How can I handle order fulfillment after recovery from a serious accident?

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

A store owner suffered severe injuries in an October car accident (broken neck, ribs, arm, dislocated foot, and other injuries), requiring 5 weeks of hospitalization and extended recovery. During this period, orders went unfulfilled, leading to angry customers and multiple chargebacks.

Current situation:

  • Shopify Payments account has been suspended
  • PayPal imposed a 30% rolling reserve due to the absence
  • Shopify Capital continues daily automatic deductions from the account, even while on government benefits
  • Unable to fulfill incoming orders without access to payment funds
  • Support contacted 5 days ago with no resolution yet

Recommendations provided:

  • Use the password page feature to pause the store during future emergencies
  • Delegate store management to trusted friends/family during recovery periods
  • Enable a third-party payment gateway as an alternative to Shopify Payments
  • For Merchant Cash Advance products, remittance only occurs when sales are made
  • Focus on gradual order fulfillment and transparent customer communication

The discussion remains open with the owner seeking ways to restore payment processing and resume business operations.

Summarized with AI on November 1. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
2

Hi, @Pamela_Gormley

First, I want to express my sincerest empathy for the awful car accident you experienced. I hope you have/had a speedy recovery.

Unfortunately, however, if your store remains active while you go through personal issues, you are still responsible for the orders that are placed with your business. In these situations, we recommend you have a friend log in to your account and enable your password page and pause your store while you recover. If you wish to continue your business it’s best to delegate these tasks to a trusted family member or friend.

In regards to your Shopify Capital, my advice would depend on what capital product you have. Do you have a cash advance? Or perhaps a loan? The terms of repayment differ between products. For example, if you have a Merchant Cash Advance you will only remit a portion of your sales each day. If you don’t have any sales, there is no remittance.

You should, however, be able to enable a third-party gateway moving forward. For a list of available gateways that work with Shopify, you can refer to this document.