Shopify faced significant service disruptions on Cyber Monday, affecting merchants during one of the year’s busiest shopping periods. The outage impacted key systems, including merchant logins and point-of-sale tools, causing delays and transaction issues across thousands of online stores.
The incident occurred despite Shopify’s strong performance the previous year, when the platform processed $11.5 billion in sales between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Merchants Locked Out of Accounts and POS Systems
Throughout Monday, numerous small business owners reported being unable to access their Shopify admin dashboards, generate shipping labels, or complete in-store transactions. Customers also experienced checkout issues, prompting sellers to alert shoppers on social media about potential delays.
Downdetector recorded a surge of about 4,000 outage reports at 11 a.m. ET, followed by another spike around 1:15 p.m. ET.
According to Shopify’s status page, the problems centered on:
- Shopify Admin
- Point of Sale
- Mobile features
- Shopify Support
Engineers traced the disruptions to a login authentication issue.
Recovery Begins, But Performance Issues Persist
By early afternoon, Shopify said it was beginning to see “signs of recovery” after implementing a fix. However, full resolution took longer, with several tools still showing degraded performance into the evening.
Updates included:
- 2:31 p.m. ET: Admin and POS login recovery underway; monitoring continues
- 3:38 p.m. ET: Help Center experiencing extended wait times
- 9 p.m. ET: POS, API & Mobile, and Support still not fully restored
Impact on the E-Commerce Giant
Shopify—responsible for powering over 10% of all e-commerce sales in the United States—experienced a 5.8% drop in stock value by market close on Monday.
Despite the outage, Shopify reported strong Black Friday activity. President Harley Finkelstein revealed that the platform generated $6.2 billion in gross merchandise volume on Black Friday alone, marking a 25% year-over-year increase, with categories like cosmetics, activewear, fitness, and nutrition leading sales.
Financial Implications Remain Unclear
The full economic impact of the Cyber Monday outage has not yet been determined. A company spokesperson pointed inquiries to Shopify’s status page as updates continue.
