Shopify is built for entrepreneurs, from your first sale to IPO and beyond. Our purpose is to empower you, the merchant, to run your business as you see fit and to equip you with the tools and ability to make your own choices. This is how we build and operate our software and we want to be consistent with it everywhere else in the business.

As all entrepreneurs know, when you run a business the buck stops with you. The main rule for using Shopify is: you’re responsible for following the rules of your platform, your partners, and the law. These are the principles behind our expectations in more detail:

        You can’t use Shopify to do anything that’s illegal where you do business.
We understand laws and regulatory frameworks can be complex, but in choosing a market to enter and products to sell, you, the merchant, are making a commitment to take that market seriously, and we trust and expect you to understand applicable boundaries. You must likewise respect that certain business activities are not supported by our platform, such as uploading Protected Health Information subject to HIPAA.

        You can’t breach the social contract of commerce.
There are activities we don’t allow on the platform because they breach the social contract of commerce. This means you can’t call for, or threaten, violence against specific people or groups. And you can’t sell products that facilitate intentional self-harm.

        You need to follow our agreements with you.
While we don’t want to burden you with a lot of paperwork, our Terms of Service are important for how we operate. Our agreements bind you as a merchant and explain the platform rules you must follow.

        Payment Terms (and terms from other add-on products) can also apply.
Shopify offers a range of products and services that leverage partnerships with other organizations. When you use one of these products, you are interacting with an entire supply chain of businesses: for example, Shopify Payments involves an ecosystem of processors, card networks, and banks working together. If you use these services, you need to respect how the supply chain works and what terms are asked of you.

        There are also channel rules that could apply.
Shop sales channel comes with its own merchant guidelines and product eligibility criteria. If you sell on Shop, you need to respect these requirements.

        The most common product eligibility disputes originate from outside of Shopify.
We are a commerce platform: most product eligibility or takedown disputes that entrepreneurs may encounter originate from outside Shopify, including from regulators and third-party IP rights holders. In these circumstances, we’ll give you notice and tools to self-manage your risks and disputes when appropriate.

        We expect you to act in good faith. If you don’t, account-level action may be appropriate.
We don’t like to see people try to “game” systems to avoid constraints they don’t agree with. We also don’t tolerate anyone defrauding Shopify, other merchants, or buyers, using Shopify as a platform to send spam, or for other malicious practices. In those cases, while we try to minimize impact to business as a first-order principle, account-level action is oftentimes more appropriate.

When you build on Shopify with these principles in mind, we will give you notice, grant you opportunities to self-remediate conflicts, default to enforcement at the product level, and take account-level action as a last resort when appropriate. Finally, as with all great products, we expect to iterate on and update these principles from time to time.

If you believe a Shopify user is violating this Acceptable Use Policy, you can submit a report.中文