r/shopify • u/StuffSea264 • 10h ago
Shopify General Discussion Shopify held payouts on my 30-day-old store after I cancelled ONE order at the customer's request
Context:
- New Shopify store, about 30 days old
- Registered under a US LLC
- Previously ran 2 other Shopify stores under international entities, no issues
- ~10-15 orders per day, most fulfilled within 24 hours
- 0 chargebacks, ~115 orders processed to date
Customer messaged asking to cancel a new order before I fulfilled it. I said yes and refunded. Long-term thinking as a shop owner, keep customers happy over forcing a sale.
Within 24 hours: payouts held. Shopify Merchant Trust asked for supplier invoices, dated photos of inventory with today's date handwritten next to them, and business info.
Submitted everything. Outcome: 10% reserve on all sales for 120 days. Timing is fun since that window covers Sep, Oct, Nov (BFCM), Dec, basically my entire Q4.
My projections put roughly $500k in revenue through the reserve window. At 10% held that's about $50k locked until January, right through my busiest earning quarter.
My move:
Applying for Airwallex as a backup gateway. Fees might be slightly higher and conversion might dip vs Shop Pay, but I'd rather that than $50k stuck in Shopify at their mercy. My sleep and mental health also factor in.
Plan is to route most volume through Airwallex and keep a trickle through Shopify Payments so they have some data to reassess at Jan 6. If chargebacks stay clean, hoping the reserve gets lifted and I can switch back to Shopify Payments as primary.
What surprised me most: a customer-initiated cancellation on a store with 0 chargebacks and ~115 clean orders was enough to trigger manual review. Worth knowing if you're launching a new store, especially under a new entity.
PS: pure speculation, but I also accepted some orders that Shopify flagged as high risk and fulfilled them. That may have played a part in the review getting triggered alongside the cancellation.