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How to Send Product Samples to Influencers on Shopify

Ship product samples to influencers in bulk from Shopify. Upload a recipient list, suppress notifications, apply free shipping, and generate orders automatically.

Influencer Seeding Sends let you mail product samples to your list of influencers, franchisees, partners, etc. Upload your address spreadsheet, verify products and addresses, select a shipping method (or free shipping if you don't need a shipping rate) and generate your orders. You'll have a single place in Shopify to keep track of all your marketing sends and save tons of time manually managing these bulk orders.

This guide walks you through uploading your influencer list and generating orders. Unlike Corporate Gifting Sends (which require invoicing and payment before orders are created), Influencer Seeding orders can be generated whenever the Send is ready.

Looking for the invoicing workflow?

If you need to collect payment before generating orders, see Creating a Corporate Gifting Order instead.

Before You Start​

Prepare a spreadsheet with influencer contact details. See Formatting Your Upload File for column requirements and best practices.

Step 1: Details & Upload​

  1. From the Sends dashboard, click Create Send.
  2. Enter a Send name (e.g., "Q1 Influencer Samples").
  3. You'll need to specify a billing customer for the send. You can make this yourself or another internal account sponsoring the mailing. If they're not listed as a customer in your store, you can add them here.
  4. Select Influencer Seeding as the send preset.
  5. Click Upload File and select your spreadsheet (CSV, Excel, or Google Sheets URL).
  6. Confirm the column mapping. Send To Many auto-detects headers when possible. Review the preview and adjust any incorrect mappings, then click Continue.

Step 2: Review Products​

If your file included product columns (SKU or a product or variant name):

  • We match each entry to your catalog.
  • Review matches. If we find multiple matches or variants, we'll give you the short list to choose from. Click any unmatched product to search your catalog and assign manually.
  • Customization per influencer: If different influencers should receive different products, adjust the product assignment for each row.

If your file didn't include products:

  • Select a product to send to all influencers. Everyone receives the same sample.
  • To send different products, add a product column to your file and re-upload.

Once all products are matched, click Continue.

Step 3: Validate Addresses​

Send To Many validates every address against USPS/postal databases.

  • Valid addresses are marked green. No action needed.
  • Addresses needing review show yellow warnings (e.g., missing suite number, unclear format). Review the suggestion and accept or edit.
  • Invalid addresses are marked red. Click the Try Autocomplete button to edit the address and search for a valid match by typing in the Address 1 field. Or you can Exclude the influencer if no valid address is available.

Address validation runs automatically. Once all addresses are resolved, click Continue.

Step 4: Review Shipping (Free)​

The Influencer Seeding preset applies free shipping to all recipients by default, so this step will be skipped, with a shipping cost of $0 applied to each order.

Need calculated or custom shipping?

While Influencer Seeding defaults to free shipping, you can change this in your send preset settings. See Send Types and Generation Settings for details.

Step 5: Finalize & Generate Orders​

Review the Send summary:

  • Number of influencers
  • Total product cost (no shipping charge)
  • Product breakdown

Before processing orders, review your shipping notification settings. By default, Influencer Seeding suppresses all Shopify order and shipping confirmation emails — influencers won't receive any automated messages from Shopify. If you want influencers to receive tracking information, you can override this per Send. See Shipping Notifications for details on notification options.

Click Process all orders. Orders generate immediately — no payment step, no approval needed.

What Happens After You Finalize​

Once you finalize the Send, orders are created right away:

Recipient orders generate for each influencer in your spreadsheet. Each order contains their shipping address and products, tagged and configured according to your Influencer Seeding send preset settings.

Shipments are created according to your fulfillment settings and workflows — print labels, route to your 3PL, or fulfill however you normally process orders.

Influencers receive no notifications by default. If you've changed the notification settings to send to recipients, they'll receive shipping confirmations with tracking links as orders are fulfilled. See Shipping Notifications for how to configure this.

You can monitor progress from the Send summary page, which shows fulfillment status, tracking numbers, and delivery statuses for each order. You can also download a CSV export with all tracking IDs and delivery statuses.

If any orders fail to generate, you'll see them in the Send summary with error details. You can retry failed orders individually or in bulk.

Influencer Seeding Defaults​

When you choose Influencer Seeding, these settings are applied automatically:

  • Shipping cost: $0 (free to all recipients)
  • Recipient notifications: Suppressed (influencers do not receive order confirmation or tracking emails)
  • Inventory: Orders draw from your inventory
  • Order cost: $0 (from the recipient's perspective)

You can customize any of these defaults in your Send Presets & Settings, or override them on a per-Send basis.

Next Steps​

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