When most people think of phishing, they think of suspicious emails asking for passwords. But for e-commerce store owners, there's a more insidious threat: clone sites that impersonate your store to steal your customers' payment information and credentials.
How Clone Site Phishing Works
Scammers scrape legitimate Shopify stores, copying product images, descriptions, pricing, and branding to create convincing replicas. These clone sites look nearly identical to the original. They may use similar domain names (like your-store-shop.com instead of your-store.com) or completely unrelated domains that customers reach through ads or search results.
When customers land on these fake stores, they believe they're shopping with you. They browse products, add items to cart, and enter their payment information at checkout. But the order never ships, and the scammer now has their credit card details, address, and possibly account credentials if they created a login.
Why This Hurts Your Business
Even though the scam happened on a fake site, customers often blame your brand. They saw your logo, your products, your branding. When their order never arrives or their card gets charged for things they didn't buy, they associate that experience with you.
Negative reviews appear on social media. Angry emails land in your inbox. Your brand reputation suffers for a crime someone else committed. Meanwhile, you had no idea the clone site even existed.
The Detection Problem
Clone sites can operate for weeks or months before a store owner discovers them. Without active monitoring, you're relying on customers to report the problem, which usually only happens after they've already been scammed.
By the time you find out, multiple customers may have been phished, your brand has taken a hit, and the scammer has likely moved on to clone another store. Early detection is the key to limiting the damage.
What You Can Do
Educate your customers about how to verify they're on your legitimate site. Prominently display your official domain name in your email communications and social media. Consider adding a note to your site explaining how customers can confirm they're in the right place.
If you discover a clone site, you can file DMCA takedown notices with the site's host or domain registrar. This process takes time, but it's an important step in getting fraudulent sites removed.
How StoreLock Protects Your Customers
StoreLock monitors for unauthorized copies of your store and alerts you when your content appears on other domains. This early detection gives you the information you need to take action before more customers get phished.
If a clone site copies your store including our protection script, StoreLock can automatically redirect visitors from the fraudulent site back to your legitimate store. This means customers who land on the clone get sent to safety before they can enter any payment information. The scammer's phishing attempt fails, and your customer is protected.
StoreLock also offers preventive features: right-click protection makes casual copying harder, while country blocking and IP blocking reduce your exposure to high-risk regions where many clone operations originate.
Protect your customers from clone site phishing. Install StoreLock today for just $4.99/month.