigns and create a presence on social media and how to balance out organic and paid marketing. This kind of expertise comes out as a great advantage for merchants and statistics have shown that marketing experts always prove to be profitable for merchants.
If you are a marketing expert who wants to sign up for the Shopify partner program in order to help merchants while making good money for yourself then all you need to do is sign up for the program and get approved by Shopify. The best thing about the Shopify partners program is that you will be your own boss and you can work on your own area of expertise.
Affiliate Partners
This category of the Shopify partner program is an important category for Shopify because affiliates play an important role in creating a link between Shopify and its merchants. Affiliates are experts who introduce merchants to Shopify and help them through the process of signing up for Shopify. If you think you know the dynamics of the Shopify business and you are aware of merchants who want to take their business online, or you are aware of those who already own a store but are not satisfied with their e-commerce platform, then this program might be for you. As an affiliate, you need to introduce these merchants to Shopify.
Shopify partner who signs up as an affiliate first gets approved by Shopify on the basis of their experience and skills then gets access to a portal that allows them access to educational material, support, tracking, reporting, payments, and an unique affiliate link in order to track referrals.
Shopify pays their partners around 58$ for every paid plan signup that gets done with their referral link and this amount grows to be 2000$ when a merchant signs up for the Shopify Plus plan. It is suggested to carefully nurture every merchant if one wants to maximize their earnings as a Shopify partner.
How to Delete my Shopify Partners Account?
When it comes to deleting a partner account, it can’t be done from the partner’s end. If you want to delete your partner account then you will have to raise a ticket to Shopify and the team will first verify your ownership of the account then it will be removed entirely as per your request.
Conclusion
The Shopify partner program is something that can benefit you as a partner as well as your clients. This depends on your skills and the services that you are capable of providing. In order to keep up with the market, online merchants are mushrooming at a very fast pace. But, not everyone is an expert in skills that it requires to grow an online business. If you think you have the required skills to take a business to the next level then you can partner with Shopify in order to nurture and create a successful e-commerce market for your own and everyone else’s profit.