A: What happens when you place an order at our webstore (any order), is that the money is reserved in the payment method of your choice. Then when we ship, we charge the account, and receive the money. The reserve exists to make sure that a) you have enough available to pay us, and b) you don’t spend it on something else before it’s time for us to get the payment.

When the money is reserved, it means it is not available for you to spend via that payment method. For example, if you have a $2000 credit limit, and place a $50 order with us, you now have $1950 of credit you can spend somewhere else (until you pay it off). If your “credit card” is a debit card, sometimes that reserve looks like a withdrawal, but it is not. We don’t actually get the money until we charge the card.

For credit/debit cards, the bank is reserves the money for about a month. Unfortunately, PayPal has a much shorter reserve window, sometimes only three days, or so. This means that, while we prefer to charge when we ship, we actually charge (get the money) from PayPal orders as soon as we see them. Let me tell you, it sucks to ship something, then bill the payment, and discover that it won’t go through.

So the answer is complicated. If you pay via PayPal, we charge it as soon as we see the order. Like a day or two later, whenever we look it over in the system. For credit card orders, we charge just after shipping. But keep in mind the money is reserved as soon as your order is placed.