OpenStore’s Partner Program: generating leads through referrals, marketing, and more

Brian Quimby

Oct 12, 2023

In May 2023, we launched the OpenStore Partner Program, which lets companies and individuals team up with us on referrals, co-marketing, and new business opportunities. Since then, we’re proud to have partnered with 75 partners in building a more vibrant community, all building on Shopify.

How our Partner Program works

At OpenStore, we give Shopify business owners the opportunity to quickly and easily sell their businesses or take 12 paid months off. 

The goal of our Partner Program is to put OpenStore in front of Shopify entrepreneurs who might be interested in an OpenStore offer while we develop relationships with popular, well-known players in the e-commerce industry such as Okendo, Intelligems, BeProfit, and others. Partners benefit by getting cash from referrals and marketing via blog posts and case studies. Partners in the program include Shopify app developers, agencies, brand owners, and e-commerce influencers. 

Incentivizing partners with referrals

Referrals are an integral source of new leads for OpenStore. In fact, 29% of all OpenStore deals started as a referral. This is a testament to the strong partnerships we’ve formed with some of the highest-quality brands across the Shopify ecosystem, and the need that Shopify entrepreneurs have for liquidity, time back, and capital to pursue something new or take a break. Shopify entrepreneurs who were referred to us are also more likely to close a deal with us, with referred leads having a 42% higher accept rate and 50% higher close rate, as compared to those who aren’t referred through the Partner Program. Referrers receive 2% of the close price for acquisitions and 1% of the first year’s payout for companies referred to OpenStore Drive. 

We also run Sales Performance Incentive Fund (SPIF) programs, in which employees from our partner companies receive $100 per lead when they refer someone from their book of business. For some partners, we offer bonuses for both the referring and referred companies. When a Shopify business founder submits a lead through a partner's website, both the merchant and partner can receive a bonus. 

We built a Partner Portal to make it easier for potential partners to sign up and track referrals in real-time. With the Partner Portal, companies or individuals can sign up, get a customized referral link, and start referring Shopify businesses immediately. Referrers can refer businesses through their personalized link or manually filling in their details in the portal.

Each partner is paired with a member of our Business Development team, who can arm partners with materials about our Acquisition and OpenStore Drive offerings, answer any questions, or share best practices.

For some partners, we create landing pages or special integrations to enable referrals. We made a custom landing page for Future Commerce, an e-commerce media company, specifically for leads from Future Commerce’s podcast. Listeners who are eligible for OpenStore can get an extra $2,000 on top of their OpenStore offer. We also worked with BeProfit, a popular Shopify app that owners can use to track store revenue, growth, and other metrics, to integrate an OpenStore feature on their platform. BeProfit users are now notified when their data indicates that they would qualify for an OpenStore offer.

Running co-marketing campaigns 

Another way we work with partners is through co-marketing, in which both OpenStore and the partner brand promote each other. As part of the program, we develop case studies, and collaborate on landing pages and social media promotions:  

• We use Anvyl, a supply chain and purchase order management platform, and worked with them to develop a case study on our experience using their services. 

• We also developed a similar case study with Intelligems, a Shopify app that helps conduct pricing tests. 

• Data-as-a-service platform Tydo created a custom landing page for OpenStore leads, and announced their partnership with us on LinkedIn. 

• Customer engagement company Okendo released an article on their website when we announced that we would use them as our customer reviews platform. 

Highlighting favorites

We also have several ways to feature some of our strongest partners and give them more visibility and business. If we can't offer an Acquisition offer or an OpenStore Drive proposal to a Shopify business due to certain reasons (such as their revenue not meeting our minimum requirements or if most of their sales don't occur on Shopify), we communicate with the business owners and recommend specific partners who can help them grow. This way, they can hopefully become eligible for an OpenStore offer in the future.

We also recently launched our Shopify App Directory, where we feature top Shopify apps and plugins, many of which we use to operate our growing portfolio of nearly 50 Shopify brands. At the top of the Directory, you can see the Featured Apps section, which promotes top partners of ours like Okendo, Rebuy, Gorgias, Loop, Referral Candy, and Judge.me.

Want to partner with us? Sign up to join our partner program. If you own a Shopify store and are interested in selling your store through an acquisition or taking 12 months off while getting paid through OpenStore Drive, sign up below.