Sorry, but I think this answer is plain stupid. That is like saying a restaurant should charge, besides service fee, a chef fee, because the chef cooks your food, puts it safely on the plate, make sure that it is not poisoned, and make sure that all guests are fed.
Shopify already charges a fee for using your service. You are charging another layer of fee for a transaction that is eventually cancelled (and the shop owner is not even in control of it). It does not take someone with high intelligence to understand whether this makes sense or not.
Most POS payment systems charge for credit card and digital payment transactions but fully refund the transaction fee if the transaction is cancelled (within a timeframe). Take PayPal as an example (which is notoriously bad enough for their service), they still fully refund transaction fees if a transaction is reversed.
Hate to tell you, but paypal retains their fees even if a refund is given as well. That is why I don’t use paypal. SQUARE is the only service I’ve found that still refunds transactions fees… for up to a YEAR!!
While this is unfair from Shopify, the only option to protect you from such charges is to include them in your Refund and Return Policy. You won’t have any other option than to charge it back to your customer.
Do think this is a flawed justification. The credit cards make profit at a cut of merchant’s sales. However, once transaction is done, merchants may still be subjected to refund situations which may not be of their own fault. What the banks do is to merely ensure that their get the profit regardless if the merchant is actually getting a profit. For reference, the 2 largest online platforms in China Taobao and JD charge 0 fee if the transaction gets cancelled. Not to mention that despite its profit skyrocketing, Shopify increased the monthly fees for at least twice without providing more services to merchants (enlighten me if any). Time to look out for better platform than Shopify.
The reasoning in this answer just doesn’t make sense! Shopify charge the transaction fees when an order is cancelled, even if it’s flagged by Shopify as a fraudulent order. Therefore, the reasoning doesn’t hold true. We just had another order which is clearly fraudulent, but not flagged by Shopify, which they will charge a currency conversion fee of 1.5% in addition to the regular credit card charges.
If an order is cancelled for fraud, it’s only fair that Shopify does not charge transaction fees.
I have been scammed repeatedly by Shopify on the charges on refund. In the last event, I got an order with high fraud alert, and ASSURED BY Shopify customer service that I WOULD NOT GET CHARGED ANY FEE FOR REFUNDING. Yet, when I checked the monthly bill, the charges still came in!!! I contacted CS and they admitted the transcript but still would not refund after multiple communications with them. Like you I am feared of customer who place large order and cancel afterwards. Unfortunately my bank acct is overseas and not the easiest to process cheques from the US. Any other platforms such as WIX / Square / Bigcommerce that does not charge for refund?