How to report a Shopify store that copies your brand

First, check that it is a Shopify store

Many copycat stores run on Shopify behind their own domain. Paste the address into our Fake Shopping Website Checker or Abuse Contact Finder to see the platform, host and registrar. If the store is on Shopify, Shopify's forms are the main route, even when it uses a custom domain, because Shopify serves the store. The domain's registrar is a separate company you can also report to.

Pick the right form

Shopify's 'Report an issue' page has separate routes for orders, spam, intellectual property, illegal activity, fraud and more. For a store copying your brand, choose Intellectual property, which offers two forms. There is no separate counterfeit option.

Copycat stores usually do both, so you can file both forms. Copyright is often the stronger route because it does not depend on where your trademark is registered.

How to file

1. 1

   Collect the exact URLs

   List every product page that uses your photos or brand. Shopify says a general shop link will not be accepted, so a homepage link alone gets your report rejected.

2. 2

   Capture evidence

   Take dated screenshots with the URL visible, and save copies of the pages. Stores change and disappear quickly.

3. 3

   Fill in the form

   Give your legal name and contact details, links to your original work (or your trademark registration number, countries and classes), the infringing links and a description.

4. 4

   Sign the statements

   Both forms need a good-faith statement and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that you own the rights or are authorised to act for the owner.

5. 5

   Submit, then report elsewhere too

   If the form does not work for you, Shopify's policies give a postal address for Trust & Safety in Ottawa and legal@shopify.com.

Shopify may pass your notice, including your contact details, to the merchant. Use a brand-protection address.

Capture evidence before the store disappears

Copycat stores change prices, products and domains quickly, and some vanish within days. Capture everything before you report, because a report about a page that has already changed is hard to support.

• Full-page screenshots of the homepage and each copied product page, with the URL and date visible.
• Your originals: the product page on your own site and, for photos, where they were first published.
• The store's details: its domain registration date, contact email and any company name in the footer or policies. Our Fake Shopping Website Checker records the domain age, platform and contact signals in one go.
• Ads pointing to it: Meta Ad Library entries that use your brand to send traffic to the store.

If customers bought from the store thinking it was you, ask them for their order confirmation. That supports a fraud report to Shopify and a chargeback with their bank, and it shows the confusion a trademark claim relies on.

What happens after you report

Shopify notifies the merchant in their admin of the content reported and whether it will be removed. Shopify says it terminates stores for repeat infringement 'in appropriate circumstances', and that this extends to every store the same infringer runs. It does not publish a response time.

What to write in the description

The description field is where most reports are won or lost. Shopify's reviewer has never seen your brand, so say plainly what was copied, where, and how to check it. A short, specific description works better than a long one.

Example (copyright): "The store at [domain] reproduces 48 of our product photographs without permission. Each infringing page is listed below, followed by the page on our site where the original photograph was first published on [date]. The photos were taken by our in-house team and we own the copyright."

Example (trademark): "The store at [domain] uses our registered trademark [MARK] (UKIPO [number], class 25; USPTO [number], class 25) as its store name and in product titles to sell clothing we did not make. Customers have contacted us believing it is our store."

List every infringing page, not a sample. Shopify acts on the links you give it, so pages you leave out can stay up.

Counter-notices

• Copyright: if the merchant files a counter-notice and Shopify does not hear about legal action within 10 to 14 business days, the content 'may be reposted'.
• Trademark: the merchant can file a response that accepts the jurisdiction of a US federal court. Shopify then forwards it to you and will 'generally permit' the merchant to repost the content. No waiting period is stated.

Filing either one means giving a name and contact details and accepting a court's jurisdiction, which anonymous copycat operators tend to avoid.

The other routes that take a store offline

Shopify is the most important route, but not the only one. Reporting to several companies at once makes a quick removal more likely:

• The domain registrar, for abuse or trademark misuse in the domain name.
• Google Safe Browsing, which warns visitors in Chrome and other browsers.
• The payment provider, if the store takes card payments through a processor you can identify.
• Meta and TikTok, if the store runs ads using your brand.

Want this handled for you? Our fake website takedown service files with every company keeping the store online, after you approve. You can see real examples in our breakdowns of the CRAFTD and Gymshark copycat stores.