18 Valuable Feedback from Shopify Users

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Running a Shopify store comes with its share of challenges, and we've been digging deep into what store owners are really saying. Our team spent considerable time combing through Shopify Community forums, Reddit threads, Quora discussions, HackerNews comments, and other similar communities where merchants gather to share their frustrations. What we found wasn't just random complaints – it's actually valid feedback that reveals real demand for solutions.

This process of digging through user feedback is something we do every day when we build our market clarity reports, because understanding pain points is the first step to building successful apps. We've prioritized fresh topics and recent conversations to see which problems remain unsolved today – we're not interested in old issues that have already been addressed.

They are not familiar with Shopify metafields

Metafields continue to be a massive source of confusion for Shopify store owners, and honestly, we can't blame them.

These custom fields are supposed to help store owners add extra information to their products, but the implementation feels like it was designed by engineers for engineers. When we dig through the signals on internet (people leave a lot of useful information when you know where to look and our team is pro at finding this intel), we keep seeing the same frustrated posts about metafields popping up week after week.

Store owners can't figure out how to display them properly on their product pages.

They struggle to understand the difference between product metafields and variant metafields.

The documentation exists, but it reads like a technical manual rather than something a busy entrepreneur can quickly grasp. Many users report spending hours just trying to add a simple "care instructions" field to their products – something that should take minutes, not hours. The pain is especially acute for those trying to migrate from other platforms where custom fields were more intuitive.

This creates a huge opportunity for app developers who can simplify metafield management. This Reddit thread shows someone literally losing their mind over metafields, while Stack Overflow users are desperately seeking help with basic category implementations. Another merchant marked their request as ASAP, showing how critical this becomes when you're trying to launch. The Shopify Community forum reveals even more complexity when trying to use metafields with discount functions.

They often struggle with the limitations of Shopify themes

Theme customization remains one of the biggest pain points we're seeing across all platforms where Shopify users gather.

Store owners feel boxed in by rigid theme structures that don't match their vision. They're paying for premium themes but still can't achieve the unique look they want without hiring expensive developers.

The frustration runs deep because these aren't people asking for complex features – they just want to move a button, change a layout, or add a simple animation. Yet even these basic modifications often require diving into Liquid code or paying for yet another app.

When we build our reports, we go through all the negative reviews of potential competitors to see where there are gaps and opportunities, and theme limitations come up constantly.

What makes this worse is that Shopify's competition offers much more flexible visual builders. Store owners see what's possible on other platforms and wonder why they're stuck with such constraints. This discussion captures the sentiment perfectly, with multiple users agreeing that themes feel outdated. Another thread shows merchants feeling genuinely stuck, unable to express their brand properly.

They see a lot of bot behaviors creating fake traffic on their shop

Bot traffic has become an absolute nightmare for Shopify store owners in recent months.

These aren't just harmless crawlers – we're talking about sophisticated bots that create abandoned carts, skew analytics, and sometimes even attempt fraudulent transactions. Store owners wake up to hundreds of abandoned carts from obviously fake emails, completely ruining their conversion data and making it impossible to understand real customer behavior.

The financial impact goes beyond just messy data. Some merchants report paying higher fees because their plan pricing is based on order volume, and these bot orders count toward their limits. Others struggle with inventory management when bots add items to carts, temporarily reducing available stock for real customers.

The psychological toll is real too – imagine launching a new product and seeing tons of traffic but realizing it's all fake.

We like to score pain points by intensity in our reports because not all problems are problems for which customers are actually ready to pay for, but this one scores extremely high. This merchant describes getting weird large abandoned carts repeatedly. Another store owner is dealing with hundreds of bot orders. The Shopify Community shows this isn't isolated – tons of merchants face the same issue.

They see their store terminated by Shopify without any valid reason given

Nothing strikes fear into a Shopify merchant's heart quite like the sudden store termination email.

We're seeing an alarming number of legitimate businesses getting their stores shut down without clear explanation.

These aren't fly-by-night dropshippers selling counterfeit goods – many are established businesses with years of positive history suddenly finding themselves locked out of their own stores. The communication from Shopify is typically vague, citing terms of service violations without specifying what exactly was violated. Store owners lose access to their customer data, their product listings, and sometimes even funds that haven't been transferred yet. The appeals process feels like shouting into a void, with automated responses that don't address specific concerns.

What makes this particularly painful is the lack of warning or opportunity to correct issues. One day everything's fine, the next day your entire business is gone. This Reddit post shows the confusion and panic these terminations cause. The Shopify Community forum has similar stories, while this detailed account describes the complete lack of explanation provided.

They spend a lot of time on manual inventory tracking and stock management

Inventory management on Shopify feels like it's stuck in 2010, and store owners are paying the price in lost time and missed sales.

The built-in tools are basic at best, forcing merchants to either manage everything manually in spreadsheets or pay for expensive third-party solutions. Multi-location inventory, bundle tracking, and low-stock alerts – features that should be standard – require workarounds or additional apps.

We're hearing from store owners who spend hours each week just reconciling inventory across channels. Those selling on multiple platforms find themselves constantly updating stock levels manually to avoid overselling.

The problem compounds for businesses with variations or bundles – if you sell a gift set containing three individual products, good luck keeping that inventory synchronized automatically. This discussion shows merchants struggling with basic inventory management. Users are asking about whether to use Shopify or QuickBooks for inventory because neither seems complete. This frustrated user can't figure out why their inventory is always off, while others struggle with bulk editing inventory tracking settings.

They lose significant time managing bookkeeping tasks and workflows

Bookkeeping might not be sexy, but it's eating up enormous chunks of time for Shopify store owners who'd rather focus on growing their business.

The platform generates tons of financial data, but organizing it for accounting purposes feels like solving a puzzle with missing pieces. Merchants find themselves manually exporting CSVs, reformatting data, and trying to match Shopify payouts with individual orders – work that should be automated in 2025. Tax season becomes a nightmare when you realize your Shopify reports don't quite align with what your accountant needs.

The integration with accounting software exists but often feels half-baked, requiring manual intervention to fix sync errors or missing transactions. Store owners report spending entire days just preparing financial reports that should take minutes. When building our reports we like to search on different places (Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow, etc.) because it's not the same profile of users and they don't deal with same problems, but bookkeeping frustration is universal.

It's telling that merchants are literally asking if there's an easier way to handle bookkeeping. This community post seeks ways to simplify accounting, while Facebook groups are full of similar complaints.

They have a strong dislike for Shopify's Support team, especially since AI

Shopify support has become a hot topic of frustration, and the introduction of AI chat support has somehow made things worse, not better.

Store owners describe going in circles with bot responses that don't understand their issues, then waiting days for human support that often seems equally confused. The contrast with the old support system is stark – merchants remember when they could get knowledgeable help quickly, and now they're stuck in an endless loop of "have you tried turning it off and on again" level responses. Critical issues that affect sales sit unresolved for days. What makes this particularly ironic is that Shopify's CEO announced plans to massively implement AI across Shopify operations, yet the current AI implementation in support is driving customers away rather than helping them.

Even when merchants finally reach human support, the quality has noticeably declined.

Agents seem to lack the technical knowledge to solve anything beyond basic issues, constantly escalating tickets that then disappear into a black hole. The frustration is palpable in this venting session calling support "officially the worst."

Another merchant simply calls it "the absolute worst." The community forum describes support as "horrendously bad," while this post questions why every case needs escalation now.

They have a strong bounce rate with visitors leaving their site immediately

High bounce rates are killing Shopify stores, and the worst part is that store owners often can't figure out why visitors leave immediately.

They're seeing 70%, 80%, even 90% bounce rates despite having what they believe are attractive stores with good products. The platform's analytics show people arriving but give little insight into why they're leaving within seconds. Is it slow loading? Poor mobile experience? Confusing navigation? Price shock? Without proper tools to understand user behavior, merchants are shooting in the dark.

Some discover their themes are loading massive image files that take forever on mobile connections. Others realize their pop-ups are too aggressive, driving visitors away before they can even see the products.

But many never figure it out and watch their ad spend disappear as visitors bounce immediately. The pain is evident in posts like this one about super high bounce rates. Quora discussions explore why stores have high traffic but low sales, often pointing to bounce rate issues.

They struggle to judge which Shopify Apps are truly useful

The Shopify App Store has become an overwhelming jungle where finding genuinely useful apps feels like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Store owners describe installing dozens of apps, most of which either don't work as advertised or create more problems than they solve. The review system is gamed, with many apps showing five stars despite being barely functional. Merchants waste hours testing apps that promise the world but deliver disappointment. The monthly costs add up quickly – before you know it, you're paying hundreds in app subscriptions for features that should arguably be built into the platform.

Making matters worse, many apps conflict with each other or slow down site performance. Store owners become app collectors, afraid to delete anything in case it breaks something else. In our reports we usually collect between 500 and 1,000+ data points about feedback signals and we then synthesize with summary tables in our market clarity reports, and app confusion consistently ranks as a top frustration.

This merchant with 14 apps questions which ones are actually necessary. Another thread seeks advice from "gurus" about absolutely essential apps.

They deal with frequent Shopify crashes, disrupting operations

System crashes during peak sales periods are every merchant's worst nightmare, yet they're happening with alarming frequency.

Store owners report their sites going down during Black Friday sales, product launches, or viral social media moments – exactly when reliability matters most.

The mobile experience seems particularly unstable, with customers reporting checkout failures and page crashes that directly cost sales. These aren't isolated incidents – multiple merchants report similar patterns of instability. When your entire business depends on your online store functioning, even minor crashes feel catastrophic. The lack of communication during outages makes it worse, leaving merchants scrambling to figure out if the problem is on their end or Shopify's.

Recovery from crashes isn't smooth either, with carts being lost and customer sessions disrupted. This Reddit thread asks why there's so much crashing lately. Mobile-specific crashes are documented in this community post, while another merchant desperately seeks help for constant crashes.

They get burned by opaque Shopify pricing, with unexpected costs

Shopify's pricing structure has become a maze of hidden fees and unexpected charges that catch merchants off guard.

What starts as an affordable monthly plan quickly balloons with transaction fees, credit card processing charges, app subscriptions, and theme costs that weren't clear upfront. Recent plan changes have left many feeling betrayed, with features they relied on suddenly moved to higher tiers. The worst part is discovering these costs after you've already built your business on the platform – switching becomes nearly impossible.

Store owners report their actual monthly costs being three to four times higher than the advertised plan price.

International sellers face even more confusion with currency conversion fees and varying rates by country. This merchant feels burned by recent pricing changes. The opacity of pricing is questioned in this detailed post seeking clarity on actual costs.

They want to connect with other Shopify store owners for advice and support

Running an online store can be incredibly isolating, and Shopify merchants are desperately seeking community and peer support.

They're looking for honest advice from others who've faced similar challenges, not generic tips from gurus selling courses. The official forums help, but merchants want deeper connections – mastermind groups, local meetups, or even just someone to bounce ideas off. Many describe feeling like they're reinventing the wheel, solving problems that thousands of others have already figured out. The lack of built-in networking features within Shopify's ecosystem forces merchants to seek community elsewhere.

This need for connection goes beyond just problem-solving. Store owners want to celebrate wins, commiserate over failures, and learn from each other's experiences. They're seeking mentorship and guidance that goes deeper than YouTube tutorials.

This community post seeks advice for organic traffic. First-time store creators are asking for guidance, while Facebook groups become gathering places for mutual support.

They struggle with Shopify SEO, finding it difficult to drive organic traffic

SEO on Shopify feels like fighting with one hand tied behind your back, according to frustrated store owners trying to compete for organic traffic.

The platform's rigid URL structures, limited control over technical SEO elements, and duplicate content issues make ranking difficult. Merchants watch their competitors on WordPress or custom platforms outrank them for keywords they should own.

Basic SEO tasks that should be simple require apps or custom coding. Want to edit your robots.txt file? Good luck. Need to implement proper schema markup? That'll be another app subscription. The blog functionality is so basic that content marketing becomes an uphill battle. Store owners spend fortunes on paid ads because they can't crack the organic traffic code, turning what should be a sustainable business into a constant scramble for ad spend.

We're doing a lot of market research for Shopify Apps so builders can make sure they develop something people actually want, and SEO tools consistently emerge as a desperate need. This Reddit discussion highlights SEO struggles. Merchants are confused about whether Shopify handles SEO automatically. Quora users share optimization tips, revealing how much manual work is required.

They sometimes see traffic but no conversions

The nightmare scenario: hundreds or thousands of visitors, but zero sales.

This conversion crisis affects countless Shopify stores, leaving owners questioning everything from their products to their pricing. They've invested in ads, SEO, and social media to drive traffic, but visitors browse and leave without buying. Analytics show people are visiting product pages, even adding items to cart, but something stops them from completing purchases. Without proper conversion tracking and user behavior tools, diagnosing the problem becomes guesswork. Is it trust? Payment options? Shipping costs? The checkout process itself?

Store owners try everything – redesigning product pages, adding reviews, offering discounts, improving photography – but nothing moves the needle. The psychological toll is brutal when you see traffic numbers that should translate to sales but don't.

Many describe feeling like their store is fundamentally broken but not knowing where. This post captures the frustration perfectly. The community forum shows visitors not even adding to cart. Another thread documents lots of traffic with zero conversions. Quora discussions explore why conversion rates stay below 1%.

They see their Shopify Payment account being paused or disabled

Having your payment processing suddenly disabled is a merchant's worst nightmare come true.

Store owners wake up to find they can't accept payments, with vague emails about "review" or "verification" that can drag on for weeks.

Legitimate businesses with perfect track records suddenly find themselves unable to process orders, watching sales disappear while Shopify's risk team takes their time. The lack of transparency about what triggered the review or how long it will take creates massive anxiety and business disruption. Some merchants report having funds held for months without clear explanation.

The appeal process feels kafkaesque, with requests for documents that were already provided and circular communications that don't resolve anything.

Alternative payment processors require technical integration that many merchants can't handle quickly. Multiple discussions like this one seek answers about disabled payments. Reddit users share similar experiences. The community has ongoing threads about payment issues, with dropshippers particularly affected.

They struggle with setting up a Shopify store for the first time

First-time store setup on Shopify has become overwhelmingly complex, leaving new merchants feeling lost before they even launch. What Shopify markets as "simple" feels anything but simple when you're staring at hundreds of settings, theme options, and app recommendations.

The platform throws everything at new users at once instead of guiding them through a logical progression. New merchants don't know whether to focus on products, design, payments, shipping, or marketing first – and trying to do everything simultaneously leads to paralysis.

The learning curve is steep, with technical jargon and assumed knowledge creating barriers. Many give up before launching, overwhelmed by the complexity of what was supposed to be an easy entry into e-commerce. This frank assessment calls Shopify confusing and hard to setup. Another user admits setup was harder than expected. New users are struggling with basic account setup, while this Quora post reveals confusion about connecting to Shop Marketplace.

They struggle with CSV files when importing or exporting their product data

CSV imports and exports should be simple, but they're causing massive headaches for Shopify merchants trying to manage their product catalogs.

The format requirements are incredibly strict, yet poorly documented, leading to countless failed imports and corrupted data. Store owners spend hours formatting spreadsheets perfectly, only to have imports fail with cryptic error messages that don't explain what's wrong. One misplaced comma, an extra space, or a special character can break everything. The system doesn't handle variations well, struggles with images, and requires specific column headers that aren't intuitive.

When exporting data, merchants find that crucial information gets lost or formatted incorrectly, making it nearly impossible to edit in bulk and re-import.

Those migrating from other platforms discover their product data needs complete restructuring to work with Shopify's requirements.

This Reddit thread discusses dealing with inconsistent fields in CSVs, while another post questions why CSV creation is so complicated and manual. The workflow typically breaks when merchants try to update inventory levels, add new variants, or modify prices in bulk – tasks that should take minutes but often consume entire days of troubleshooting.

Several apps try to fix this issue, but even they struggle with Shopify's underlying limitations and often introduce their own quirks.