Scam ALERT I joined the leading group back in August after speaking to a representative. When I had the initial meeting with The Leading Group, I came prepared with a list of questions and the representative answered all of them with patience. I ended up deciding to invest in 2 Shopify stores. Be aware as soon as your check is cashed you are on your own and the communication stops. I was told that “most” of their customers make between 6-10k a month PER STORE after about 3 months. They did tell me this number can’t be guaranteed but that it would be close to it and I wouldn’t be disappointed. Well, the disappointment started shortly after I started. Its not exactly hands off, you have to set up the entire shopify store yourself, and when its completed TLG will input the product they chose for you. I was told that ONCE a week the rep’s in charge of my store would have a phone meeting with me to go over sales and protocol. This NEVER happened. Not ONCE. They never reviewed with me products that were being sold or told me before advertising was billed. Over the course of 3 months I lost about 15k. The products being sold are all dropshipped from China. I was told the items ship between 7-10 days of order being placed. This was a LIE. I had angry customers blowing up my phone and email for weeks. Many of which did not have their items shipped for over 3 weeks so I can understand their frustration. Also I didnt know that my personal information would be accessible to them, as I was told TLG manages the stores for you. TLG assigns you representatives for each store and the “communication occurs on an app called Slack. That you also have to pay for. And the communication is rare. Often taking days before I got a reply. Do yourself a favor and stay clear of The Leading Group. REPLY to below response: If you do your research the negative reviews for The Leading Group are all consistent to what I had stated. When I said I was dissatisfied and wanted to shut down my stores because I was putting out more money than I was making every month, they offered no resolution. But I am not surprised by the reply one bit. They contacted me Saturday and offered me a “reasonable refund” if I deleted my review. I didn’t trust this given their reputation, especially since they were asking that I had remove my review BEFORE the company decided what they will refund me. Unfortunately, I wish I did better research before doing business with TLG. Hard lesson learned.

Stay away from The Leading Group... I used this company to help sell products (hired them, really) via an Instagram ad. I initially mentioned that I'd like to make an extra couple thousand dollars, per month. They said that seemed reasonable, after a start up period. I paid a few thousand dollars to them, registered a website, created an Ali Express account, paid for Slack, etc... all the things I was supposed to do. We set up a TikTok business account and I paid for ads. I had an original "account manager," who researched products and (allegedly) tested different marketing campaigns. I had a few sales, but nothing significant... this was after a month or two, maybe. Not totally sure on the timeline. Communication was sporadic. After a while, nothing was happening with the store. No sales, no communication from the AM. I was given a new account manager after about six months... he was very nice and optimistic, spoke about trying new products and new campaigns. But really, nothing major happened. I think I sold a few things. The second manager was more engaged, though... but having a few people add a product to a shopping cart, then not buy anything, doesn't really sound like a successful store. After approximately 10 months, I'd say I spent about $10,000 for the service, the ads, buying and fulfilling the products, the Slack and Shopify accounts. And I think the store probably did less than $1,000 in total business. So, spent $10,000 to do less than $1,000 in revenue... not profit. Revenue. Super bummed. It sounded too good to be true, so shame on me for falling for it. I wanted to be patient but I was tired to paying for the TikTok ads each month. And, in a show of good faith, they didn't charge me the monthly $500 that they're supposed to collect (since there was no activity on the store, they said they didn't make me pay). EDIT: I'm updating my review, based on the feedback from TLG. I had an account for almost a year, not 3 months or 6 months. I was pretty patient. Based on our initial Instagram chats, I was told that breaking even, or even turning a profit in six months, was very doable. They included screenshots of Slack conversations from APRIL of 2023. Almost a year ago.. nothing from the last six months, when I kept asking for updates or when I was given a new account manager. Or when I was told that they would 'investigate' why the store wasn't performing, then I wouldn't get a response.

Very Expensive, Not Worth It, and Low Success I feel strongly that the fee this business charges for store setup is way too high, and not worth it. There are many other companies out there charging much less for the same services. After discontinuing my business with this company and receiving a partial refund of $2k, which was all they were willing to offer, I still feel I vastly overpaid. I have been working with Shopify store managers I hired directly at a low hourly rate, since they're based abroad, and have already found their work to be of higher quality. We have researched many more quality products as well. I wish I had saved my money and tried this out myself. I do not feel like The Leading Group was doing anything that special or value-add for me with such a high startup cost, and then such a high monthly fee. Thankfully I quit before the monthly fee started. I would amend my review if the startup cost had been lower. Now that I see what these services entail and what they are worth, I really did overpay for a store template that was cloned for me, and for a store with minimal success, which mostly only offered one single product, and had typos and bad styling throughout.

TLG is a great company TLG is a great company. I’ve been scammed by others in another automation sector so it’s really nice to be working with manager Jake and his team. In the beginning, things were slow and going through a process of some trials. But Jake has been great with me throughout the whole process, and now my store is seeing some sales and will soon scale. Jake personally helps and is always responsive to my questions and needs. This company really is hands on and cares about their clients success. Will definitely recommend them for all your Shopify automation needs.

Fine, but with reservations I began working with The Leading Group back in October. It took a few products before sales began rolling in during the holidays, but it is possible to break even eventually. It's not as hands off as I was told during the initial call, so be sure to get clear expectations during your onboarding calls. You'll also want to keep an eye on your orders and push them to process it where necessary.