Introduction to Shopify Outage
Shopify services were temporarily suspended as an outage in the e-commerce platform disrupted retailers on Cyber Monday, one of the busiest online shopping days of the entire year.
Impact of the Outage
Thousands of Shopify users reported issues with the platform that impacted their ability to do business. Outage reports peaked at around 4,000 at 11 a.m. EDT before tapering off. The company said on its status page that users may have issues logging in or accessing point-of-sale systems, the devices used to process in-person transactions.
Cause and Resolution of the Outage
The company said it was a “system deterioration” that had been “mitigated” and they would continue to monitor the recovery of the system. "We kept checkout and storefronts online, but access to the admin interfaces was temporarily unavailable for some merchants," Shopify said, adding that the issue was "briefly expanded to point-of-service" but that the issue was "quickly resolved."
Shopify’s Role in E-commerce
Merchants use Shopify’s technology to build online stores, process payments, arrange shipping, manage inventory and handle other retail transactions, while the company also provides point-of-sales hardware. Shopify said it had "found and fixed an issue with our login authentication flow" and that it was "seeing signs of recovery."
Timing and Consequences
It’s unfortunate timing for Shopify as Cyber Monday is expected to drive a large number of online sales. Adobe Analytics predicts consumers will spend a record $14.2 billion online, up 6.3% year over year.
