Giving access to your Shopify online store (staff and collaborator access)

You are probably looking to grant access to a service provider or a member of your team for your Shopify store.

Good news: you're in exactly the right place. I'll explain how to do it, simply and securely.

Before you start, an essential warning:
never give anyone the username and password of your Shopify store's main account.

Why?
Because the main account gives access to absolutely everything:

• customer database
• orders
• products
• payment methods
• critical store settings

In short, if someone has this access, they can literally see everything, modify everything, break everything. It's an unnecessary and dangerous risk.

The good news is that Shopify has anticipated this problem very well and allows you to grant secure access to your back-office through two distinct types of access.

1. Where to manage access in the Shopify back-office?

To manage access, you must be logged in with the main account.

Here's the path to follow:

1. Go to Settings
2. Click on Users

On this page, you will see:

• your main account
• the employee accounts
• the collaborator accounts

For each user, you can precisely define the permissions granted.

2. Account limits based on your Shopify plan

Depending on your subscription, Shopify limits the number of employee accounts:

• Basic: 0 employee accounts (unfortunately)
• Shopify: 5 employee accounts
• Advanced: 15 employee accounts

Collaborator accounts, however, are unlimited.

Another very useful point:
Shopify records an activity history.
From the back-office homepage, you can see who did what and when.

Handy for quickly identifying the author of an error.
It's impossible to say "it wasn't me" 😉.

3. Permissions: how it works

Shopify offers many permissions (products, orders, customers, marketing, apps, etc.). They are generally very explicit, so there's no need to detail them all here.

If you want the exact details of each permission, Shopify has a very good official article: https://help.shopify.com/fr/manual/your-account/staff-accounts/staff-permissions/staff-permissions-descriptions

4. Difference between an employee and a collaborator

1. The employee account

An employee is someone who works within your company on your store.

You grant them access based on their role:

• customer service
• order management
• logistics
• marketing
• etc.

⚠️ Warning:
If you give full access, make sure it's someone you trust.

Good to know: an employee can never delete your Shopify account, but you, on the other hand, can modify or delete their access at any time.

2. The collaborator account

A collaborator is more like:

• a designer
• a freelancer
• a developer
• an agency

In short, someone who is not internal to your company. This is the preferred type of access for any external person.

You might be wondering: "If collaborators are unlimited, why create employee accounts?" Good question.

In reality:

• employees and collaborators have limitations (certain actions remain reserved for the main account)
• but employees can have additional rights, such as refunding orders, managing other users, or accessing more sensitive settings

5. Granting access to an employee (step-by-step)

Here's the procedure:

1. In Users, click on Add user

2. Choose the user type Admin or POS

3. Click on Add users and enter their email

4. Assign a role from the list (or create a new role)
   
5. Select whether or not you want 2-step authentication

6. Click on Save

The employee will receive an email to:

• create their password
• activate their account

Then, you can at any time:

• modify their access
• or delete their account

6. Granting access to a collaborator (step-by-step)

For a collaborator, the logic is different.

Step 1: provide them with 2 pieces of information

• your Shopify store's URL
  example: storename.myshopify.com
• the collaborator code in Settings > Users > Security

Step 2: validate the request

• the collaborator sends an access request
• they generally check the access they need
• you receive a notification on Shopify

It's up to you to:

• check that the requested permissions are consistent
• accept or reject the request

You can then modify the access at any time from Users and permissions.

In summary

❌ Never share the main account

✅ Use employee accounts for your internal team

✅ Use collaborator accounts for external service providers

🔒 Always limit access to what is strictly necessary

This is the basis of healthy and secure management of your Shopify store.