Partner abusing review system and ranking on top

Over the past several months I’ve submitted multiple reports through the Partner Report Submission form regarding partners who repeatedly violate Shopify’s guidelines. Unfortunately, despite these reports, the same partners continue to surface at the top of the listings, while compliant partners lose visibility despite investing significant effort to follow the rules.

This partner has added 100 reviews in a few days and the archived reviews are getting filled as well. The recent archived reviews are 50+ for the same day 29th July (since only the last 50 is shown) and this has been happening everyday for the past few days. The reviews don’t look natural just stars and random comments. Even with many top apps I am not seeing a 50+ archived list, some reviews are getting published as well they are also mostly stars without content. I am attaching a small snippet of the review. The current 50 archived reviews are for July 29th

I understand that completely eliminating bad actors is challenging, and I appreciate the many new features Shopify has introduced to combat these issues. However, I’m concerned that the current enforcement cadence allows violators to gain an unfair advantage, undermining the integrity of the marketplace and discouraging honest partners.

Is there a way to accelerate the review and enforcement process for repeat offenders? Any steps that would prioritize long‑standing violation reports—and protect partners who consistently follow Shopify’s policies—would be immensely helpful.

Thank you Shopify for your continued efforts to keep the ecosystem fair and trustworthy. I’m confident that, with more rapid enforcement, Shopify can further strengthen its marketplace for all partners.

1 Like

DMing you for details on this

Thank you for the DM Liam, I have replied back.

1 Like

My experience with a repeat violator

Over the past few months I’ve filed multiple Partner Report Submissions against a specific partner. Here’s the timeline:

  1. Direct app clone

    • They launched an app that copied our UI and even lifted a significant amount of UI text and instructional text verbatim.
    • After my copyright-infringement report, they tweaked a few sentences and their app was reinstated with no visible consequences.
  2. Retaliatory fake review

    • The same partner controls Store X, which previously used our app.
    • Store X left a 1-star review on our listing immediately after the infringement report.
    • I have older support-ticket e-mails from Store X where the e-mail sender shares same domain name as the partner account I reported, thus proving connection between Store X and the partner. (Shopify thankfully blocked the review.)
  3. Suspicious review surge on their own app

    • Their app launched at the start of the year and went six months with zero reviews.
    • Last week it suddenly gained 10 reviews in seven days.
    • For comparison, we serve 2000 merchants and average ~10 reviews every six months.

I opened a second Partner Report citing review manipulation (Partner Agreement C2.1) due to the fake review they made on our app. Support has now marked the ticket “handled,” yet the partner remains untouched.

What I’m asking

  • Can it really be true that this kind of behavior by Shopify partners is accepted without any consequences?

Happy to supply the full documentation privately.