Shopify hit by major outage as users report global disruption

Thousands of Shopify users have reported widespread problems accessing stores and managing accounts.

The disruption appears to have struck during the middle of the trading day, with outage tracker Downdetector recording a sharp spike in complaints, peaking at nearly 3,000 reports shortly after 2pm UK time.

Merchants reported being unable to access product pages, manage storefronts, or even log in to their accounts, with many encountering repeated “500 Server Error” messages.

One user wrote: “Getting all sorts of error messages about permissions, etc, then now just a bunch of 500 errors for any store I try to log in to.”

Another said: “Can login but can’t navigate to a Product page. I just keep getting a ‘500’ error.”

The scale of the disruption quickly raised concerns among online retailers, particularly those spending heavily on digital advertising while their stores remained inaccessible.

One frustrated merchant wrote: “Anyone have an idea on the actual issue and estimated time on it being resolved? Have a considerable daily ad spend that is being eaten up.”

Early indications suggest the problems are not confined to Britain.

Several Shopify partners reported issues affecting stores across multiple continents, fuelling speculation that the outage may stem from a wider infrastructure problem rather than a fault within individual websites.

One user claiming to manage stores in several countries said: “This is not isolated to the UK. This is happening to stores globally that I manage, UK, Malta, US and Australia.”

The same user added that stores were alternately displaying messages stating “This store does not exist” and “Server 500 Error”.

Shopify, operated by Shopify, powers millions of online stores worldwide and is one of the largest e-commerce platforms on the internet.

For retailers dependent on uninterrupted online sales, even a brief outage can have significant financial consequences, particularly during periods of heavy advertising activity.

As engineers race to restore service, merchants around the world are waiting for answers — and hoping the disruption proves short-lived.