An eBay seller who opens their own Shopify store for the first time usually carries eBay's dispute instincts over with them — respond fast, attach the tracking number, wait for a ruling. Shopify doesn't run anything like eBay's Money Back Guarantee process. A Shopify order that comes back as a chargeback goes straight to the buyer's card issuer, on the card network's own rules, with Shopify sitting in the middle rather than deciding anything itself. Different clock, different fee, different evidence a bank actually wants to see.
An inquiry and a chargeback aren't the same event
Before a chargeback ever lands, some card issuers send a quieter step first: an inquiry, also called a retrieval request. A cardholder isn't sure about a charge and their bank asks Shopify for more information — no money moves, and no fee applies while it's open. Respond with what the bank asks for and it often ends there. Ignore it, and the issuer can escalate straight to a full chargeback, which is the version that actually costs money.
A chargeback is the issuer reversing the charge and pulling the funds back immediately, before anyone has ruled on who's right. You're disputing a debit that already happened, not waiting on a decision that hasn't been made yet — which is the opposite order of operations from an eBay Money Back Guarantee case, where eBay reviews evidence before any money moves.
The $15 fee, and when you actually get it back
Every chargeback on a Shopify Payments order carries a flat $15 dispute fee in the US, charged the moment the chargeback is filed — separate from the disputed sale amount itself, the same way eBay's $20 payment dispute fee is a charge for the dispute, not the lost sale. An inquiry carries no fee at all, which is the practical reason to treat one seriously the moment it shows up rather than waiting to see if it turns into something worse.
That $15 only comes back if you win: you submit evidence through Shopify admin, the issuer reviews it, and rules in your favor. Accept the chargeback outright, or lose after submitting evidence, and the fee is gone for good on top of the reversed sale. There's no version of this where fighting a chargeback and losing costs you less than not fighting it at all — the fee is the same either way, so the only reason not to submit evidence is when you genuinely have none worth submitting.
The window is shorter than it looks, and it's not eBay's calendar
Shopify gives sellers a window to submit evidence that runs roughly 7 to 21 days from the issuer's notice, depending on the card network and reason code behind the specific dispute — not a fixed number the way eBay's 5-calendar-day payment dispute response window is. That range exists because Shopify's own internal deadline is deliberately shorter than the card network's true cutoff, to leave enough buffer to actually transmit your evidence before the network's real deadline hits. Evidence goes in through Orders → Chargebacks and Inquiries in Shopify admin, matched to the dispute's specific reason code — generic proof of a good business relationship doesn't move the needle the way evidence that answers the actual claim does.
What a card issuer actually wants to see
The evidence that wins a chargeback depends entirely on what the buyer's bank is disputing, because "the item was theirs and they got it" answers an item-not-received claim and does nothing for a fraud claim:
- Item not received — tracking number and delivery confirmation,
- ideally with a carrier scan showing delivery to the billing or shipping
- address on the order.
- Item not as described — your listing photos and description as they
- existed at the time of sale, plus any buyer communication about the
- item's condition.
- **Unauthorized transaction (the buyer says they never made the
- charge)** — AVS and CVV match results from the original transaction,
- the shipping address matching the cardholder's known address, and, when
- you have it, proof the same customer transacted with you before without
- disputing it. Visa's Compelling Evidence 3.0 framework, expanded in
- April 2026, specifically lets a merchant submit up to two prior
- undisputed transactions from the same IP address or device, dated
- between 120 and 365 days before the current dispute, as evidence the
- cardholder was actually the one buying.
- Credit not processed / duplicate charge — your own refund records
- and, for a duplicate claim, proof the two charges were genuinely
- separate orders.
Evidence that doesn't address the specific reason code on the dispute is close to worthless, even if it's true and well-documented — a perfect delivery scan doesn't help against a claim that the buyer never made the purchase in the first place.
Shopify Protect covers less than the name suggests
Shopify Protect, the platform's built-in fraud tool, sounds like general chargeback insurance and isn't one. It automatically reimburses both the disputed amount and the $15 fee, with no evidence submission required from you, but only for fraudulent or unrecognized-transaction chargebacks on physical-goods orders paid through Shop Pay and shipped within 7 days with tracking attached. Outside that specific combination, nothing about a Shopify Protect badge on an order changes what you owe.
The gap that matters for resellers: Shopify Protect explicitly excludes item-not-received, item-not-as-described, credit-not-processed, duplicate-charge, and subscription-cancelled disputes — which, for most resale inventory, is most of the dispute volume you'll actually see. A buyer claiming a record arrived scuffed or a pair of sneakers never showed up still needs your own evidence submission through the normal chargeback flow, Shopify Protect badge or not. Treat it as coverage for outright card fraud, not a general safety net for buyer disputes.
How this compares to eBay and Discogs
The three platforms PalmFlow connects to each route a dispute through a completely different door. eBay separates a Money Back Guarantee case, which eBay itself rules on, from a payment dispute routed through the buyer's bank — two different processes under one word, with eBay's own seller protection rules layered on top of the bank-routed version. Shopify has no MBG equivalent at all: every disputed charge on a Shopify Payments order goes straight to the card issuer, full stop, with Shopify's own evidence tools as the only thing standing between you and whatever the bank decides. Discogs sits furthest from both — PalmFlow only imports Discogs orders, it doesn't process payment on them, and a Discogs order carries no tracking number at all, so the delivery-confirmation evidence that carries real weight on an eBay or Shopify dispute doesn't exist as a category there to begin with.
A worked example
Say you sell a $220 jacket through your Shopify store, paid by card through Shopify Payments (not Shop Pay), shipped with tracking. Three weeks later, the buyer's bank files a chargeback claiming the card wasn't authorized.
- Shopify notifies you and the $220 is pulled from your account
- immediately, along with the $15 dispute fee — both gone before
- you've submitted anything.
- Because the order wasn't paid through Shop Pay, Shopify Protect doesn't
- apply regardless of how clean your shipping was — this dispute runs
- through the standard chargeback flow.
- You have roughly 7 to 21 days, per Shopify's notice for this
- specific case, to submit evidence in Orders → Chargebacks and
- Inquiries: the AVS/CVV match on the original charge, the delivery
- address matching the cardholder's billing address, and — since this
- buyer ordered from you twice before without ever disputing a charge —
- those two prior transactions as compelling evidence the same person
- made this purchase too.
- The issuer rules in your favor. The **$220 sale and the $15 fee are
- both returned** to your account.
Compare that to the same $220 jacket, same shipping, but the claim is "item not as described" instead — the AVS/CVV evidence that won the first case does nothing here. You'd need the original listing photos and any message thread about the item's condition instead, because the reason code, not the order, decides what evidence actually counts.
What to actually do
- Respond to an inquiry before it becomes a chargeback. It costs
- nothing and nothing has been debited yet — the cheapest point in the
- whole process to resolve it.
- **Match your evidence to the reason code, not to "I did nothing
- wrong."** Delivery tracking wins an item-not-received claim and is
- irrelevant to a fraud claim; know which one you're actually answering.
- Don't assume Shop Pay orders are covered by default. Shopify
- Protect only reimburses fraud and unrecognized-transaction disputes on
- physical goods shipped with tracking within 7 days — the item-not-received
- and item-not-as-described disputes resellers see most aren't in scope
- at all.
- Submit evidence even when you're not sure it'll work. The $15 fee
- doesn't get worse for losing after you fought it — it's already gone
- either way — so there's rarely a reason to accept a chargeback outright
- without checking what evidence you actually have.
- Track the deadline from Shopify's notice, not from the sale date.
- The 7-to-21-day window starts when the issuer's notice reaches Shopify,
- which can be weeks after the original order.
PalmFlow pulls Shopify orders in automatically, including the refunded status once a chargeback resolves, so a reversed sale shows up as a visible gap in your numbers instead of a mismatch you only notice when the bank statement doesn't match what your dashboard expected. It doesn't submit chargeback evidence or interact with Shopify's dispute tools in any way — that process runs entirely in Shopify admin. Free plan, 50 items, no card.
Disclaimer: this is general information, not legal advice. Shopify's chargeback fee, evidence windows, and Shopify Protect eligibility are Shopify and card-network policy, not law, and can change without notice — confirm current terms in Shopify admin before relying on the numbers above for a live dispute.