Retailers Struggle with Shopify Ecosystem Costs
Small retailers are experiencing frustration with the increasing complexity and cost of using Shopify. They are finding themselves needing to integrate multiple apps and services, leading to unexpected expenses and limitations on essential features, particularly for businesses operating internationally. This creates a feeling of being nickel-and-dimed and hinders growth.
SOURCES (60)
“I received this today. Does anyone have any idea of this. How to do that for my Shopify website? submitted by /u/SinghSudhir [link] [comments]”
“"interactions but no sales" splits into two different problems, and the fix depends on which one you have. no add-to-carts = product page problem (price, photos, clarity, trust). add-to-carts but no purchases = checkout problem (surprise shipping, forced account, sketchy vibes). check those two numbers before touching the ads — the traffic isn't the bottleneck yet. and if you're still on the myshopify.com subdomain, get a real domain before spending another dollar on ads. it”
“Funny. I came to the Shopify thread to see if anyone else had mentioned anything about Sidekick and this was the first post I saw. I've gotten so much bad information from Sidekick I've decided to stop using it. I just don't trust it anymore. It simply makes too many mistakes.”
“Neither are Shopify apps. Marketplace connect decided to one day stop using formula pricing correctly and started selling all my products for -90%.”
opened it on desktop with devtools open, and there's something way more important than design: your cart looks broken. the snipcart requests are going through web.archive.org URLs (looks like the template came…
“Your successful test proves one checkout path works, not that the 13 shoppers had the same path. Before changing product pages, export those abandoned checkouts and compare them with successful orders by payment method/error, device/browser, location, shipping rate, discount code and final checkout step. Also segment the 122 carts by country and Instagram source; bot traffic can make add-to-cart look healthier than real buying intent. If failures cluster at payment, investigate the gateway/3DS/U”
“We use loop and it’s incredibly good. Has the ability to modify discount percentage on subsequent orders and an api so your dev can update subscriptions at-will with new products, etc.”
“Same here :( Thank you for making this post. I dont know what Google or Shopify did, but it's really upsetting. I changed from Etsy to Shopify and now this. Must be a cruel joke”
“The 0/13 is the tell. Your normal checkout completion is 30-35%, so 13 checkouts should've produced about 4 orders. Zero means checkout itself is likely broken, almost certainly the payment gateway failing silently, not a marketing problem. Test it right now: place a real order on your own site from a phone with a real card. Also check Settings > Payments for any expired credentials or a gateway in test mode, and look at abandoned checkouts to see if all 13 died at the same step. Fix that”
“I am creating a store, and I have linked my feed with GMC through Google & YouTube App. Now I have a house address as my office address in Shopify Google & YouTube App is sending that address as fulfillment location to GMC. What should I do here? Should I turn off location sharing from G&Y App? Or is Google good with that? Because I am not going to ship from that location and I have vendors who are going to ship from their warehouses. Please give some real case scenarios. submi”
“My work switched our website to shopify and it screwed everything up and created a whole lot more work for my team. I hate Shopify submitted by /u/Particular-Dish6174 [link] [comments]”
“Today my Google Merchant Center suddenly exploded from 33 products to over 1,100 offers after approximately 58 country-specific feeds were automatically created. I made no changes in Shopify (Shopify support confirmed no Markets changes were made from my account). Google confirmed the feeds were coming from the Shopify Google & YouTube integration. Putting my International market into Draft immediately caused the feeds to disappear and my catalog returned to normal. I’m trying to determine w”
“After 4 days of going at it in my support ticket, their "technical" team found "backup" version of images saved on my account incorrectly. When an image is modified (compressed, changed to white background, converted in some way) it is stored as a "version". This version is suppose to be stored on a different server but mine were stored on my storage but invisible. We typically compress all images through a free Shopify app that does a great job, but the originals w”
“we recently enabled shopify local delivery for our boutique alcohol store and while the sales have been great, we are starting to get super paranoid about security and chargebacks. we had a sketchy order last weekend where the buyer used a courier service to pick up a high value order and the courier obviously didn't have the original buyer's ID to verify. if we get hit with a sting or a major chargeback for selling to a minor, we could lose our local merchant license entirely. for our p”
“I'm going purely based off what I can see on my end which is content > files. My math is correct, I've done a few times now which is the frustrating part. I was able to get Shopify support on the phone who can look at my retail store, and they were also confused by the math.”
“When i dont get responses from shopify support that are correct, I call then from the Point of Sale number and bother then until they escalate it and fix the problem faster and actually find out whats going on. I feel like they have AI sending out general responses instead of having an actual human look at the situation.”
“I run a fairly large store, and Shopify is claiming I’m out of storage. I unfortunately had to calculate my files manually because Shopify suppose is as useful as a bag of bricks, and even with literal proof of the storage I’m using on my end that I can see, they tell me I’m 22gb over my plan. I’m honestly not sure how I can even go that far past the limit but the system seems buggy. When painfully calculating manually all assets (theme, collection, product, etc) I should have about 220gb of unu”
“Since yesterday, the shipping status of my orders has not been in sync (multiple showing in transit when delivered, etc). Just chatted with Shopify and they report it's a known issue, no ETR and not on the status page yet even though it's been going on for more than 24 hours. Not sure if it's affecting all stores or just certain subsets. submitted by /u/dane0r [link] [comments]”
“Hey everyone, I’m dealing with a Meta over-reporting issue on a Shopify store and wondering if anyone has seen this before. Meta Ads Manager is reporting more website purchases than actually happened in Shopify. Just some examples: One day Shopify had 6 actual website purchases, Meta reported 10. Another day Shopify had 7 total orders, Meta reported 10. Another day Shopify had 9 actual website purchases, Meta reported 13. We ruled out the obvious stuff: Only one Meta Pixel connected Shopify Face”
“Hey everyone, I’m dealing with a Meta over-reporting issue on a Shopify store and wondering if anyone has seen this before. Meta Ads Manager is reporting more website purchases than actually happened in Shopify. Just some examples: One day Shopify had 6 actual website purchases, Meta reported 10. Another day Shopify had 7 total orders, Meta reported 10. Another day Shopify had 9 actual website purchases, Meta reported 13. We ruled out the obvious stuff: Only one Meta Pixel connected Shopify Face”
“Hey everyone, I’m dealing with a Meta over-reporting issue on a Shopify store and wondering if anyone has seen this before. Meta Ads Manager is reporting more website purchases than actually happened in Shopify. Just some examples: One day Shopify had 6 actual website purchases, Meta reported 10. Another day Shopify had 7 total orders, Meta reported 10. Another day Shopify had 9 actual website purchases, Meta reported 13. We ruled out the obvious stuff: Only one Meta Pixel connected Shopify Face”
“I’m in the boring pre-promo testing phase and my brain is cooked. We want to run simple volume bundles on Shopify: Buy 2, save a bit Buy 3, save more Maybe bundle + free shipping threshold Maybe bundle + welcome code Maybe bundle + email/SMS code during promo weeks Nothing crazy in theory. But I’ve seen enough Shopify discount weirdness to know “nothing crazy” can become crazy very fast. The thing I’m trying to avoid: Customer adds 3 items Volume bundle discount applies Then they add welcome cod”
“It creates urls for content, pages, products, you created. That is the normal operation of any CMS. They all do it. None "notify" you.”
“I had a shopify account some years ago and was able to add a collaborator to help with website designing, and didn't have to upgrade my plan. Is that still possible now? Someone is trying to add me to help with the website designing but can't without having to upgrade to the $100 a month plan. Thank youuuuuu submitted by /u/Individual_Contest19 [link] [comments]”
“It would be nice in case Shopify ever suffers a data loss, locks you out, unauthorized agent gains access, errors, etc. The idea of having all the backups in one spot kind of goes against backup best practices.”
“Guys please assist me here! I finally started getting like 3 orders a month on my Shopify store, then Google hit me with a misrepresentation suspension. I do not do anything wrong. They want a video verification. I think they want me to film our setup? Which I can do as we work from home. Any tips guys? Are these types of violations fixable? The bots were behind this mess... submitted by /u/Iwillbeitall [link] [comments]”
“can you please share how are you currently editing your Google Shopping feed? like is it some software on Shopify? or an app like the Google & YouTube one? if you say that for 4 years you haven't faced any issues from Shopify or Google's side, then chances are that recently your product data would have been updated and now it is no longer compliant with Google's guidelines. if you are using a feed management software, then contact their support team informing about the issues. if”
“I’m in the boring pre-promo testing phase and my brain is cooked. We want to run simple volume bundles on Shopify: Buy 2, save a bit Buy 3, save more Maybe bundle + free shipping threshold Maybe bundle + welcome code Maybe bundle + email/SMS code during promo weeks Nothing crazy in theory. But I’ve seen enough Shopify discount weirdness to know “nothing crazy” can become crazy very fast. The thing I’m trying to avoid: Customer adds 3 items Volume bundle discount applies Then they add welcome cod”
“Context: We used Shopify until March this year. The constant instability with the Epson printer or the POS terminal got me so frustrated that we moved to SUMup. It’s cheaper and also not a single issue since. The only two drawbacks are no offline mode and every store needs one account. So my question for all Shopify POS users on android, has the stability improved in the past months ? I don’t want to do tech support every few days again. submitted by /u/SenSnowy [link] [comment”
“There is no 'correct' barcode format for Shopify. POS (actually, the scanner) can generally scan multiple formats, so it's up to the generator of the barcode to decide the format, and there are multiple factors at play.”
“If people are clicking but not buying, I'd check whether the page is removing enough uncertainty. Shipping, freshness, returns, and why you're different should all be obvious within a few seconds. I had a similar issue before, and AMZ global experts pointed me toward looking at the whole funnel instead of blaming the ads.”
“Mine is fine, but another user in my shop (same account, same network, different computers) just let me know hers isn't working. Shopifystatus.com does have a yellow alert for degraded performance on admin and storefront.”
“We are rolling out an NFC membership card across the business. Is there any way to scan this via Shopify POS? We use barcode scanners and iPads at the tills and currently use a POS extension to scan QR codes and Barcodes. submitted by /u/geekstreak2701 [link] [comments]”
“I recently have had a problem with a vendor, and tried to resolve it with the vendor but they didn't respond. So I tried Shopify, and they told me to take it up with the vendor! I did file a complaint and Shopify basically said, thank you, we've forwarded this to the vendor. Has anyone had better luck? Can you advise on how to get results? Please and thanks. submitted by /u/Unlikely-Ad3554 [link] [comments]”
“I’d treat this less like a chat feature change and more like a conversion-friction problem. For quick pre-purchase questions, forcing identity too early is rough. The customer is usually asking because they’re still deciding, so every extra step before they can ask “will this fit?” or “can you ship by Friday?” gives them a reason to leave. A practical way to triage it: keep sign-in required only for order-specific issues where you actually need identity keep general product questions as low-fric”
“Been fighting this issue for weeks. In Meta Events Manager > Diagnostics, I'm getting flagged for: 27% of AddToCart events missing currency/value (Conversions API) 56% of Purchase events with formatting/missing price & currency (Conversions API) Details from Meta's diagnostics show these are all coming through the Conversions API integration , not the client-side Pixel. Some AddToCart events are even firing on my homepage URL instead of the actual product page. I removed a custom”
“Most of my customers just want to send a quick message, like How much would this be?, or can you do this? Update on my order etc Recent changes now require sign in to shop, or the message is sent anonymously. As you can imagine, I now have a inbox list full of questions I can't anwer because a customer can't quickly leave an name/email address. Sure they can drop those details in the chat, but now the side bar is full of "Shop Visitors". How are we supposed to navigate this eff”
“Some version of "GA4 shows 20-30% fewer purchases than Shopify" gets posted here every week, and the replies are usually one guess each - it's ad blockers, no it's consent, no you set it up wrong. I debug conversion tracking on Shopify stores for a living and honestly it's almost never one single cause. So instead of leaving another one-guess comment, here's the full checklist I actually run through, roughly in order of how often each thing turns out to be the culprit.”
“Looks like you're looking for something like this? https://apps.shopify.com/orderline-custom-orders I dont know about the date settings though, im in Australia and in the orders dashboard, the date shows as "09 July at 00:00am" on each order.”
“Bit confused. Used shop.app before with no issue. Maybe it's because I selected DHL Express? Or because I don't have a house number, instead a name? It doesn't tell me what the actual issue is, only that there's "issues" and I have 2 hours to change it. I've tried re-arranging my address into the different address fields but when I click Save it comes up with my choice of carrier and when I select DHL Express it just errors. Note I've already paid for the order”
Same thing is happening to me. What the hell is sandmansales?
“A third party has asked for storefront API access. Should I get them to create an app using a partner account to connect or just use Shopifys headless sales channel to generate the credentials? submitted by /u/geekstreak2701 [link] [comments]”
“hoping Shopify finally realized their developers ruined analytics 18 months ago and fired the whole bunch”
“This is the risk of relying on native platform tools that are an afterthought for the platform. Shopify Inbox is basic and clearly not a priority for their engineering team. We switched to Crisp and the difference is massive. Hugo AI handles repetitive questions automatically, MagicBrowse lets you see the customer's screen when they're stuck in checkout, and the Shopify integration pulls order data right into the conversation. Way more reliable and capable than Inbox.”
“Shipping shock is the one we see most too - people lock in a price mentally on the product page, then the total jumps and they bail. Forced account creation is the close second; flipping to guest checkout usually claws a chuck of that back. And yeah, the default funnel report buries it.”
“I know a common issue was that if you set up sales/discounts/promos for your products and change the base price/compare-at price instead of discount codes (which is a common thing we and other stores do), users who purchase via catalog prices might get a stacked discount.”
“Nine times out of ten it's custom CSS overriding the theme's mobile styles. share a link to the store and I can tell you exactly where it's breaking.”
“Hi, I have an e-commerce apparel site that has been live on Shopify and Google Merchant Center for over 4 years. In the past, there have been no major issues; virtually all SKUs and variations imported correctly, and it’s become a massive sales channel for my business. About a month ago, my products suddenly started popping up with huge errors that are preventing my product from showing (ie, missing shipping weight, missing size, etc). The errors are not consistent either (it’s not like 1 field”
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