[theturtletalks]

Sellers of Shopify are more like sellers on Amazon than they know. Shopify controls what you can sell, what apps you can use, so is it really software for your business or you’re just a cog in its machine to become the next Amazon. I’ve seen so many DTC brands switch to Medusa and Woocommerce with a custom storefront.

[gpm]

> Shopify controls what you can sell

In what ways? I'm sure there are businesses they refuse to support (like any company) but I have a family member running a Shopify store (selling things that you couldn't over Amazon due to logistics) and Shopify

- Doesn't have any pre approval process for products. We can add and edit products instantaneously with no process involving anyone else.

- Has never appeared to care, even when "products" are things like "we agreed on a delivery method over the phone".

I'd also point out that the store owns the brand with Shopify. We could switch out the backend for a different ones and the users wouldn't really notice. You couldn't do the same with Amazon.

[theturtletalks]

Try selling used Apple products which you can on any website or marketplace online, except Apple will contact Shopify and they will unpublish products without even telling you.

You used to be able to install custom Shopify apps on your own store, now they make you jump through hoops. Their ideal situation is an Apple like walled garden where you can only install apps from their store. Had a friend trying to vibecode a custom Shopify app so he could replace one from the App Store that was running him $250/m. It was so confusing that he just gave up. I’m trying to get him to switch to an open-source alternative.

Try selling Vape products or adult products and you’ll see you don’t really control the software. Selling used Apple products, vapes, and adult products is completely legal. Yes Stripe and PayPal can stop you from accepting payments for those products. But why is my business software doing the same?

[gpm]

Shopify not being willing to fight battles to keep supporting stores that other people don't want them to isn't exactly the same as them choosing what you can sell... Though I guess I see some similarity.

> I’m trying to get him to switch to an open-source alternative.

Well if you want an argument in favor between terrible support, glitchy software, huge price hikes, and so on we aren't particularly happy with Shopify either...

[paulddraper]

> Shopify not being willing to fight battles to keep supporting stores that other people don't want them to isn't exactly the same as them choosing what you can sell...

It is the same.

Or rather the latter is inclusive of the former.

[theturtletalks]

Exactly, Shopify as a business can do what it wants. But I will never let software manage my business that I don’t have control over.

[jeromegv]

Even if you have your own stack for software, you still need someone for payments, and that's where it hits you. Shopify was letting Kanye sells nazi merch, they don't give a crap for most things unless it's trademark issues.

[hamdingers]

> I will never let software manage my business that I don’t have control over.

I can't imagine this is actually possible in 2026 unless your business is a something like a cash-only lemonade stand.

[daveguy]

So... They're not choosing what you can sell. They're letting arbitrary third parties choose what you can sell? That seems worse.

[embedding-shape]

Indeed it's worse, and apparently Valve/Steam is the only one who seems to care about something resembling freedom to sell legal things, even if we might subjectively disagree.

[AussieWog93]

> Had a friend trying to vibecode a custom Shopify app so he could replace one from the App Store that was running him $250/m. It was so confusing that he just gave up.

He can vibecode a full Shopify app but not a bash script that uploads it to his Partner Dashboard? I'll admit it's difficult to distribute custom apps widely, but for internal use it's like one TOML file, 3 lines of bash then copy-pasting a link.

> Their ideal situation is an Apple like walled garden where you can only install apps from their store.

On the flip side, like Apple, is that they have a customer base that is actually happy to pay for apps.

[Shank]

> But why is my business software doing the same?

Shopify runs a payment network called Shop Pay, and that network has relationships with the credit card companies like Visa. Honestly how do you expect to transact in goods that almost nobody will do business in? Even if you have the listing, what supported Shopify payment system will do the business?

[theturtletalks]

Yes I know about Shop Pay (it’s a wrapper around Stripe). And just like Stripe and PayPal, Shop Pay gives Shopify the right to stop users from selling certain products.

I’m talking about connecting Shopify to authorize.net (credit card gateway) and a custom high risk processor. In that case, we are not using Shop Pay. But Shopify can still unpublish and restrict what you sell. That’s the issue. No one is saying Shopify has to allow sellers to sell high risk items under Shop Pay. It’s when you connect to a different payment processor.

[ksec]

>Try selling Vape products or adult products

Are these legal in the place they are selling? Or is it against shopify TOS to do so? These two I am not surprised.

>will unpublish products without even telling you.

Giving some benefits of doubt here first. May be someone could explain the rationale behind it. Because on the surface this seems wrong.

[theturtletalks]

As long as you get a high risk payment processor, you can sell these products in the US. But even when you connect this high risk processor to Shopify, they can still stop you from selling certain products. Payment processors are supposed to handle that and if my payment processor is ok with it, who made Shopify the judge, jury, executioner? Why is a software that manages my product catalog and orders deciding what I can sell? If I'm selling something illegal, my payment processor will handle it or the wronged company can sue me. Shopify shouldn't be deciding this.

I mean take a look at how peptides are exploding. It's legal to sell them for research purposes, but you can't on Shopify. Unless you are on Plus and have an account manager and go thru backchannels. Literally Shopify picking winners instead of letting the market do it's job.

[ksec]

That is the assumption Shopify is just software, but it is not. It is a service. And I don't see why a service can't have a choice to choose which customer it wants to serve. Especially in a market with plenty of options.

[ranger_danger]

During Covid we were selling medical PPE on Shopify and they shut us down, along with lots of other people. We weren't price gouging or doing anything shady either.

Instead we setup our own site and were quickly getting large orders for 1 million+ masks per week from big box stores and hospital groups.

https://directpaynet.com/banned-ppe-seller-get-merchant-acco...

[econ]

I read some interesting drama involving YouTube style false copyright flagging at scale.

Don't ask me for details but I got the impression they got just involved enough to maximize harm.

It's not software but a platform which has both pros and cons.

[panos_news]

"I’ve seen so many DTC brands switch to Medusa and Woocommerce with a custom storefront."

How many? A few dozen? lol

[tomnipotent]

The answer is most likely none.

[valdiorn]

Sorry but as someone who has a Shopify store and also sells via Amazon - you are dead wrong.

I have much more freedom with Shopify, it's not even comparable. It's not even apples to oranges, it's apples to calculators.

Amazon places a lot more restrictions on everything, from products, product descriptions, images, it's quite difficult to list original products on Amazon (took me 2 weeks of work to register our product backlog when I started selling via Amazon, despite having GTINs and everything already in place). Cashflow etc is not comparable in ANY way.

Just wanted to call out a blatantly wrong comment.

[jeromegv]

Yep, as a former shopify seller, this read like someone who had no clue and no basis in reality. And yes i have a lot of criticisms of shopify, but for the most part on the product side you can do whatever you want if the payment platforms accept it, this is very different than amazon.

[theturtletalks]

Depends on what you sell. We were in electronic recycling selling everything from Xeon processors and server ram to used iPhones and MacBooks on Amazon. Easy to sell and list, no issues.

Then we realized we weren’t really building a brand on Amazon so we started a Shopify store. Listed the same products and one day just unpublished. Messaged Shopify and they said we can’t sell used Apple products. Send them our Amazon and eBay stores with thousands of sales. Didn’t care. I brought in a payment processor myself, still unpublished. I just built my own Shopify alternative at that point.

In the end, you’re selling products that Shopify deems ok so you’re not going to face these issues. Do you really think Shopify doesn’t have issues just cause you don’t face them?

[zaphar]

I am admittedly not an expert here but this does not at all sound like something that Apple can force Shopify to do. I was under the impression that when Apple does something like this it's primarily because the seller was positioning themselves as an official Apple reseller in some way which they do pretty aggressively police. Did Shopify give you any more details on why they believed they had to delist you?

[theturtletalks]

The same thing happened with our other store.

Because we were in electronic recycling, many items came without batteries or chargers due to fire-risk concerns, so we had to source replacements ourselves. We eventually launched a private-label brand for generic camera batteries, drone batteries, power-tool batteries, chargers, and similar accessories.

Then Shopify unpublished those products too after Canon contacted them, claiming we were not allowed to sell them. But these were generic replacement products, the same kind of items sold by Anker and countless other electronics brands online.

If Canon believed we were doing something illegal, they could have sent a cease-and-desist and gone through the normal legal process. Instead, they went through Shopify’s back channels and effectively skirted due process, using platform pressure to remove products they simply did not want us selling.

But don’t worry, companies like Anker who have resources and pull can still sell them and have online websites. Again, the market is being manipulated and winners chosen.

[tomnipotent]

Or were you doing something shady that was legitimate grounds for Shopify to remove those products? There's a big difference between what you personally think should be appropriate and what laws and compliance requirements consider. It's like the annual HN post about someone that claims Cloudflare shut down their account and eventually it turns out they were clearly doing something against the TOS.

[theturtletalks]

Nope we’re electronic recyclers and work with real certified Apple refurbished sellers across the US. Let me know if you find any Shopify stores selling refurbished MacBooks like we and many other sell on Amazon and eBay legally. Same with generic batteries and chargers.

We ditched Shopify years ago and sell the same things on our Shopify alternative. Host on Railway and haven’t faced issues in more than 5 years, no need for a high risk payment processor either.

[evilfred]

Shopify doesnt block selling Nazi merchandise so idk what control you think they exercise

[theturtletalks]

Nazi merchandise doesn’t have a corporation using back channels to get Shopify to unpublish products.