Shopify Fraud Analysis and Putting Fraudulent Orders on Hold

[bartenderonduty]

We have an integration between our Shopify and our fulfillment center. The app is under the "App development" section of our Shopify, so we think it's a semi-custom situation. With that said, we're encountering issues with fraudulent orders being made on our store. These orders are being automatically sent to our fulfillment center, which is then fulfilled and shipped almost immediately. We need to be able to have orders that trigger Shopify's fraud analysis tool to be put on hold instead of sent to the fulfillment center, so we have time to review and approve/cancel them. After we review, we can then release the orders to be fulfilled, but need some sort of extra step between when the order is placed and sent to the fulfillment center if fraud is detected.

Is there any way to accomplish this?

[JoesIdeas · Accepted solution]

Here's a way to do it:

1. Don't automatically send orders to your fulfillment center, or put a delay on it so you have time to review orders.

2. Use Order Automator to identify high or medium risk orders and either email your staff or cancel the order. This feature is called Fraud Guard, and it's a part of the free plan.

3. Request fulfillment of the order, or do nothing if you have just set a delay in step 1.

If your fulfillment center has a delay set, you could auto cancel high risk orders, then have the customer place the order again if it's a normal order. Lots of people do this, and include wording in the cancellation email (or contact the customer directly) to explain the situation.

Another thing people do, with the same app:

1. Don't automatically send orders to your fulfillment center

2. Create a rule in Order Automator to automatically fulfill orders unless fraud analysis is high

3. Using that fraud feature mentioned above you can investigate the order, and if you decide it's good, then request fulfillment

If you're not sure how your fulfillment works, or what entity is requesting the fulfillment, I would contact the app developer or the fulfillment center. That stuff is all customizable so they should be able to work with your situation.

[bartenderonduty]

Thank you, @JoesIdeas! This is really helpful. 

Follow-up question for you regarding "1. Don't automatically send orders to your fulfillment center, or put a delay on it so you have time to review orders."...

Is there a way to add a delay natively in Shopify? 

We're somewhat reluctant to add a delay, since we have order cutoff times of 2pm ET for same-day shipping, and wouldn't want to miss that window for legit orders. We're also hesitant to add additional plugins as they might weigh the site down, but having the process automated to filter our high-risk orders would be nice.

Please let us know your thoughts!

[JoesIdeas]

I don't know enough about your system to answer on adding a delay, but your best move is to communicate with the person / app behind the fulfillment requests. Since they are responsible for that fulfillment action, they would be in the best position to change that behavior.

Apps can only potentially weigh your site down if they interact with your website / add code to your theme, things that affect the website visitor.

[bartenderonduty]

Thank you for your assistance with this, @JoesIdeas! Very helpful.