How to Report a Fake Shopify Store Copying Your Brand

To report a fake Shopify store copying your brand, send evidence to Shopify and the store’s domain registrar on the same day, and expect a replacement. Shopify can close the store and the registrar can suspend its address, so whichever acts first takes it offline.

TL;DR

Check which platform the store is built on.
If it is Shopify, use Shopify’s own report: trade mark, copyright or fraud.
The same day, report it to the registrar, to the host if it is not on Shopify, and to the browser warning services.
Find out how shoppers are reaching it, and report that route too.
Watch for the replacement.

Step 3, and the chasing after it, is the slow part. We can run it for you. Report a live fake store and one of our team phones you. Reporting is free.

Is the fake store really on Shopify?

Check before you fill in Shopify’s forms. In December 2022 a merchant told Shopify’s community forum that a customer had found their products and logo on another site, selling for much less. A Shopify staff member pointed them to the copyright form, adding: “we are unable to disclose whether or not a store is hosted on our platform.” A week later the merchant was back. The site was not on Shopify at all, and a report to the domain’s registrar had got it flagged as fraudulent and taken offline.

Shopify can act only on stores it hosts, and as that reply shows, it may not tell you whether it hosts one.

Open the fake store on a computer, view the page source (in most browsers, right-click the page and choose View Page Source) and search it for “shopify”. A Shopify store almost always loads files from cdn.shopify.com, and many also mention a myshopify.com address. If you find “woocommerce”, it is most likely a WooCommerce store, built on WordPress. “wp-content” alone shows WordPress, which WooCommerce runs on. Don’t enter real details in the fake’s checkout or contact forms while you look.

The answer decides who can take it offline:

On Shopify: Shopify hosts the store and can close it. The registrar can suspend the domain.
On WooCommerce: WooCommerce is free software that runs on whichever web host the store’s owner picked, so there is usually no WooCommerce company to report it to. The host and the registrar are your route.
On anything else: the same, the host and the registrar.

We have seen the same split. For an upmarket US e-commerce brand, the first seven fake stores we found ran on two platforms: two on Shopify and five on WooCommerce, built from two different kits, as if two separate operations were behind them. Their domains were registered with registrars in four countries. A plan built around Shopify’s forms would have reached two of the seven, and there was no single company to report the stores to.

Which Shopify report to use

Shopify’s report a merchant page lists the ways in. Three fit a fake store using your brand, and each wants evidence, so capture it first: our guide to a cloned website lists what to screenshot and what not to touch.

Trade mark, for a store using your brand name or logo. Shopify’s trademark notice asks, for each mark, for the countries it is registered in and its registration number, and for a statement, under penalty of perjury, that you own the mark or are authorised to act for the owner.
Copyright, for your product photos, descriptions and other content copied onto the fake. The copyright notice asks for links to your originals and to the copies. If the form won’t submit, Shopify’s copyright policy gives legal@shopify.com as an alternative.
Fraud, for a store taking money for goods it doesn’t send. Shopify describes this route as being for merchants “engaging in scams or fraudulent activities”.

Shopify’s trade mark and copyright notices share a rule that catches people out. You have to list each page that carries your content because, in Shopify’s words, “a general shop link will not be accepted”. For a fake carrying hundreds of your products, that is hundreds of addresses.

Shopify generally tells the store’s owner what was reported, and the owner can respond. None of the Shopify policy pages we read says whether the person who reported it hears the outcome, which is one more reason not to wait on it.

Report it everywhere else, the same day

Shopify’s forms are one queue. Send the other reports the same day, so the store comes down whichever company acts first.

The registrar that sold the domain can suspend it, which takes the store off that address whatever platform it is built on. The domain’s public registration record usually names the registrar and its abuse contact.
The host, if the store is not on Shopify: the company whose servers run it.
The browser warning services, which can put a warning screen in front of shoppers while the rest is under way.
The authorities, for a record: our cloned website guide lists where to report, country by country.

This is the slow part. Shopify wants every copied page listed, one address at a time, and may not tell you what happened. The registrar and the host each have their own forms and queues, and some will point you elsewhere. Then someone on your team, usually whoever found the fake, has to keep checking, because a ticket can be closed while the store is still taking your customers’ money.

Or let us do the chasing. If a fake store is live now, report it through our urgent help page and talk it through with us. If you go ahead, we send the evidence to every place that can act on it, follow each one up and keep checking whether the store is still up.

How are shoppers finding it?

Ask the customer who told you about the fake where they found it, because each route in has its own report.

Adverts and search results. A Censuswide survey of 2,001 UK adults, published by National Trading Standards in November 2025, found that 14% of respondents who shop online had been scammed after buying something through an advert on a search engine or social media. Report the ad to the platform that ran it, and the fake’s pages to the search engine that is showing them.
AI answers. ChatGPT answers have included links to fake copies of real UK stores. When AI sends your customers to a fake store covers what a brand can do about that.

We don’t remove ads, social posts or marketplace listings; report those to the platform they are on. When an ad or a post sends shoppers to a fake store on its own web address, that store is within what we cover.

Expect the next one

Taking a fake store down costs whoever runs it one domain. We saw that with the brand above: more fake stores appeared after the first seven, and 14 had been taken down by the end of its second week with us.

So once this one is reported, start watching for the next, rather than waiting for the next customer email.

How DefendDomain finds fake stores and runs their takedowns

DefendDomain watches for lookalikes of your shop’s domain and for copies of your store’s pages, even on addresses with no trace of your name, whichever platform the fake is built on. A lookalike can be flagged when it is registered, before there is a store on it, and taken down once a store goes live on it. When that happens, one click from you starts the takedown and we run the rest, then keep watching for the store to come back. If you would rather, we make that click too.

For the brand above, the first fake store was flagged within nine hours of monitoring going live. The brand’s takedowns used to go through its lawyers, and now we run them. Read the case study.

Run a free scan to see whether lookalikes of your shop’s domain are already registered, or see how we stop fake online stores.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a registered trade mark to report a Shopify store?

Shopify’s trademark notice asks for each mark’s registration number and the countries it is registered in. Without a registration, you can still report copied product photos and text through Shopify’s copyright notice, if you own them, and report the store through Shopify’s fraud route. A fraud report to the domain’s registrar or host rests on evidence of what the site is doing, such as taking payment while posing as you.

How can I tell if a fake store is built on Shopify?

View the store’s page source and search it for “shopify”: Shopify stores almost always load files from cdn.shopify.com. If you find “woocommerce” instead, it is most likely a WooCommerce store on WordPress.

What if Shopify does not respond?

Keep checking whether the store still loads, rather than waiting for a reply: the Shopify policy pages we read don’t say whether the person reporting is told the outcome. If Shopify’s copyright form won’t submit, its copyright policy gives legal@shopify.com as an alternative.

Can a fake WooCommerce store be taken down?

Yes. WooCommerce is free software that runs on whichever host the store’s owner picks, so the report goes to that host and to the domain’s registrar, with evidence that the store is posing as you. In our e-commerce case, five of the first seven fake stores were on WooCommerce.