Closing and reopening a store

You can close a store when you no longer need it, and — for a short while afterwards — reopen it if you change your mind. Closing stops billing for that store; your data is kept for a grace period before it's permanently removed.

Closing a store

Open the store's Settings tab and use Close store (only the account owner can close a store). You'll be asked to type the store's name to confirm — a deliberate step, because closing takes the storefront offline.

When you close a store:

• Its storefront goes offline — visitors can no longer reach it.
• Billing for that store stops — the subscription is cancelled, so you're not charged for it going forward.
• Its data is kept for a grace period (normally 14 days; longer if a store was closed because a payment failed), during which you can still reopen it. The portal shows the exact date.

The grace period

A closed store moves through a short lifecycle — you'll see these on the store's status (see Understanding your store's status):

• suspended — The store is being closed and taken offline. This takes a few minutes; Reopen becomes available once it's done.
• cancelling — Closed, and in its grace period. Its data is kept and you can reopen it.
• cancelled — The grace period has ended; the store and its data have been removed.

While the store is cancelling, its Settings tab shows how long you have left to reopen it. Once the grace period ends, the store's data is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered — so if there's any chance you'll want the store back, reopen it (or export your data) before the window closes. See Exporting and importing your store data.

Reopening a store

While a store is still within its grace period, open its Settings tab and use Reopen store (again, account owner only).

Reopening brings the store back from its most recent backup — so it returns effectively as it was when you closed it — and it comes back online on its plan. Your subscription resumes; there's no new charge while you're still within the period you'd already paid for. There's nothing else to set up; give it a few minutes to come back up, the same as a restore.

If the grace period has already ended (the store is cancelled), it can't be reopened — the data is gone. You'd start again with a new store, and restore your own exported data into it if you kept a copy.