So being that Shopify has a 1MBB program it’s the last place that I would expect to feel targeted, but something has happened, and it continues to bother me. I think I just want to hear feedback from store owners especially 1MBB store owner’s as to what you would do. I was taking this very seriously and working very hard to set the stage of my store prior to proceeding with opening the store and executing my business plan. I did a great amount of coding to add features that shopify didn’t have to the Dawn Theme which the Winter Release had within a week or so after this incident, that might be coincidence but its still in the back of mind like (did they?)
Anyway, I was annoyed because google kept locking me out of my account for days at a time and when setting up payments, shopify automatically switched into 2-Step Verification which went through google so I ended up getting locked out of shopify and missing days of opportunity to work on finishing the store.
I spoke with Chat. Within 5-10minutes Shopify emailed me saying my store was frozen, I have to remove items that I had added from dropshipping websites and get a high-risk merchant if I wanted to sell certain items. The store been opened, it was behind a locked password, nothing had been sold, there was test sell without test mode. Only I and Shopify, would have ever seen the store at this point. They had me remove a Tupac shirt, I didn’t really get because I didn’t read anything regarding it before I began design the store but ok maybe that’s not allowed just remove it. So, then there were tasteful adult high-end adult products (unlike current adult products that I would say are graphic but are currently being sold on Shopify) and was behind a wall so that buyer would know they’re entering an adult section and should be 18 because again I read the T&C it said nothing ****agraphic and that was perfect because I had no intention of selling stuff like that only things that other curated blogs were selling and that’s one of the categories of wellness. I also read the blog about selling adult-toys and it said some people got special merchants it didn’t spell out that this was a requirement; when I looked at the examples which I thought were borderline graphic I thought I’d certainly be ok.
Getting high-risk merchant seemed “high-risk” as a new business IDK that understood everything that might come with that category well enough to make that decision of investment, and I sold other things too, so I just decided to put that on the back burner, don’t sell them until I have more education and the store is making money, problem solved. But then they picked at me more saying I couldn’t sell the Pink duffle bags that are all over Amazon, Ali Express, Etsy, Temu etc. because it was a Victoria Secrets product when it “in fact” is not, they don’t sell pink duffle bags, that’s why Amazon the stickler of all sticklers allows them to be sold. When I sent the info. to show it’s not a knock-off they didn’t respond. The next message was your store and your domain are kicked off of Shopify and your funds are frozen (which didn’t hurt me because the store was never opened, there was a test sell that’s it) I you could feel that this person ‘wanted’ me to be upset, damaged and combative. I still don’t understand why this was done “Despite My compliance.” The store was very much Afrocentric in its messaging and model choices and very elegant, it ‘feels like’ that was an issue. And again, all this happened, this freeze, this review of an unopened store, and this what feels like harassment happened within 10-15 minutes of the customer service chat. Nothing was said out of line or disrespectful in the chat that warranted retaliation. Items ordered removed were removed. Items that were instructed not be sold without a high-risk merchant were not sold and Shopify (not any brand) accused me of brand infringement where there was none, and they were not required to back that up with anything more than an accusation from a guy whose probably never walked into pink. It still feels very much like “We’ll teach you that you don’t have a right to complain and show you what we have the power to do to merchants that complain about us” not only that were not going to accept your compliance, because what we really wanted is to upset you & have some type of back in forth, so that we feel powerful and you’re just taking this as a learning opportunity and making the corrections - so boop terminated. I still feel… “Targeted.” Finally, the timing of the winter release with features I had setup in my store by learning to code them like multi-row: I had my categories beautifully stacked that way and the AI generator with the exact symbol and interface that is now in dawn and full-length video uploads became possible. Again, maybe they were already setting up for that, but they weren’t there the few days or weeks prior when I had to code all that into my theme. I’m not even sensitive like that. So it’s bothering me that it still bothers me lol.
Was I wrong if I made the corrections when they were pointed out to me and is it cool that a Shopify employee said, an item is a knock-off, but it wasn’t and still closed my store? Am I being over-sensitive or are they in the wrong? If it was standard procedure, why do I still feel targeted like the ‘big guy’ had to show ‘the little guy’ whose boss and how do you have an 1MBB program at the same time you have this behavior towards new black SBO? What would you do?