Frequently Asked Questions

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Partnership FAQs

What are the economics in a partnership?

By default, Retailers keep 33% of every sale they generate through the sale of partner products. Suppliers receive 60% of every sale when their products are sold. Revenue is shared with Suppliers immediately. Custom revenue sharing levels can be set for each partnership. To set custom revenue sharing for a partnership, send us an email at support@honeycombcommerce.com with the revised revenue shares for the Retailer and Supplier roles. We will set the revised revenue shares after confirming them with your partner.

Answers to questions about shipping costs and sales tax can be found below.

What are the fees to use Honeycomb?

If you request access through us, there is no monthly network fee for the first partnership on the network. To form additional partnerships, there is a flat monthly fee of $99 to access the network. You can form as many partnerships as you like with this $99 monthly fee. In addition, the Supplier pays a 7% commission to Honeycomb on each transaction. The revenue share paid to the Supplier is net of our commission fee.

What obligations are required in a partnership?

A partnership is formed on the Honeycomb Network when both parties agree to partner. We've designed our network to allow partnerships to be spun up or wound down at any time with minimal operational effort required by either party. Like any successful partnership, good communication between the parties is required.

Supplier Obligations

How are partnerships formed?

A partnership is formed on the Honeycomb Network when both parties agree to partner. Either party may initiate the partnership by visiting the other party's brand page in the Network.

There are two roles in a partnership: a Retailer and a Supplier. If the parties would like to both sell each other's products, then an additional partnership can be initiated with the roles reversed.

Participants can join as many partnerships as they like serving in any role (Retailer or Supplier).

How is inventory handled?

Inventory is handled by the service. We perform a real-time sync between the Supplier inventory and the Retailer inventory with a buffer added to avoid stockout situations. There are no inventory requirements for any partnership.

Can Retailers sell Supplier products at different prices?

The Retailer cannot sell a Supplier product for a different price without the permission of the Supplier.

Who is responsible for shipping fees?

By default, any shipping revenue collected is not sent to the Supplier and the Supplier will fulfill the order via ground delivery at no charge to the customer. If your partnerships require shipping costs to be sent to the Supplier, we can customize your partnership to accommodate shipping costs.

Order FAQs

What is the flow of a typical order?

Our platform is designed to be seamless and require very little input, if any, from our partners when transactions occur.

Here's a typical flow:

How do returns and refunds work?

If the customer wants to return, they will ship the item back to the Supplier. Honeycomb communicates this return procedure to the customer right after purchase by emailing the customer on the Retailer's behalf. The Supplier will abide by the Retailer's return policy if it is more lenient than its own.

Once a Supplier marks an item as returned, Honeycomb will credit back the customer automatically by marking the item as returned in the Retailer’s admin (which triggers a refund in Shopify). The Supplier’s revenue share is credited back to the Retailer in the event of a return.

Our service is compatible with return portal vendors like Loop Returns and Returnly. Please contact us at support@honeycombcommerce.com for more details.

What are the fulfillment processing time requirements?

Suppliers are expected to fulfill orders within two full business days. Honeycomb reserves the right to suspend Supplier activity on the network should the fulfillment time requirements not be met.

What customer information is included in an order?

The Supplier will receive a complete customer record in their Shopify admin, including email address, phone number and customer address.

How is sales tax handled?

In dropshipping, there are two transactions that take place: The transaction with the actual customer and the transaction between a Retailer and Supplier. We include additional amounts for the Supplier's sales tax remittance efforts on the payments between the Retailer and the Supplier in cases where the Supplier's sales tax settings indicate that tax should be collected (as determined by the sales tax setup in the Supplier's Shopify).

Retailers have the option of providing Suppliers with reseller certificates through our service. The use of a reseller certificate is a common practice in a dropship relationship between a dropshipper (the Retailer in our case) and the Supplier. In "ship-to" States (the State where the transaction is being shipped to) that will accept reseller certificates, Honeycomb will not add additional amounts for the Supplier's sales tax remittance efforts to the transaction payment regardless of the Supplier's Shopify tax settings. Currently, 41 out of 50 States accept resale certificates from any US State when determining a Supplier's tax requirements.

‍Please note that Honeycomb's sales tax calculations are not meant to be definitive and are to be used as a helpful resource only.

How are express shipping methods handled?

Suppliers are only required to fulfill orders via a Ground delivery method regardless of whether the Retailer has accepted the order via an Express delivery method.

If desired, Retailers can easily suppress Honeycomb orders from express delivery methods using apps like Advanced Shipping Rules.

Is the customer informed about who is fulfilling their order?

Yes. After an order is placed, the service sends an email to the customer on the Retailer's behalf to let them know an item in their order will be fulfilled by a trusted partner. The shipment confirmation email will then be sent by the Supplier as part of their normal fulfillment process.

Network FAQs

What's required to join the Honeycomb Network?

Simply install our Shopify app and fill out your store profile. That's it. There is no obligation of any kind when signing up and no development required. We will review your application at this point for inclusion into our network.

Please note that not all brands and stores will be accepted. We are building a network that focuses on the quality and not quantity of participants. When considering an application, we look to see whether the quality of product sold by the applicant matches that of our existing network participants.

If your store does not currently meet our requirements, please feel free to reapply in the future should the quality of your product offering improve to better match our existing network participants.

Can Brick & Mortar stores participate?

So long as the physical store also has an online store presence on Shopify, they can participate!

A typical Brick & Mortar partnership will involve the Supplier sending the store samples of each product to be sold. When the customer wants to buy the product, the store will order it for the customer through its online store, Honeycomb will transmit the order to the Supplier and the Supplier will ship the product directly to the customer.

What control do I have as a brand?

Brands have complete control over who sells their products, at what price and for how long. Retailers are prevented from marking down the price of your products without your consent. Make what ever products you want available and remove them as needed. You can end a partnership at any time.