Hi everyone,
I am an independent artist. I paint and create my own posters. I can sell them as digital downloads, and I also sell them through print-on-demand partners who fulfill and ship directly from the United States.
That means my products are either digital (no warehouse needed) or physically shipped from within the U.S. by professional POD companies. Still, Shopify Payments rejected me, saying I don’t have “enough operational presence.”
Meanwhile:
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On YouTube, there are millions of videos of people using Shopify Payments without any problems — many of them with the same setup as me.
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Even here on this forum, I see countless merchants saying they opened Shopify Payments with no issues at all.
And here is the most frustrating part:
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I uploaded over 60 products to my Shopify store.
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I spent weeks providing every document they asked for — including my LLC formation papers, EIN confirmation, and Mercury U.S. bank account details.
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I even provided a physical office address that matches my legal documents.
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I also shared proof of U.S. orders from my Etsy shop.
Despite all of this, today I received a final email basically saying: “No matter what you do, we will not approve you.”
All my effort and time was wasted, and I’ve finally given up. I deleted my account.
I’m sharing this here so others don’t waste weeks like I did, only to face the same discrimination and inconsistency.