Risk Control Like a Dog - Complete Guide with Four Major Solutions After Your Shopify Store is Banned! (Includes Permanent Free Trial)

Well, well, well, once again, thanks to those who chopped down the tree, we who come after are suffering.

Shopify's recent risk control is like a mad dog: 1) Registered accounts get banned as soon as the store is opened without doing anything, 2) Even with complete documentation, Shopify Payments won't open, 3) Successfully opened Shopify Payments accounts get banned after a few successful orders.

But don't worry, relax, as I've shared with you before about my experiences, getting banned throughout the cross-border e-commerce process is a common occurrence. With so many fellow sufferers out there, don't PUA yourself; the most important thing is whether we can find follow-up solutions, rather than immediately being knocked down.

Other solutions, here they come? I'm carrying 4 fresh sets of solutions, running quickly to deliver them to individual sellers in despair.

What's Wrong with Shopify? What's Wrong with Shopify Payments?

I've been watching newcomers in our group try to enter Shopify, with rights continuously declining and risk control gradually going crazy.

For example, the 3-month $1 trial period was adjusted to 1 month, which is fine since it was basically free anyway. (But there are new promotional activities recently, everyone can check them out.)

Other life-threatening rights declines include but are not limited to: the basic plan's Markets quantity is limited to 3, making it impossible for everyone to operate international markets in a refined manner (extremely critical); store employee accounts are directly cancelled, limited to only 1 login.

Risk control is currently the most critical issue, and the difficulty of opening Shopify Payments is extremely high. I've always emphasized in newcomer guides that Shopify Payments is a must-open, and since it requires an overseas entity, it's already a barrier that stops many newcomers before risk control even kicks in, making things even worse for newcomers.

Solution 1: Bombard Shopify Customer Service

A simple and unadorned method.

You need to constantly send emails and communicate online with Shopify customer service through various channels, stating your position and requests. (Premise is that everything you do is legal and compliant.)

I've seen some group members who kept sending emails, and customer service reopened some channels for submitting information. Regardless of whether it ultimately succeeds, at least you've tried.

Solution 2: Other SaaS "Alternatives"

In internet technology, China may not be that great in terms of innovation capability. But when it comes to practice and application stages, Chinese programmers and internet practitioners can roll you up to the sky, both in terms of user experience and cost-effectiveness.

Even though Shopify is currently the comprehensive No.1 in independent site SaaS, there are still some excellent domestic site-building SaaS platforms worth trying.

1. Shopline Payments

A few months ago, Shopline directly stopped supporting domestic entities from opening their own Shopline payments. But based on current information and experience flow, in terms of qualifications, it supports entities from the US, UK, and Hong Kong regions of China, and the opening process is relatively smooth and friendly.

(Currently only experienced the UK opening process; currently known that US entities require SSN/ITIN, EIN alone won't work! And for second review, a specialist will come to you, requiring proof of cross-border e-commerce transaction flow.)

2. Shoplazza Payments

Currently only supports entities from Hong Kong (China), the United States, and Canada.

Additionally, although both are leading domestic DTC SaaS platforms, Shoplazza's transparency is weaker; I couldn't even find its payment processing rates on the official website. And when I experienced it and wanted to open Shoplazza Payments, there wasn't even a formal entrance; I had to contact customer service to fill out a form, which is a bit of a black box.

3. Others: Shoppy, Shoptop, etc.

None of these have deep cooperation with payment and collection financial institutions, meaning they don't have their own payments channels and require binding third-party services.

Summary FAQ: So Which One to Choose?

Since the background of this article is solving payment channel issues and store ban problems, my personal view is:

• If your products are extremely compliant, and you have overseas entities from the US, UK, Hong Kong (China), etc., then: Shopline > Shoplazza > Others
• If your products are borderline, and you have your own resolved payment channels, then you choose the reverse. Others > Shoplazza > Shopline

(This ranking doesn't represent product level rankings; it's also just a personal opinion, please judge for yourself or refer to official information.)

The core logic is, think about why payments are difficult to open. Whether it's Shopify or any SaaS, the underlying layer is just those few network payment institutions: Stripe, Airwallex, etc. So if SaaS parties want to deeply cooperate with these institutions, they must have extremely high requirements for their own stores' compliance. Otherwise, if all under them are non-shipping, high-copy, customer complaint chargeback stores, who would want to play with you?

The rest depends on your comprehensive usage experience, customer service response speed, and other personal feelings.

Solution 3: Shopify + Third-Party Payment Processing

If Shopify Payments won't let you use it, then let's try others.

Payoneer, Airwallex, Stripe, etc., as long as you hold an overseas entity, you're actually qualified to apply for all of them.

But there will definitely be more or less disadvantages:

1. From a conversion and user experience perspective, what about payment redirection and payment success rates? Will they be affected?

2. The fee rate will be charged 2% more by Shopify.

3. For example, Stripe, if you're in a region that can open SP (Shopify Payments), you might not even find Stripe. (Of course, if you really want to find it, you can.)

4. SP comes with currency conversion, seamlessly eating the global market.

But regardless of how many disadvantages there are, being able to use it and solve our problems is already very good.

Solution 4: Wordpress + Various Payment Processing

This is a relatively last-resort option, because WP's difficulty directly discourages many cross-border e-commerce independent site newcomers. But in the long run and for those who love to learn, this is actually a better solution, because:

1. It might have lower fees than any SaaS.

2. It's much more free. Regardless of what products you choose, at least no SaaS controls you; you only need to handle payment processing and freight forwarding.

Moreover, you'll find that WP's difficulty is actually not unsolvable. First, you can put more effort into learning and practicing yourself. Second, we can also spend a small amount of money to hire domestic site-building service providers to quickly build a set of at least usable sites.

Difficult Passes, But We Pass Them All

As I've mentioned in all my tutorials, the cross-border e-commerce independent site journey will definitely not be smooth sailing easily. Everyone will encounter pits and sticking points; my existence is to hope that those sticking points at least have solutions, rather than being stuck there unable to move; and also to hope all 0-1 newcomers step on fewer pits. At the same time, I hope to comfort you, give you some positive energy, don't PUA yourself or blame related service providers and shovel sellers, because this is a normal phenomenon. Don't give up, keep fighting.

As a potentially affected party, I grit my teeth at those who destroy the independent site ecosystem (although I'm still trying to propose some solutions for such groups, but I hope they can be influenced by me and learn to do long-term sustainable business) because their existence, first, causes more and more overseas users to distrust the independent site shopping experience. Second, it makes various platforms and links increasingly unfriendly to independent site sellers. Chopping trees before, suffering after. And when the environment and ecosystem deteriorate, besides us sellers suffering, don't upstream service providers suffer too? If sellers all lose money, who will still use Shopify for site building?

But precisely because of the increasingly high barriers and the increasingly difficult-to-establish user trust, it will actually benefit those who insist on doing the right things and insist on doing business with sustainable value even more. Naturally existing barriers and moats can filter out countless potential competitors. If the store can't even be opened, or if it's opened but they're not willing to settle down and operate well, and can't sell, then they can only say bye-bye.

Not Really a Benefit, But a Benefit: "Permanent Free" Experience for Shopline, Shoplazza, Shopify?

Since I've applied to be a Partner for the above platforms, I can apply for test stores, and except for not being able to go live and operate, you can almost try and play with them for free indefinitely.

How can this help you?

• Experience each platform's site-building operations without pressure. If you feel it's not good, just give up directly; anyway, we haven't spent a penny.
• If you play with it for a few days and find it somewhat interesting, you can then slowly do decoration for free indefinitely, saving some potential monthly fees, until you decide you want to go live, then pay and officially launch.

Therefore, if you need to experience them, please DM me. (Transparent declaration: I may potentially receive benefits from the above Partner Affiliate programs.)