Product seeding, defined
Product seeding means giving product away to people with an audience (creators, influencers, stylists, editors) without paying them and without a contract that requires a post. The bet is simple: if they like it, they will wear it, use it or talk about it, and their audience will notice.
Nothing is guaranteed. Some gifts turn into posts, many don’t, and that is part of the deal. What makes seeding work is sending the right product to the right people, often enough, without losing track of what went where.
Seeding vs paid deals, affiliate and UGC
The four are often mixed up because they involve the same creators. The difference is what the creator gets and what they owe you.
| Model | The creator gets | They owe you | You pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product seeding | Free product | Nothing. They post if they want to. | Product and shipping |
| Paid partnership | A fee, often plus product | Agreed deliverables, such as posts on set dates | The fee, product and shipping |
| Affiliate | A commission on the sales they drive | Nothing fixed; they earn when they sell | Commission on attributed sales |
| UGC | A fee for content | Content you can use, often without them posting it | The fee, sometimes product |
Many brands combine them: seeding to find the creators who genuinely like the product, then paid or affiliate deals with the ones who post.
Why brands do it
- Real reactions. A creator who posts without being paid is saying they like the product. Their audience reads it that way too.
- Finding the right creators. Seeding is a low-cost way to learn who fits your brand before you pay anyone.
- Content. Posts from people wearing or using your product show it in real life, not in a studio.
- Cost you control. You pay for product and shipping, not fees, and you decide how many gifts go out.
How a seeding program works
- Pick creators. Look for fit with your product and audience, and check where their audience lives: a gift to a market you don’t ship to rarely pays off.
- Reach out. Ask before sending. Confirm they want the product and get their size and address.
- Choose product and sizes. Either you choose, or you let them pick within limits. Letting them choose avoids most wrong-size gifts.
- Ship. Create the order, ship it and keep the tracking.
- Track posts. Note who posted, where and when.
- Measure and repeat. Look at cost per post and reach, keep sending to the creators who post, and stop sending to the ones who never do.
What it costs
Seeding is cheaper than paid deals, but it is not free. Budget for:
- Product, at what it costs you, not its retail price.
- Shipping, plus duties and taxes when you send across borders.
- Packaging and any inserts or notes.
- Time: outreach, chasing sizes and addresses, creating orders, tracking posts. In a manual process this is often the biggest cost.
- Mistakes: wrong sizes, lost parcels and gifts to people who never wanted them.
- Tools, if you use any.
What to measure
- Post rate: of the gifts that arrived, how many turned into at least one post.
- Cost per post: product and shipping divided by the posts you got.
- Reach and views of those posts.
- Spend by campaign and market, so you know where the budget went.
- Repeat posters: the creators who post every time you send.
- Sales signals such as codes or links. Useful, but seeding also works through people who see a post and buy later another way, so don’t judge it only on attributed sales.
Common mistakes
- Sending without asking. Unwanted parcels are wasted product and can annoy the creator.
- Guessing sizes. The wrong size almost never gets posted.
- Keeping it in a spreadsheet only. If gifts don’t go through your store as orders, stock and cost drift away from reality.
- Treating a gift like a contract. If you need guaranteed posts, that is a paid partnership.
- Forgetting disclosure. In the US, the FTC’s guidance for influencers asks them to disclose when a brand gave them free or discounted products. Rules differ by country; make it easy for creators to comply.
- Never following up. A short thank-you and a note about what is coming next keeps the creators who post close.
Product seeding on Shopify
On Shopify the cleanest way to send a gift is a draft order with a 100% discount. It is a real order: stock goes down, the cost is booked, and it ships through your normal fulfillment or 3PL like any other. Tag those orders so you can keep them apart from sales in your reports.
Doing that by hand for every creator means collecting sizes and addresses in messages and building each draft order yourself. That is the part apps automate.
With Zeedy, each creator gets one gift link. They either pick products and sizes on your store within your limits, or open a cart you filled. The codes apply on their own and they check out for €0.00 with their address. Each gift is a Shopify draft order at 100% off, and spend rolls up by campaign, market and tier. Zeedy is free for 5 seedings a month; see pricing.