Shopify Support & Maintenance

Checkout, cart & payment failures

≈50 tickets · ≈60 email threads

Raised by 9 clients

What clients ask

• “The product price is being wiped from the checkout”
• “Express checkout is skipping a required address step”
• “A paid add-on isn't being charged with Shop Pay”
• “A pay-later option has disappeared for one country”
• “Gift cards aren't being sent to customers”

What it's worth

Sales keep coming in, orders are charged correctly and customers trust the checkout. Fixes are often same-day, with a rollback to keep the store trading while we find the root cause.

“The orders are plummeting… It will just repel customers”

“only been made aware by customers phoning unable to purchase”

“We have noticed a drop off in sales in the last hour”

Site down, errors, slowness & broken forms

≈25 tickets · ≈85 email threads

Raised by 7 clients

What clients ask

• “The site is returning a 500 error”
• “What happened in the platform outage, and do we need to do anything?”
• “The system is running really slowly for our staff”
• “Form submissions aren't reaching our inbox”
• “Our trade portal is down”

What it's worth

Trading and staff keep going, enquiries reach the inbox, and there's a plain-English explanation of what happened. We diagnose host, platform and CDN problems for you.

“We have not been able to process orders since last Wednesday”

Customers can't reach what they bought

≈18 tickets · ≈50 email threads

Raised by 3 clients

What clients ask

• “Downloads aren't appearing for some customers”
• “A purchased video is missing from a customer's account”
• “A customer's past orders have vanished”
• “An order isn't showing in the account area”

What it's worth

Fewer complaints, refunds and support emails. One root cause was a subscription app breaking the account page, and we dealt with that app's vendor.

“not one customer has received their purchase”

Customer complaint triage & diagnosis raised by email

≈10 email threads

What clients ask

• “A customer says they can't log in or see their purchase. Is it us?”
• Causes often found on the customer's side: browser, security software, wrong login, language setting
• “Can you give us wording to send back to them?”

What it's worth

Your team can answer the customer the same day without guessing, and nobody pays for a “fix” that isn't needed. It protects the customer relationship either way.

Ads blocked, fraud & security incidents

≈18 tickets · ≈13 email threads

Raised by 4 clients

What clients ask

• “Our Google Ads were stopped over Black Friday after a ‘compromised site’ flag”
• “We've had a suspicious zero-charge order”
• “Restricted products were bought through a direct link”
• “Hundreds of fake customer accounts are appearing”
• “Our API bill has suddenly jumped”

What it's worth

Paid channels back up at peak season, runaway costs stopped, and products that shouldn't be on sale stay locked.

“it's cost us £3.5k”

Platform deadlines, upgrades & migrations

≈20 tickets · ≈80 email threads

Raised by 6 clients

What clients ask

• “Shopify says we must upgrade our thank-you and order status pages by a set date”
• “Our returns notifications need migrating before the deadline”
• “An API our app uses is being retired”
• “Should we move to new customer accounts?”
• “We've had this notice from Shopify, Klaviyo or Google. Are you on top of it?”

What it's worth

Nothing breaks without warning. Tracking keeps firing, branded emails don't fall back to defaults, and checkout keeps working when the platform changes.

“Well done in dragging it over the line.”

Tax, VAT, legal terms & consent

≈30 tickets · ≈50 email threads

Raised by 8 clients

What clients ask

• “VAT is being charged wrongly on children's products”
• “VAT is being added to wholesale orders”
• “UK VAT isn't coming off for EU customers”
• “We need a terms tick box and cookie consent that actually work”
• “Is our buy-now-pay-later wording within the rules?”

What it's worth

Legal deadlines met, often early (one card-payment rule change was done 10 months ahead), tax charged correctly, and fewer customer disputes.

“we had overstated the tax by around £5,000”

“overpaying our VAT by £2.50 per customisation on junior items”

Trade-rule changes: tariffs, de minimis & duties raised by email

≈14 email threads

What clients ask

• “The US is ending duty-free imports. What do we change, and by when?”
• “How do we get our US store back live?”
• “Can we add a duty surcharge, a warning pop-up and a packing-slip note?”
• “What's our plan for delivered-duty-paid in the EU?”

What it's worth

When the US ended duty-free imports, one client's US market was trading again within 3 weeks, with duties covered and customers warned. US orders arrived the night it went live.

“rather than suspend and potentially lose them forever”

Proactive audits: security, code, speed, SEO we start these

6 audits → ≈157 findings

Run for 6 clients

What clients ask

• Custom web app security audit: 60 findings, 21 urgent
• Storefront Lighthouse audit: 38 findings
• Customer account area code audit: 20 findings
• Speed audit: hero image, script deferral
• SEO backlog: structured data, meta descriptions, share images

What it's worth

Risks you didn't know to ask about get found before customers or attackers do, and turn into a prioritised roadmap with real numbers.

“Google Tag Manager ~1,215 KiB… main-thread work 5.5s”

Accessibility

≈16 tickets, plus audit findings

Raised by 2 clients

What clients ask

• “Can you review the site for accessibility?”
• “Screen reader order is wrong on product pages”
• “Keyboard navigation gets stuck in the menu”
• “Button contrast is too low, and a form field has no label”

What it's worth

More people can buy, including older and less-abled shoppers, and legal risk goes down.

“Text to Speech, Larger Text, Contrasting Colours”

Conversion & customer-journey features

≈75 tickets · ≈20 email threads

Raised by 7 clients

What clients ask

• “Upgrade the cart drawer with upsells and a free-shipping bar”
• “Build a journey that hands customers to a partner for customisation”
• “Add a cross-sell pop-up and an exit-intent offer”
• “Stop recommending rival products on the wrong pages”
• “We need landing pages for audience-specific ads”

What it's worth

Higher conversion and order value, better return on ad spend, and new sales channels launched without a separate project.

“a lot of uncertainty from customer re. what to buy”

Tracking, analytics & ad pixels

≈30 tickets · ≈55 email threads

Raised by 6 clients

What clients ask

• “Meta shows conversions but Shopify doesn't. Which is right?”
• “Install the Bing, TikTok or Amazon pixel”
• “Set up Google Merchant Centre”
• “Move us to GA4 before the old version is switched off”
• “Our agencies' numbers don't match”

What it's worth

You know which ad spend makes money. We also settle arguments between agencies about whose numbers are right, and have found double-counted purchases.

“track all web purchases that have come from Meta ads”

Technical SEO & site speed

≈60 tickets · ≈55 email threads

Raised by 6 clients

What clients ask

• “Run a technical SEO audit”
• “Fix multiple H1s, canonical tags and hreflang”
• “Defer scripts and fix image loading”
• “Google is reporting soft 404s”
• “Our mobile speed is hurting our rankings”

What it's worth

Organic rankings protected or recovered, and faster pages that convert better. Audits turn into months of steady improvement.

“Our organic visibility is getting hammered so we need to get this back up.”

International markets & shipping

≈36 tickets · ≈25 email threads

Raised by 5 clients

What clients ask

• “Set up a separate US store” (with a 20-point go-live checklist)
• “Open three new European markets”
• “Cap the parcel size for international orders”
• “Translate packing slips for our European warehouse”
• “Let customers switch currency”

What it's worth

New countries open and costly cross-border problems are avoided. We also give commercial advice, such as flagging when a shipping rule could be costing international sales.

Members-only & exclusive sales raised by email

≈6 email threads

What clients ask

• “Sell exclusive products to members only”
• “Give one customer group its own portal”
• “A members-only link has leaked. Lock it down” (done in 19 minutes)

What it's worth

Exclusive products reach members without staff sending hundreds of invites, and exclusives stay exclusive.

Emails customers receive

≈20 tickets · ≈14 email threads

Raised by 6 clients

What clients ask

• “Send automated follow-up emails based on what was bought”
• “Send a product certificate after purchase”
• “Brand our payment emails”
• “Set up DMARC before the Gmail and Yahoo rules change”

What it's worth

Fewer “when is my…” calls, reassurance after purchase, and emails that land in the inbox rather than spam.

an “influx of calls” from customers asking what happens next

B2B / trade site scoping raised by email

≈4 email threads

What clients ask

• “Should we run trade on a separate store?”
• “What would Shopify Plus cost us?”
• “What should we plan first: product page, cart or B2B?”

What it's worth

A new trade sales channel planned properly, with platform costs checked, before money is committed.

Editable theme sections & visual polish

≈200 tickets · ≈55 email threads

Raised by every Shopify client

What clients ask

• “An accordion block we can add to any page”
• “Raise the hero banner limit from 5 to 10”
• “Add a colour picker to the theme settings”
• “The contact form text is too pale to read”
• “The cookie banner is clashing with live chat”

What it's worth

Your marketing team changes things without a developer, and the storefront stays polished. These are small, frequent jobs, which is exactly what a retainer suits.

they asked for it to be “amendable by us”

Content, merchandising & seasonal campaigns

≈45 tickets · ≈34 email threads

Raised by 8 clients

What clients ask

• “Build our Christmas shop”
• “Switch the Christmas theme off in January”
• “Launch the new range at a set time”
• “Add a pre-sale label to product pages”
• “Create a new shipping guidance page”

What it's worth

Campaigns and launches go live on the day they're planned, especially at peak trading, without your team touching code.

Product data, imports & feeds

≈20 tickets · ≈75 email threads

Raised by 7 clients

What clients ask

• “Bulk upload products from a CSV”
• “Add product type and category to every product”
• “Draft products are showing on the live site”
• “Sizes are wrong across a whole range, and it launches Friday” (69 products fixed)

What it's worth

An accurate catalogue, working filters and product feeds, and launches that aren't held up by data. You also get a how-to guide so you can do it yourselves next time.

“If one bit isn't right, nothing's right.”

Orders, subscriptions & reporting

≈65 tickets · ≈11 email threads

Raised by 6 clients

What clients ask

• “Orders aren't marking as fulfilled with our courier”
• “Packing lists are wrong”
• “A prepaid subscription ended early”
• “Can we have a report of items fulfilled each month?”

What it's worth

Less manual admin, fewer fulfilment mistakes and recurring subscription revenue protected. The owner gets the numbers they need.

“exactly what we require”

Stock sync & low-stock alerts raised by email

≈12 email threads · ≈210 automated alerts

Raised by 2 clients

What clients ask

• “Connect our stock system to Shopify”
• “Hold back buffer stock before Christmas”
• “Shopify is changing custom apps. Will our stock connector still work?”
• “Alert us when stock runs low”

What it's worth

No more selling stock that isn't there, especially at Christmas and on launch days. Your ops team hears about low stock before it runs out.

“customers buy online only for us to find there is no stock”

Returns rules & returns flows raised by email

≈9 email threads

What clients ask

• “Make one add-on service non-returnable”
• “Pause returns for one country”
• “Send international customers return instructions”
• “Change our returns address”

What it's worth

Returns match your actual policy, market by market, and international customers get clear instructions.

Custom apps & bespoke systems

≈65 tickets · ≈100 email threads

Raised by 7 clients

What clients ask

• “Our job-tracking system isn't showing all jobs”
• “We can't delete jobs, and invoices aren't updating”
• “Change the labels in our product configurator”
• “Personalisation is failing on names with hyphens”
• “Keep our trade portal in sync with our ERP”

What it's worth

The internal tools you run the business on (jobs, invoices, configurators, personalisation) keep working. Support isn't limited to Shopify themes.

the system showed “no jobs… but we have nine”

Store setup, go-live & launch snagging

≈185 tickets · ≈220 email threads

Raised by 8 clients

What clients ask

• “Work through our launch snag list”
• “Check ownership, payments, tax and redirects before go-live”
• “Set up Shopify Payments”
• “Create a new store for another brand”
• “Time the launch to match our stocktake”

What it's worth

You go from “built” to “signed off and trading” with nothing left open: ownership, payments, tax, domains, redirects and snag lists.

“The new site is a triumph – you should all be very proud”

“I'm chuffed with the result and the response online has been tremendous.”

Third-party apps & vendor liaison

≈45 tickets · ≈80 email threads

Raised by 7 clients

What clients ask

• “A subscription app is breaking the account page”
• “A terms-and-conditions app is conflicting with the theme”
• “Our loyalty points app isn't working”
• “Can you deal with our host, payment provider or courier for us?”

What it's worth

One owner who works out whether the theme, an app or the platform is at fault, then deals with the vendor. No blame ping-pong.

“You will need to contact a web developer”

Advice, how-to & training

≈35 tickets · ≈40 email threads

Raised by 9 clients

What clients ask

• “How can I make this seamless for the customer?” (taking payment on a high-value sale, sorted the same day)
• “Is Shopify Plus right for us?”
• “What are the benefits of upgrading Shopify?”
• “Can I check with you before I change this setting?”
• “How do I add a blog post?”

What it's worth

An expert on call. Big sales close quickly, decisions get made with confidence and your team isn't left stuck.

“checking in with you… before I go for it”

“worth speaking to an expert!”

Access, domains, DNS & email setup

≈15 tickets · ≈60 email threads

Raised by 8 clients

What clients ask

• “Give our new team member access”
• “Point our domain at the new store”
• “Set up email on our domain”
• “Reset two-factor login, whitelist an IP or renew SSL”

What it's worth

Nobody gets locked out, launches hit their date, and credentials are handled securely rather than sent over email.

Planning, reporting & seeing where hours go

≈155 email threads

Raised by 7 clients

What clients ask

• “What are this month's priorities?”
• “Can we have a weekly support summary?”
• “What should the website focus on next month?”
• “Can we increase our support hours?”

What it's worth

You can see what was done, what's next and where the budget went.

Billing, quotes & account admin raised by email

≈20 email threads

Raised by 4 clients

What clients ask

• “Can you quote this separately so we can bill it on?”
• “Can we change our monthly support hours?”
• “Can our retainer hours go towards this project?”
• “Our platform bills are going to our old agency”

What it's worth

Budgets you can plan around, quotes you can pass on or get approved internally, and fixed prices for bigger jobs.