Brand Partnerships for Shopify Stores: 5 Formats That Work
A brand partnership for a Shopify store is two brands with the same kind of customer promoting each other: a coffee roaster and a mug maker, a yoga-wear brand and a mat brand. The five formats that work for small stores are a newsletter swap, a shared discount, a joint giveaway, selling each other’s products, and a co-branded product. Shopify covers the mechanics: a discount code per partner to measure sales, and Shopify Collective, a free Shopify feature, to sell a partner’s products in your store without holding their stock.
Five partnership formats
| Format | What happens | Effort | How you measure it in Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newsletter swap | Each brand features the other in one email to its list | Low | A code or UTM link per partner, read in Sales by discount or the marketing reports |
| Shared discount | Each brand gives its customers a code for the other’s store, for example in the order confirmation or a packaging insert | Low | One code per partner direction |
| Joint giveaway | Both brands offer a prize and promote one entry page | Medium | Sign-ups tagged by source; orders from winners and entrants afterwards |
| Selling each other’s products | You list the partner’s products in your store, or they list yours, through Shopify Collective | Medium | Orders containing the partner’s products |
| Co-branded product | A product made together, sold by both | High | A product or SKU of its own, in your sales reports |
Start with the first two: they cost almost nothing, take an afternoon to set up, and tell you within a month whether the partner’s customers buy from you. Move to a giveaway or Collective with partners whose code brought orders. A co-branded product is a commitment for later, once both sides trust the numbers.
How to pick a partner. Look for a brand whose customers are like yours but whose products don’t compete with yours, of a similar size, so the exchange is fair. A brand whose customers already buy alongside yours (ask your customers what else they use) is the strongest fit. Our guide to Shopify influencer marketing covers working with individual creators instead.
Set it up in Shopify
Discount codes for each partner. Name a code after the partner, for example MUGCO10 for the mug maker’s customers, with an end date. Orders with it show in the Sales by discount report; our guide to influencer tracking explains the naming and reports in full.
A landing page per partner. A short page (“Welcome, Mug Co customers”) with the code and the three products their customers are most likely to want. Link to it with UTM parameters (utm_source=mugco&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=2026-11-swap), and the visits and orders show by campaign in the Channel performance report.
Shopify Collective for selling each other’s products. Collective connects Shopify stores so they can sell each other’s products. A retailer imports complementary products directly from a supplier on Shopify and sells them without inventory costs or commitments; the supplier creates price lists and shares the products. Your business can be both a supplier and a retailer. Shopify says Collective is free on all plans, subject to store eligibility, with no minimum sales requirement. That makes it the simplest way to run “sell each other’s products”, since the retailer side holds no stock. Our guide to Faire and Shopify Collective covers the setup.
A giveaway entry page. A page with a Shopify Forms sign-up on the store that runs the giveaway, and a clear statement of the prize, dates and who runs it. Contest and sweepstakes rules differ by country and state, so check the rules where you and your entrants are before you launch, and say in the form which brand will email entrants; the partner brand promotes the entry page but doesn’t receive the list.
Agree the terms in writing
Put the deal on one page. Cover:
- What each side does and when: the email date, the insert in parcels, the social posts.
- The codes and links each side uses, and who pays for the discount (normally the store where the order is placed).
- Customer data: who may email whom. Never hand over customer lists; each brand emails its own list, and giveaway entrants join a list only with the consent they gave on the form.
- For Collective: price list, margin, who handles returns and customer service.
- How you will judge it: orders per code after 30 days, and whether you do it again.
Brand partnerships are one of several ways to reach new customers without paying for ads; the marketing and SEO hub covers the rest.
Shopify facts come from the Help Center pages on Shopify Collective and discount codes, read on October 23, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find a brand partner for my Shopify store? Look for a brand with customers like yours but products that don’t compete with yours, of a similar size. Asking your customers which other brands they buy is the quickest list.
Can I sell another brand’s products in my Shopify store? Shopify Collective lets you do that. You import a supplier’s products and sell them without holding stock. Collective is free on all Shopify plans, subject to store eligibility.
How do I track sales from a brand partnership? Give each partner its own discount code and a UTM link to a landing page. The Sales by discount report counts the code, and Shopify’s marketing reports show the link’s visits and orders.
Can we share customer lists with a partner brand? Each brand should email only its own customers who agreed to its marketing. In a joint giveaway, the store that runs the entry form keeps the sign-ups.