On Monday December 1, Cyber Monday, one the key trading days in Shopify’s business year, the Canadian e-commerce solutions giant suffered a major tech malfunction. The crash blocked access to the web management interfaces of thousands of e-shops, both in the USA and Europe.
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According to specialist site Downdetector, the first issues were observed in the morning. The malfunctions hit a peak at 11 am US Eastern time (5 pm CET), when over 4,000 crash notifications were reported simultaneously. The issues continued through the early afternoon, since 2,400 users were still reporting access problems at 12:37 pm.
According to Reuters, the incident chiefly affected US users, but European users too were hit. A peak of 2,500 crash reports in the UK was recorded at approximately 9:45 am EST (3:45 pm CET).
Shopify’s crisis unit indicated that the problems didn’t only translate into failure to access e-commerce interfaces. Many physical retailers were reportedly unable to accept payments via their POS terminals, blocking all transactions in the brick-and-mortar stores connected to the Shopify ecosystem.
“We have identified and corrected an issue in our connection authentication flow, and we are now seeing signs that administrator and POS connections are being re-established,” stated Shopify on Monday. A huge number of DNVBs and small businesses use the Canadian tech company’s e-tail solutions.
In North America, Cyber Monday is the year’s most important day for online shopping. Even more so this year, thanks to the growing use of AI-based shopping tools. ChatGPT recently made it possible to buy from third-party sites directly through its platform, raising questions about the future of SEO indexing for brands and e-tailers on the web.
