April 22, 2025
Last week, a Shopify merchant shared their frustrating experience on Reddit about their Shopify account being put on hold after running pre-orders. I thought I'd write a blog post about it so others who are planning to run pre-orders can avoid it too.
The merchant had spent months planning their product launch. They had a group of committed customers ready to pre-order, 3 months out from receiving inventory, and everything is set up perfectly...
...then Shopify put their account on hold after they processed just two pre-order transactions.
Shopify flagged their account and asked for legal business documentation and "proof of inventory". For products that were still in production.
Even after submitting the required documents and explaining they were only doing pre-orders, Shopify's response was basically: "We can't guarantee this won't happen again due to obligations with our banking partners."
What Shopify is doing here is simply managing risk for themselves and their banking partners. When you process payments for products you don't physically have, it usually triggers fraud detection systems:
From a payment processor's perspective, this is the type of pattern they're trained to catch. Given many scammers out there already use "pre-orders" as a way to take money from people (orders that they never plan to fulfill), you can see why automated systems would deem these as red flags.
As for the "obligations with banking partners", Shopify Payments has to follow strict guidelines from their banking partners about acceptable risk levels. Pre-orders without inventory documentation fall into a grey area that makes everyone nervous.
Based on our conversations with merchants who've experienced this, here are the common triggers:
Volume and velocity changes:
Product and inventory signals:
Account history factors:
Communication red flags:
The best time to address this is before you start taking pre-orders on Shopify, not after your account gets flagged.
Before you launch, prepare a "pre-order package" that includes:
You want to be able to immediately prove this is a legitimate business operation, not someone collecting money with no intention to fulfill.
Instead of promising delivery in "3 months," give yourself buffer room:
This protects you from both Shopify's risk algorithms and customer complaints if there are delays.
Consider reaching out to Shopify support before you launch pre-orders:
Having this conversation on record can help if any problems happen later.
If you're reading this because your account is already on hold (sorry to hear that), here's what you can do:
This is where your preparation comes in handy:
In your response to Shopify:
Having been through similar situations with our merchants before, this was the advice I shared with the merchant on Reddit:
"Be super clear about timelines on your product pages. This shows whoever's auditing your store (not just your customers) that you're transparent and have set expectations upfront.
Use proper pre-order infrastructure. Since they needed about 3 months for shipment, using a proper pre-order app would actually help. You get access to Shopify's "Scheduled" order status, which signals to their system that you're running legitimate pre-orders. Without an app, pre-orders default to "Unfulfilled" status - the same as regular orders. From Shopify's risk management perspective, having dozens of "unfulfilled" orders sitting around for months looks exactly like the red flag behaviors they are meant to catch.
Keep and document all communications you've sent to customers AND Shopify Support. You want evidence of how you're progressing your shipment timeline and managing pre-orders professionally. You should proactively send Support an update before resuming pre-orders - staying ahead of potential issues rather than reacting to them.
Once you have some transaction history with pre-orders, you should be fine moving forward."
If you're worried about account holds or have already experienced them, here are some other options to play it safer:
Instead of just running pre-orders:
The key to running pre-orders on Shopify is understanding how to comply with Shopify's risk management. It's really as simple as this.
What works:
What doesn't work:
The merchant who shared their story on Reddit did get the hold on their account removed, but there's no guarantee from Shopify it wouldn't happen again.
The takeaway here isn't "don't run pre-orders on Shopify" (or I wouldn't have spent time writing this...). The takeaway is "be prepared and do it right from the start."
I'm a fan of pre-orders since it's great for a business's cash flow, gauging demand and avoiding lost sales. But like everything else, they need to be used thoughtfully.
If you're planning a pre-order campaign and want some help with your setup (or guidance), connect with me on LinkedIn or get in touch with us at support@shopside.com.au.
