In what ways? I'm sure there are businesses they refuse to support (like any company) but I have a family member running a Shopify store (selling things that you couldn't over Amazon due to logistics) and Shopify
- Doesn't have any pre approval process for products. We can add and edit products instantaneously with no process involving anyone else.
- Has never appeared to care, even when "products" are things like "we agreed on a delivery method over the phone".
I'd also point out that the store owns the brand with Shopify. We could switch out the backend for a different ones and the users wouldn't really notice. You couldn't do the same with Amazon.
You used to be able to install custom Shopify apps on your own store, now they make you jump through hoops. Their ideal situation is an Apple like walled garden where you can only install apps from their store. Had a friend trying to vibecode a custom Shopify app so he could replace one from the App Store that was running him $250/m. It was so confusing that he just gave up. I’m trying to get him to switch to an open-source alternative.
Try selling Vape products or adult products and you’ll see you don’t really control the software. Selling used Apple products, vapes, and adult products is completely legal. Yes Stripe and PayPal can stop you from accepting payments for those products. But why is my business software doing the same?
Shopify runs a payment network called Shop Pay, and that network has relationships with the credit card companies like Visa. Honestly how do you expect to transact in goods that almost nobody will do business in? Even if you have the listing, what supported Shopify payment system will do the business?
> I’m trying to get him to switch to an open-source alternative.
Well if you want an argument in favor between terrible support, glitchy software, huge price hikes, and so on we aren't particularly happy with Shopify either...
It is the same.
Or rather the latter is inclusive of the former.
Are these legal in the place they are selling? Or is it against shopify TOS to do so? These two I am not surprised.
>will unpublish products without even telling you.
Giving some benefits of doubt here first. May be someone could explain the rationale behind it. Because on the surface this seems wrong.
I mean take a look at how peptides are exploding. It's legal to sell them for research purposes, but you can't on Shopify. Unless you are on Plus and have an account manager and go thru backchannels. Literally Shopify picking winners instead of letting the market do it's job.
I was glad when it finally came back on, after four hours off, so that I could order some material for a job... only to find that my supplier's site wasn't working. It's on shopify.
So too the two the other suppliers I use who offer the same thing I need, so I'm kinda stuffed as ordering from anytime now means I likely won't get my stuff in before the weekend, which is when I was planning on working with it.
Wonderful.
I ask because with the major AI push at Shopify lately, I would like to know if it is affecting stability.
I can't speak to stability but I get the impression it's a poster child for being all in on AI, moreso than other tech companies. By far.
This isn't the first outage and won't be the last but it's one of the most disruptive in recent memory.
All my sites are affected, I guess this is general.
This has to be one of the hardest parts of working there. A bug takes down other peoples businesses.
I hated their CLI tool for app dev because I like tinkering myself, but I would've probably built the same thing in bash, so having a maintained CLI is nice.
Too bad I'm a medior, so there's a low chance they'd hire me ;P
Never worked there, probably never will, but they have my respect for the things I have seen, read and heard.
have found Shopify's AI implementation to be sane and really useful ( building flows and surfacing documentation correctly ).
"Employees must explain why AI can’t be used before asking for additional resources, like more staff or time. [...] Shopify is now factoring AI usage into performance reviews and peer evaluations."
Apparently not
And even then we won't be able to tell if it's because of the AI or because they fired everybody that knows what they are doing.
You will never know. Lots of pretty important people publicly laid down the law that AI must be used; any indication that it produces crap will be hidden.