E-commerce platform Shopify encountered significant technical difficulties during Cyber Monday, one of the year’s most crucial online shopping periods, leaving thousands of merchants unable to access their accounts and manage transactions.
The disruption began approximately 9:00 AM Eastern Time, with problem reports escalating rapidly throughout the morning. According to Downdetector, outage complaints peaked around 11:00 AM ET with nearly 4,000 reports in the United States alone, while United Kingdom merchants reported over 2,500 concurrent issues.
The Canadian technology company acknowledged the problem on its status page, confirming that select merchants experienced difficulties logging into their administrative dashboards and point-of-sale systems. These backend tools are essential for processing transactions, adjusting pricing, managing inventory, and handling customer orders—functions particularly critical during high-volume sales events.
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By 2:31 PM Eastern Time, Shopify announced it had identified and corrected the authentication flaw responsible for the widespread disruption. The company reported observing recovery signs across both administrative and point-of-sale login systems, though it continued monitoring the situation to ensure complete restoration.
Despite the company’s characterization of the issue affecting “selected stores,” numerous merchants disputed this assessment, with several reporting that every store in their network experienced access problems. The timing proved especially frustrating for small business owners who had prepared promotional campaigns and pricing strategies specifically for Cyber Monday.
Shopify serves over five million customers globally and processed approximately $300 billion in transactions. The platform supports businesses ranging from independent retailers to major corporations including Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Red Bull. On Black Friday alone, the company facilitated $6.2 billion in gross merchandise value, representing a 25% year-over-year increase.
