For most eCommerce merchants, chargebacks feel like a holiday problem. 

Traffic spikes. Orders surge. Risk goes up. Then January arrives, and things calm down. Or at least, they seem to. 

What many merchants miss is that post-holiday chargebacks don’t hit in December. They surface weeks later, turning Q1 into the most dangerous part of the chargeback cycle. 

Chargebacks don’t follow the sales calendar. They follow customer behavior, bank processes, and time delays. And those delays push the real impact of holiday sales into Q1. 

January through March is when chargebacks from Q4 purchases typically appear. Quietly. Consistently. And often at the worst possible time. 

By early February, many merchants are already seeing the first wave. The rest hasn’t arrived yet. 

Why Chargebacks Lag Behind Holiday Orders

A chargeback doesn’t happen the moment a customer clicks “buy.”

After a purchase, several things have to occur first. The product ships. Delivery happens. The customer opens it, uses it, forgets about it, or decides something went wrong. Only then does a dispute start. 

For most eCommerce businesses, that timeline stretches 45 to 80 days after the original transaction, depending on the card network and reason code. 

That means orders placed during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and December promotions don’t turn into chargebacks until January, February, or even March. 

By the time disputes appear, the holiday rush is over, and attention has shifted elsewhere.

Why Post-Holiday Chargebacks Peak in Q1

Q1 chargebacks feel worse than Q4, not because volume is higher, but because the business context has changed. 

The disputes are tied to holiday sales, but they land when teams are less prepared to absorb them. 

Q1 looks and feels different operationally. 

• Support teams are smaller after seasonal staffing rolls off
• Marketing spend drops, making lost revenue more noticeable
• Finance teams are closing books and planning forecasts
• Growth initiatives take priority over dispute management

When chargebacks start arriving during this period, they feel sudden and disruptive. In reality, they’re the delayed result of Q4 activity. 

The problem isn’t that disputes increased overnight. It’s that they were always coming. 

The Type of Disputes That Peak After the Holidays

Post-holiday chargebacks aren’t driven by one issue. They’re the result of several patterns converging at once. 

Common causes include:

Unrecognized transactions from gifting

Cardholders see a charge a week later and don’t connect it to a gift purchase. 

Shipping delays that erode trust

Late or stalled deliveries push frustration into January, when patience is lower. 

Return friction after peak season

Shorter windows, slower responses, and stricter policies turn returns into disputes.

Subscription renewals from holiday signups

Free trials or low-attention opt-ins surface as “fraud” claims weeks later. A common form of friendly fraud where cardholders dispute charges they don’t recognize. 

Support fatigue

When answers take so long, customers escalate to their bank instead. 

None of this feels malicious to the merchant. But banks don’t see nuance. They see a dispute, and the burden shifts immediately.

Why Good Merchants Still Lose Chargebacks in Q1

Many merchants assume that chargebacks reflect poorly on their business quality. They don’t.

In Q1, even strong brands with solid fulfillment and responsive support can experience a drop in win rates. The reason is timing. 

Higher dispute volume means teams are stretched thinner at exactly the wrong moment. While the sales peak has passed, the operational impact hasn’t.

Networks and issuers already expect post-holiday disputes. Merchants who struggle are usually the ones who treat Q1 as downtime instead of a delayed impact period. 

The goal isn’t to fight every chargeback harder. It’s to be ready for when they arrive. 

The Takeaway

Holiday sales don’t end in December. Neither does the risk tied to them. 

Chargebacks are delayed by design, which makes Q1 the moment when holiday decisions finally show up on your books. By the time disputes arrive, the sales spike is over, teams are leaner, and attention has shifted to growth and planning.

That disconnect is what makes Q1 feel unpredictable. In reality, the pattern is consistent.

Understanding when chargebacks appear is the first step. Understanding why they happen is what allows merchants to reduce them.

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll break down the specific reasons holiday orders turn into Q1 chargebacks and how small gaps in fulfillment, communication, and post-purchase experience create outsized risk weeks later.