Shopify updates increasingly awful

[Stacy_Longeneck]

Is it just me, or does Shopify in the past couple months continually to publish worse and worse updates that make the user experience worse? 

1) They made it so the search bar is hidden and you now have to click an extra button every time you want to search for a product, order, or filter.
2) The attempt to split out 'on hand' inventory vs 'available' was horribly done, is so counterintuitive, and makes no sense whatseover that "on hand" is the main thing you see. If anything, "Available" should be the first and foremost number displayed.
3) And the icing on the cake, a few days ago it no longer keeps the sales channels checked when I duplicate a product, so I now have to MANUALLY click all the sales channels I want to publish to EVERY SINGLE TIME I make a product, which sometimes is 50-100 products a day, adding a ton of time to my workflow, and creating issues during customer facing sales at point of sale when you go to ring something up and it doesn't scan because Point of Sale wasn't checked as as a channel because you inevitably missed a product or two because you have to click it MANUALLY 50-100 times a DAY!!!!!!!! UGH.

I am getting so frustrated with this mindless, completely useless updates, when we are still missing so many features that would actually be useful, such as the ability to add internal notes to product pages, or hide/publish individual variants on products (just to name a few). Honestly at this rate part of me would consider switching to Squarespace, if Shopify disrespects its users this much and is so out of touch with what we actually need.

Does anyone else feel similarly? I want to start a petition or something...

[Debra_Jambor]

Exactly !!! I hate clicking to get to search. I hate available, on hand, committed for inventory.

It's really screwing me up especially since in admin the bar has to be scrolled across to even see the products inventory. 

It's all a mess, seems like IT guys have nothing to do, just playing with themselves !!!

[Debra_Jambor]

Click Availability then select from drop down to the channels

Once you find they are not on channels select all those products and use the drop menu to add to channels and you can add all the products selected to those channels

don't do it one at a time

[Stacy_Longeneck]

Yeah, but the point is Shopify made an update requiring MORE work for the user, with no benefit whatsoever. I have to remember to go back and double check all the products I added that day and take the extra step to publish them to the POS channel, when before it would just copy the same settings as the previous product when I duplicated a product.

[Stacy_Longeneck]

Couldn't agree more

[iliveinohio]

It's bad....honestly one of the most difficult sites I've ever experienced in finding the support I desire.

• Support is impossible to find (probably on purpose to save $- dark UX pattern)
• It's hard to even find/get to the "Ask a question" for the community
• I try to make a post and it says "Correct the highlighted errors and try again." but nothing is highlighted?
• The Preview button doesn't do anything.
• It continues to say don't share public information and i always have to close that popup, when I saw it the first time.

[QDD]

5 years ago, you could pick up the phone and talk to a person that speaks English and they were also a Shopify user.  They knew how to use the platform from the same side of the screen as you.  You could find solutions together.   It was amazing.   Those days are long gone. 

[BigLaCroix]

I agree wholeheartedly. Our store's been affected by every update, and it's never a positive change.

[Quartz]

Is there a reason we do not receive notice of an update?  

[jenna35]

It's awful, and their filter function to search for how many customers ordered certain products is not intuitive - I've more than once looked for a product, only to find that it includes other products in that count if it's in the same order. The homepage is so empty and the way that you have to refresh the page to see actual live views, instead of it updating by itself is terrible. I would love to have more functionality literally anywhere else, and for some reason this is the update that came out. Not for me.

[Debra_Jambor]

Exactly, I know what you mean about LIVE, we have to constantly refresh.
I use also analytics in realtime and they have an app now too.
It works OK, somewhat better than shopify

[iliveinohio]

I'm trying to contact support today and the chat assistant says I'm in the queue with a typical 5 minute wait time....I've been waiting hours.

Just another mistake I don't see with other companies. If everyone is off today (day after xmas) that's fine but at least notify customers that chat reps aren't available instead of being told to wait around 5 minutes....and hours later noone has answered the chat.

[JakeStevens94]

I concur with the challenges we've faced, ranging from modifications in payment gateway agreements to alterations in APIs and front-end structures. In nearly a decade of building websites, I've encountered unprecedented issues with this platform. The frequency of changes disrupting existing stores surpasses what is considered an acceptable standard in the developer community, where adjustments on the client end should be minimal and changes are to only occur primarily for security reasons.

Numerous articles support this contention. Constructing an API in response to user needs should ideally result in minimal alterations to data transmission and structure, with the exception when concerning security and encryption. A premium product, such as Shopify, demands commensurate quality, yet it falls short in terms of support accessibility, expertise among support agents, and a reluctance to introduce basic features already present in competitor platforms. The reliance on an "app store" exacerbates the situation, with subscription-based apps of varying quality and changing API systems causing disruptions on the app developers end.

[QDD]

My suspicion is that competitors have infiltrated Shopify and they are intentionally sabotaging the platform.  There is no other explanation for the changes they are making.   Each change adds more clicks to tasks.   We are constantly having to hire experts to help us overcome the shortcomings of shopify.   I have been on Shopify full time for 10 years.   The platform was much better 10 years ago.  

[TribeYarns]

Totally agree! And now, they only show up to 12 variants on the product page, so you have to click again and again to see all of them. What are they doing???

[Debra_Jambor]

Yes, and you have to open up your one variant to see the sizes of that
variant with a drop down
another craziness!