Checkout Error

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

Issue: Customize the checkout error shown when shipping costs can’t be calculated.

Update and guidance:

  • A community member suggested using Shopify’s Default Theme Content tool to edit checkout/system messages.
  • Steps: Online Store > Themes > … > Edit default theme content; filter by “Checkout and System”; search for “shipping” or “shipping error”; edit the specific message text.
  • Limitation: If the error isn’t listed in theme content, it can’t be changed. Screenshots were provided to illustrate the navigation and filters.

Outcome:

  • The requester located the default message and replaced it with a more appropriate text.
  • Note: The in-tool search (e.g., Ctrl+F) did not find the message; scrolling/filtering helped locate it.

Status:

  • Resolved. The error message was successfully customized via theme content.

Context notes:

  • “Default Theme Content” is a Shopify feature to edit built-in theme texts (including some checkout/system copy) without code.
  • Remaining caveat: Not all checkout errors are editable if they don’t appear in the content list.
Summarized with AI on December 29. AI used: gpt-5.
1

We need to change the Error message a customer receives at checkout when the the site cannot provide the shipping cost. I had a long chat with a Shopify customer service, following is what came back "Shopify support Advisor. I wanted to reach back out to you and let you know that I’ve had my team look further into your request and at this time Shopify does not directly offer the ability to change the error messages that occur at checkout.

This does not seem logical, Can anyone assist?

2

Hi there, @Joseph42 . Thanks for taking the time to reach out to the Shopify Community, outlining your situation with attempting to change this error message. My name is Imogen. It’s good to meet you!

I can’t speak to the conversations you had with our Support Team previously (we’re unable to authenticate folks here in the Community, so I can’t access any support tickets related to your account) but I do have a potential solution for you here. You may be able to make use of the ‘Default Theme Content Tool’ to edit this error message and it’s wording. I’ll outline the steps you’ll want to take below to see if this helps you achieve what you’re looking to do.

  1. Go to ‘Online Store > Themes’ and click the three ‘…’ next to ‘customize’. From there, select ‘edit default theme content.’

    fae639d8-aab1-49ff-b6ac-b52211a55f98.default.png
    fae639d8-aab1-49ff-b6ac-b52211a55f98.default.png2136×1118 142 KB

  2. From there, you’ll be in the Content Editing tool. Click on the ‘…’ on the far right of the filter bar, and select ‘Checkout and System’. From there, only theme content related to the checkout will be appearing. In the search bar, type in ‘shipping’ or ‘shipping error’. This will generate only content related to Shipping Errors. From there, you can scroll down the page and search for the specific error message you’re looking to edit. If you find it, you can type the desired message into the textbox, and replace the default message with your desired text.

    f48ca879-04d5-4c02-9c06-14f820d25a4b.default.png
    f48ca879-04d5-4c02-9c06-14f820d25a4b.default.png2358×708 72.6 KB

From there, you should be able to look for the error message you’re looking to change, and make the desired edit. There is a chance that the specific error message you’re looking for isn’t visible here, and if it’s not, then it can’t be changed, but it doesn’t hurt to give this a try to see if it’s possible! This is a very awesome, powerful little tool that I do wish more folks were aware of, as it can help you make changes to certain messages without needing to use coding!

Let me know if this helps you out at all!

1 Like
3

Thank You, I was looking for that default message a very very long time. Just now I found it and I replaced with a much more appropriate message. Whatever I entered in the “control F” didn’t bring up the default message.

Joseph