"American version of Double 11" crashes, US e-commerce giant Shopify's stock price plummets

On one of the most important online shopping days of the year, American e-commerce SaaS giant Shopify encountered technical failures, leading to transaction interruptions for some merchants and a significant drop in stock prices, highlighting the vulnerability of e-commerce infrastructure at critical moments in retail.

Shopify experienced service disruptions on "Cyber Monday," with some merchants unable to log into their point-of-sale (POS) systems and other platforms. The company acknowledged the issue on social media platform X and stated that its team was actively investigating and resolving the problem.

As a result of this news, Shopify's stock price plummeted over 6% during Monday's trading, significantly underperforming the S&P 500 index, which fell 0.5% during the same period. This outage occurred during the peak sales period of the U.S. holiday shopping season. According to Adobe, total online spending in the U.S. on that day was expected to reach a record $14.2 billion.

This failure left merchants relying on the Shopify platform for online sales in a difficult position. They were unable to properly monitor sales, track inventory, or provide customer service during peak traffic times, directly impacting performance on this critical sales day.

System Failure Impacts Key Sales Day, Merchants in Trouble

Shopify's system status page indicated that the company was aware of issues affecting some stores, with merchants potentially encountering difficulties when trying to log into the Shopify backend, POS system, and mobile platform. The company also stated that its support contact channels were affected.

According to Downdetector, which tracks network services, the number of users reporting issues with Shopify peaked at around 4,000 around 11 a.m. Eastern Time. By early afternoon, the number of reports had decreased to several hundred. Shopify updated on Monday afternoon that it had identified and fixed an issue with login verification, and there were "signs of recovery" for backend and POS login issues. On social media platform X, many users claiming to be Shopify merchants posted screenshots of login error messages.

"We're completely in trouble, especially on a day like today with such high website traffic," said Myriam Belzile-Maguire, co-founder of Montreal footwear brand Maguire Shoes.

According to her, Shopify's service was interrupted around 9 a.m. and did not resume until about 2:30 p.m. During this time, although customers could still place orders, her company was unable to monitor sales, track inventory, or answer customer service questions regarding shipping.

Increasing Dependence on E-commerce

This incident once again highlights the retail industry's serious dependence on stable e-commerce infrastructure. As consumer shopping habits shift from offline to online, any technical failure can result in significant business losses.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, online sales are expected to account for 16.1% of total U.S. retail sales in 2024, up from 15.3% in 2023. This percentage is much higher in popular holiday gift categories such as consumer electronics and toys.

Sensormatic Solutions, which tracks consumer behavior, noted that foot traffic in physical stores on "Black Friday" decreased by 2.1% compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, according to Adobe, online spending on the day after Thanksgiving increased by 9.1% year-on-year, reaching $11.8 billion. Just as earlier this year, technical issues at Amazon caused service disruptions for millions of U.S. users, the growing reliance on the internet means that any failure could trigger a chain reaction