How to respond to a chargeback on Shopify

The steps

1. Read the notice and find the due date. Shopify emails chargeback notices to the store contact email (Settings, Store details). Open the order in the admin: the chargeback banner shows the reason, the amount and the evidence due date, usually 7 to 21 days after the dispute was filed. After the due date no evidence can be added, with no exceptions.
2. Read what Shopify already filled in. With Shopify Payments, Shopify adds the product details, the customer's name and email, the billing and shipping addresses, the IP address, the fulfillment and tracking details with a tracking PDF, refunds, and the customer's earlier orders and disputes. Do not repeat these; build on them.
3. Decide: respond, refund, or accept. If the customer has a point, a refund during an inquiry can end it before it becomes a chargeback with a fee. If the evidence is thin and the amount is small, accepting may cost less than the time. If you shipped what was ordered to the address given, respond.
4. Add the evidence only you have. Click Add evidence on the order. Shopify's form takes emails and chat logs with the customer, policies with the place where the customer agreed to them, a delivery photo or signature if the tracking PDF lacks one, access logs for digital goods, and archived product listings from the time of purchase. Match the evidence to the reason the bank gave.
5. Write a short response. One claim per sentence, each pointing to a document: the order, the delivery event with its date, the address it went to, the customer's earlier orders, the policy that applied. Quote the bank's stated reason and answer that claim, not a general story.
6. Save, then submit or let the due date do it. Save keeps your work and lets you return before the due date. Submit now sends it at once and locks it; nothing can be added afterwards. If you do nothing, Shopify sends the saved evidence together with its own order information on the due date.
7. Wait for the decision. The chargeback status on the order moves from open to submitted, then to won, lost or resolved. The bank decides, not Shopify, and the decision is final: it cannot be appealed and no further evidence can be sent. If the dispute goes your way, the amount and the chargeback fee return in your next payout.

What the bank is checking, by reason

The one rule for the written response

A bank reviewer checks whether you answered the specific claim. For a not received claim, the question is whether the parcel arrived at the customer's address. For a fraud claim, it is whether the cardholder placed the order. For a not as described claim, it is what the customer was shown and what they received. Write to that question and point to the document that answers it.

Before the next one

RebutCase does these three things for stores on Shopify Payments: it saves listings and policies as they change, lists each dispute with its due date and emails before it, and writes the response from your records with an exhibit cited in every sentence. You still review it and submit it in Shopify. This is general guidance, not legal advice.

• Keep delivery proof for every high value order, and the customer's messages, while they are easy to find.
• Keep a copy of your policies and product pages as they change, so a dispute months later can show what the customer saw.
• Add the due date to a calendar the day the notice arrives; Shopify's email goes only to the store contact address.

Questions merchants ask