Short answer: start with Shopify’s status page, because sometimes it really is Shopify. If checkout shows as working there, place a real order yourself in a private window, then cancel and refund it. When we’ve been called in for this, the trouble has been in how the store takes payment, or in one customer’s account, not in the store’s design. So look at your payment settings, and at any app that touched payments recently, before anyone edits the theme.
What owners usually ask
“Is my site down?” It usually starts with a message from a customer who couldn’t pay, or a quiet day that should have had orders. One owner told us the site felt like it was “on strike”.
That’s a fair place to start, but “down” usually turns out to mean one step: paying. That step depends on three things outside the theme:
- A payment provider that’s switched on and still willing to take your payments.
- The apps that change checkout, such as subscription, wholesale or upsell apps, set up the way the provider expects.
- The customer’s own account, with the tags, prices and discounts it should have.
What’s usually happening
- The payment provider changed or disappeared. A provider gets disconnected, switched off or replaced, sometimes as a side effect of another change.
- The provider stopped accepting the store. Shopify says there are businesses that, while legal, Shopify Payments can’t support. We’ve seen it switch off card payments on a store because of what the store sold. It was about four weeks before that store took cards again, through a third-party card processor. Here’s what to do when Shopify Payments is disabled.
- An app changed how payments work. Recharge, a subscription app we’ve worked with, is moving stores onto Shopify’s own checkout, which it says Shopify requires. For stores with existing subscribers, the card processor those subscribers were billed through, such as Stripe, Braintree or Authorize.net, has to be added in Shopify as a “secondary subscription gateway”, and left there afterward. The step sits in payment settings, which outside help may not be able to open.
- Test mode was left on. Shopify warns that customers can’t place live orders while your payment providers are in test mode.
- One payment button misbehaves. An express button such as PayPal’s can get stuck while card payments still work, or the other way round.
- Only one customer is blocked. A customer with two accounts, or an account missing the tags that give it wholesale prices, sees a broken store while everyone else can buy.
How to check, in about ten minutes
- Look at Shopify’s status page, shopifystatus.com. It lists Checkout on its own line. If Checkout shows an incident, wait for Shopify’s fix before changing anything.
- Place a real order yourself. Use a private browser window and a real card, then cancel and refund the order in your admin. Shopify recommends a test order whenever your payment settings change. Your payment processor may charge a fee for it.
- Try every way to pay. Card, PayPal and any express buttons. If one fails and the others work, you’ve found the part to fix.
- Open Settings, then Payments. Check that a card provider is active, that nothing is in test mode, and read any notice from your payment provider, there or in your email.
- Ask what changed recently. A new or updated app, an email from your payment provider or from a subscription app such as Recharge, a migration someone scheduled, or a theme edit.
- If it’s one customer, check their record. Look for a second account under another email, missing tags, or a discount that doesn’t apply to them.
- Check who can see payments. Shopify treats “Manage payments settings” as a sensitive permission, and only the store owner can edit PayPal Express details. Your developer may not be able to see the setting that broke.
What we found on one store
“I feel like my site is on strike,” the owner of a small brand texted us. Two separate things had gone wrong at the same time:
- a wholesale customer had two accounts, and the one they were using was missing the tags that gave it wholesale access, so to that customer the store looked broken;
- checkout was getting stuck in PayPal Express mode.
Neither one was the site failing. One was in how the store takes payment, and the other was in who the store thought the customer was. We talked the PayPal problem through with the owner on a call.
The next year, the store’s subscription app scheduled a move of its existing subscribers onto Shopify’s own checkout. The owners asked us to check the back end before it ran. The app’s first step is to add the card processor the subscribers were billed through as a secondary subscription gateway in Shopify, and leave it there.
That’s where we hit a wall of our own. Our staff account couldn’t open the store’s payment settings at all. That’s normal, and sensible, because Shopify marks payment settings as a sensitive permission. It meant the owners had to be the ones to look.
What fixed it
- The blocked customer: we added the missing wholesale tags to the account they were using.
- The step we couldn’t see: we asked for the app’s instructions, and to talk with the owner who had scheduled the move. Then we sent the owners the exact settings page and a screenshot of how it should look. They confirmed the card processor was in place.
- The app’s paperwork, on time: we submitted the app’s readiness form for the store on the day the move was scheduled.
What the evidence shows
- The wholesale account: the missing tags were added. We didn’t record the customer’s next order.
- The subscriber move: the owners confirmed, before the move, that the card processor was set up in Shopify, and the readiness form went in on the scheduled day.
- The second store: took cards on Shopify again about four weeks after Shopify Payments switched off, through a third-party card processor.
None of this shows orders lost or saved, or what any of it was worth in sales. We didn’t measure either.
When to bring someone in
Call someone if:
- your own test order fails and your payment settings look fine;
- an app or payment provider has asked you to migrate, verify or reconnect something;
- your payment provider has restricted or closed your account;
- you’d rather have the whole path, from cart to payment, checked at once.