🤗 Collaborative commerce

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Collaborations are a marketing staple that has a proven track record in starting conversations and driving additional revenue. 

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You don’t have to look much further than the Barbie movie to understand how powerful and influential a collaboration can be. Now, there’s another A-list celebrity leveraging the power of collaborations…

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Drake’s newest store is a masterclass in collaboration, design, and brand building that will undoubtedly be replicated in the near future. 

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So how do you get a small brand on board with the collaboration craze? Let’s dive into what makes Drake’s store so awesome and how you can use the very same platform and tools for your next collaboration. 👇

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👶 Just starting out

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A collaboration will involve two or more brands forming a partnership to develop a marketing strategy where each partner will share the success of the other.  

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This success could be seen in growing sales figures, audience growth, and increased exposure.

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🪙 Two sides of the coin

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The dark underbelly of collaborative branding hides logistical nightmares that might occur if brands aren’t aligned on their goals for the project. 

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• Which brand gets what share of the sale price? 
• Which brand handles the inventory?
• How are shipping costs divided?

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As you can probably tell, relationships can get pretty tense if brands can’t agree on the logistics of their collaboration. While partnered brands can share success, collaborations also carry the weight of shared failure.

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🤖 The future 

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This Instagram post from Kane Kallaway shows off what collaborations can do for smaller businesses when done correctly. Kane also proposes the question: Is this the future of ecommerce?

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In the post, Kane highlights Drake’s Shopify store Drake Related, featuring a digital recreation of The Embassy (his creative compound). As you scan the digital room, you’ll notice little clickable white dots. 

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These dots will lead you to product pages where you can purchase the item you clicked on. 

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Accessibility and optimization aside, we have to hand it to Drake and his ecommerce team for producing such an engaging and interactive store that is an absolute delight to browse on a desktop. 

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When you reach the product page, the product descriptions will indicate if Drake’s company manufactures the product or if the product is a collaboration with Drake’s image.

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These markers from Krink are a great example of clever collaborative ideas that benefit both brands and their image. 👇  

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🤏 One small detail

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A key detail that shouldn’t be missed is that Drake Related is powered by Shopify. Shopify Collective is the latest push from Shopify to unite their merchants and tackle the world of ecommerce together. 

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Collective is a sales channel that opens the possibility for intuitive and seamless collaborative experiences that aims to benefit brands by taking away logistical nightmares. 

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If two brands agree to work in Shopify Collective, they must designate themselves as either a 🛍️ Retailer or 🚛 Supplier. With that decision made, the rules of the program are:

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• 🛍️ Retailers advertise products from suppliers on their site and receive full payment for the cost of the item when a sale is made.
• 🚛 Suppliers ship products on behalf of 🛍️ Retailers. 
• 🛍️ Retailers must then pay 🚛 Suppliers the cost of the item and cover all shipping costs.
• If the item was sold at an increased price, the 🛍️ Retailers may keep the remaining revenue as profit.

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We couldn’t find any disparity between the cost of the goods on the 🚛 Suppliers’ site and Drake’s site (🛍️ Retailer)—so it seems that Drake is demonstrating a genuine interest in these products without taking on additional operating costs. 

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💪 A new era

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Marketing teams should be looking into collaborations and what Shopify Collective can do to simplify the collaborative process. 

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Having a brand’s products listed on multiple sites is inherently valuable because of the increased exposure to new consumers. 

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Collaborations can also build a positive brand image by association with another trusted brand. Loyal consumers are more likely to check out their favorite brand’s partner rather than search for undiscovered related products on their own. 

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All of this is to say that there may very well be a future where the biggest ecommerce sites are a hub of related products and aesthetics from brands all around the world. 

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Shopify Collective is certainly a step in that direction. 

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‍Let us know if your brand has attempted a collaboration before! How did it work out? Has Shopify Collective renewed your interest in collaborations?

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Let us know in a reply!