Shopify announced this week that it will now allow merchants to earn revenue through their partner program in an effort to leverage the many third-party Shopify service providers in the market. Users of the program can earn money through affiliate links, merchant referrals, apps, and themes on the Shopify store. Business owners who use Shopify might want to strongly consider the partner program as a passive form of extra income. Read below for more information on how to sign up.
In e-commerce news, Amazon is allegedly having second thoughts about choosing a new headquarters in the United States, following the President’s recent travel ban on eight different countries. Several cities, including Boston, who have been pushing hard to make its case for the new HQ, could be set to lose out to Canada, which also offers similar logistical benefits, a large and well educated workforce and strong political stability.
New in SaaS listings this week is a $538K B2C language course and education business, with a c. 113% compound annual growth rate from 2015 to (e)2017 and a growing customer base with over 600 current customers.
New in Affiliate listings this week is a $1.2M Amazon affiliate business with an authoritative position in the rapidly growing PC gaming hardware niche and rankings for over c.31,000 keywords.
New in e-Commerce listings this week we have a $130K e-commerce business listed in the lifestyle and activities niche, with diversified revenues driven via nine interconnected store-fronts and stable gross margins of c.28% over the trailing 12 months.
In featured listings this week, there is a rapidly growing affiliate and lead generation business in the B2B software and tutorials niche, listed at $1,296,000 and a $1,387,000 popular affiliate website in the home furnishings niche.
In event news, we co-hosted an invite-only INBOUND networking event with the YEC this week in Boston. It was a great turnout and we want to thank those that could make it from all over the world. In the upcoming month, the FE team will be attending DCBKK in Bangkok from October 18-22, Rhodium Weekend in Las Vegas from October 26-29 and Digital Footprint in Los Angeles from October 26-29. If you will be in those areas around that time, let us know and we can set up one-on-one meetings.
Continue below to read more on Amazon’s HQ 2 choice and Shopify’s Partner Program.
Deal Highlights
New:
SaaS – B2C Language Course and Education – $14.8K MRR
- Strong year over year MRR growth, reaching c.113% CAGR from 2015 to forecasted 2017
- Growing and diversified customer base with over 600 customers
- Proprietary CRM to facilitate introduction of additional language courses
- Keyword rankings for over 20,000 keywords with hundreds in top 10 position rankings
- Low owner involvement
Yearly net profit: $172,000
Asking price: $538,000
E-Commerce – Lifestyle & Activities – $35K gross/mo
- Diversified revenues driven via nine interconnected store-fronts
- Notable cost synergies generating stable gross margins of c.28% over the trailing 12 months
- Authoritative brand with over a decade of operations
- Proprietary system to manage order stacking, inventory fulfillment and provide detailed tracking reports
- Strong traffic with c.750,000 unique users and 1,700,000 page views in the last 12 months
Yearly net profit: $47,000
Asking price: $130,000
Affiliate – Computer Accessories – $45K gross/mo
- Strong and stable traffic with c. 6 million sessions over the trailing 12 months
- Keyword rankings for c.31,000 keywords
- Authoritative position in the rapidly growing PC gaming hardware niche
- Highly lean and scalable cost structure
- Low owner involvement
Yearly net profit: $524,000
Asking price: $1,200,000
Sold:
E-Commerce – Sustainable Home Goods – $30K gross/mo
SaaS – B2B Payment Transaction Integration – $6.7K MRR
In the News…
Amazon, Probable to Choose Canada Over the US
Amidst the new travel ban sanctioned by the President, Amazon is now hesitant to choose the US as their new headquarters. While looking for a second home, Amazon has some non-negotiables. The main one being that they want to have access to a top-notch workforce. The current administration’s America First strategy focuses on H-1B visas, which is the doorway for many software engineers and many other skilled foreign workers.
15% of Facebook’s staff are foreign and many of the masterminds that propelled Silicon Valley to what it is today, were foreigners. The tech industry is nervous that the US will lose out on the best of the best, because the there is no longer the opportunity in America that there once was. Canada is capitalizing on this and fast tracking their visa equivalent to try to poach these high-quality employees.
Amazon is not the only company that could feel the impact. Many companies, particularly in the tech industry rely on these employees. With the sanctions the new Administration is putting on those from outside the US, the US might start to feel the pressure and a gap in the workforce leading people to outsource to other countries. Coming full circle, the outsourcing of these jobs goes directly against the current Administration’s job agenda.
Shopify’s Partner Program
There are a couple ways to earn revenue through Shopify’s Partner Program. One way is to refer customers by either creating development stores or by sharing your affiliate link. If you are a Shopify Partner, Expert or Plus Partner and refer a customer to Shopify via a development store, you receive 20% of their monthly subscription fee. Within a 12-month period, you must either refer via development sore, affiliate link or upgrade/refer an existing merchant to Shopify Plus, in order to be an active member in the Shopify Partner Ecosystem. If you are referring using an affiliate link instead of a development store, you will be paid two months’ worth of monthly subscription fees.
Another way to earn revenue is to refer a Shopify Plus customer, which is dependent on whether you are a Shopify Partner or Expert, or a Shopify Plus Partner. For partners and experts, for each customer referred or upgrade to Shopify Plus, you will earn 10% of the monthly minimum platform fees paid by the customer for Plus. After four referrals in a year, your revenue share will increase to 20% for the fifth referral and all the ones following in that year. Revenue share is only applicable for the duration your referrals remain Plus customers. For Plus Partners, you can earn revenue share for the Plus merchants that you refer. Shares are based on the monthly platform fees paid by the merchant. This can vary month to month depending on the value of the transactions processed on the merchant’s store for each month. The amount of revenue is dependent on the type of referral.
The other two ways you can earn revenue is to sell an app on the Shopify App Store and sell a theme on the Shopify Theme store. So if you’re looking for more ways to earn revenue through the Shopify’s Partner Program, there are many opportunities. To learn more details about each, you can visit, the Shopify Help Center.