Shopify Markets Pro automatically assigns Harmonized System (HS) codes using AI, frequently generating incorrect classifications that result in unnecessary tariffs, shipping restrictions, and customs issues. The system overwrites manually entered HS codes without warning and bases classifications on product descriptions rather than actual product types.
Key Problems:
AI misclassifies products wildly (yarn labeled as “lingerie” or “religious apparel,” bicycle parts as “cotton overalls” or “tractor parts”)
HS code field becomes disabled in the GUI when Markets Pro is enabled
Incorrect codes appear both at checkout (causing wrong tariffs) and on shipping labels (triggering customs rejections)
Technical Details:
The service uses Global-E (Shopify has 6.5% stake) with DHL as carrier
AI decides its own “confidence level” and overwrites codes accordingly
Codes regenerate whenever products are modified
Workarounds:
Some users created custom API scripts (PowerShell/Python) to automatically correct codes based on product type fields
Scripts must run every few days as AI reassesses products continuously
API access still allows manual code editing despite GUI restrictions
Multiple users report disabling Markets Pro within days of installation. Shopify support has been largely unresponsive, with no official participation in this discussion thread.
Summarized with AI on November 1.
AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
Please allow users to manually enter Harmonized System Codes (“HSCodes”). Shopify Markets Pro makes wild, incorrect guesses and is subjecting us to unnecessary tariffs.
We sell yarn and fiber, which carry no tariff in many free trade agreements, but SMP is coding our products based on words in the color descriptions of those products (For example, labeling a product “wine” because we used the word Burgandy). Enabling SMP disables the HSCode field in the admin console GUI. When I pull the codes via API I can see that many are totally wrong, and correcting them via API is tedious. Why disable HSCodes in the GUI if SMP is going to force incorrect entries?
Agreed, I sell jewelry and many of my products are incorrectly restricted in certain countries due to inaccurate tariff codes that are automatically assigned. Some of my pieces are available for purchase is certain countries, while others of the exact same material are incorrectly labeled as restricted, therefore they can not be purchased.
If someone on the back end could please fix this, it would be appreciated! I tried escalating this back and march and basically got nowhere with customer service!.
Agreed here - but this is more than “please let us.” It’s garbage coding to OVERWRITE my HS Codes through my entire store without telling me. And when you click on the “what will change” button, NOWHERE does it tell you it will trash HS Codes. And when you check help files about fixing it, you’re directed to bulk edit, which of course does not allow you to.
Markets Pro sounds great until I actually tried it. It’s garbage.
We’re seeing the same issue. The codes when inputted are correct, but the descrptions are wildly inaccurate. We’ve been contacted by Canadian customs on the issue and they have refused many packages due to the silly descriptions.
I dug more into this - the HS codes are set by Glbal-E (who is actually doing all this using DHL as the carrier) using AI based on the description (!!) - and if there’s “high confidence” that they’re correct - which is DECIDED BY THE AI - then they go ahead and replace them. It’s abominable. Shopify has reached out and said that if we try again we can get Glbal-E to review what we think is wrong, but thus far I’m extremely skittish to try it because there’s no way to instruct it to NOT replace my codes.
Oh - and I had to use the asterisks becuase I got an error message saying I was not allowed to use the actual name in the post. Which is ridiculous.
A really, really, really poor system that took me WEEKS to get answers to - and the answers were quite bad, as I said.
Very interesting and a great find - the behavior observed matches what a poor AI might assume. I use a script to read every product’s “Product Type” field and manually reset all the HS Codes based on a lookup table within the script itself. I run it every couple of days. Even when the code is correct, the Customs Form that Markets Pro generates is still wrong, but at least customers don’t pay unnecessary tariffs at checkout. Does anyone know how to get better answers here? Is there a paid support option? How is this not a bigger deal?
I installed Managed Markets/Markets Pro last year after the full court press from Shopify to try it. Within one hour, half the visitors to my site were served prices in TTD (Trinidad and Tobago Dollars). Since TTD, or TT$, uses the $, it appeared my prices had increased 7X with no way to change it back unless I uninstalled Markets Pro. It wasn’t a set up error as half the US visitors continued to see the correct pricing. Even with caches cleared, et al, it still showed the incorrect currency for half the US visitors. So much for the Markets Pro IP sniffer. After a theme update, I was considering trying it again, but you all have convinced me not too. Arbitrarily changing my HS codes? No thank you. AI isn’t the answer for everything. Let the machine learning take place elsewhere before unleashing the beast on our livelihood.
Wait - I’m probably being obtuse here, but are you saying that you can correct the codes, but the EDI that gets generated STILL uses the wrong codes? That’s unbelievable - how does a customs official square that? If you collect tariffs based on it being product A - and the form says it’s product B - how much does the form say was collected, and what if they’re different tariffs?
They’re constantly trying to get me back on board as well. Probably due to Shopify’s 6.5% stake in that company whose name we are inexplicable not allowed to use in this chat. I think you’re making the right choice, and I’m also going to continue to deal with international shipping on my own. It sounds great in theory, but letting AI decide if AI is correct? Are you kidding me? (not to mention the other issues people have listed).
The behavior I’ve seen is that HS Codes come into play twice: Once when a consumer checks out, and again when the shipping labels are generated. I run a custom script to correct the HS Codes so they’re at least usually correct at checkout time, so tariffs aren’t applied. But I can’t prevent the app from then doing another AI assessment for the shipping labels, which are still always wild guesses. I think the only reason we haven’t had a problem is that our order amounts are usually under tariff limits anyway - so even with the “wrong” codes, the $0 collected is still “correct”. Basically any time you touch a product, the AI re-assesses that product and will put in an incorrect code. So now every time we do any product changes at all, I run a script that looks up a product’s type field and re-assigns the HS Code accordingly. At least this way customers won’t check out and pay incorrect tariffs, even if the customs form will still be wrong. What a mess. AND WHY HASN’T ANYONE FROM SHOPIFY CHIMED IN ON THIS YET?
AHA - so you haven’t been able to get them to correct the codes that are assigned if you look at them in the bulk editor, for example. OK - I understand now - what they’re telling ME is that if I go back to it AND the codes are wrong I can that the company that I am not allowed to name to correct them in the database on Shopify, so that wouldn’t be an issue.
I just don’t really trust them to actually be responsive and update them accordingly (since it took weeks to even get someone that understood what I was talking about), and really hate the idea of turning this on and seeing my stuff get recategorized as totally ridiculous stuff. Bizarrely, pretty much every one of my products has the name of the product in the title along with the unique color name - but it still uses AI to try and guess from the description.
Not quite - so I’m not fixing these codes by speaking with The Company That Shall Not Be Named - I created a custom API PowerShell script that uses an Application Access Token to manually set the HSCode field based on the value of the Product Type field, by looking up a table of HSCode Values I created myself within the script. I run this script every couple of days because every time my wife touches a product, it or any other products might get screwed up. My primary goal is to prevent customers from being charged unnecessary tariffs. There seems to be nothing I can do about the incorrect customs forms in the shipping section. So far, I haven’t been flagged because I doubt they look inside every single box.
In fact, I think that’s their strategy here. I think they’re banking on the fact that most boxes don’t get inspected. However, if you lose customers because they balk at tariffs, that’s still really bad.
Also - some countries have arcane import regulations that could be breached if the wrong HS code is applied.
In your case I would recommend at least reaching out to support - as I said, I’ve been told that I can tell TCTSNBN that they’ve gotten codes wrong and request that they fix them. It would make your life substantially easier I think, and it would be interesting to know if they’ll actually do what was promised…
I have tried Managed Markets twice now and had to shut it down within one day both times. The Ai that assigns HS codes has no business being out in the wild. It is beyond terrible. I sell supplies to custom bicycle frame builders and have been doing it for years. I know my HS codes. Shopify’s Ai (a 3rd party’s product, apparently) does not. Some examples of what this Ai thinks my bike frame parts are: cotton overalls, footwear, flatware, laser or waterjet heads for industrial cutters, diamond dust, and tractor parts. Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. It is BAD.
What makes this HS code nonsense even harder to deal with is that when you turn on Managed Markets, you can no longer look at the HS codes for your products via the batch edit feature. I understand that Shopify wants to change the codes and that they don’t want us to just be able to change them back, but they could have the HS codes visible but not editable. Due to this, you are expected to inspect (and appeal via Shopify’s glacial customer service) the HS code for each product individually. What’s worse is that the Ai just randomly goes through the product list so you don’t even know what products have had their HS codes changed. I have hundreds of products. I can’t go through each one individually to see which ones have changed. The ability to observe the changing of HS codes in a macro view is imperative. Locking people out of this is, well, the term “terrible” keeps coming up throughout this experience.
And, trust me, there are more issues that I’m not even mentioning.
Shopify really needs to get their act together with this. I would use Managed Markets in a minute if it weren’t such a bleep show. I am missing out on international orders and they are missing out on their piece of that pie.
We sell hand-made yarn. My favorite codes so far have been, “Lingerie” and, “Religious appareal worn about the neck.” Man that must be quite a store…
The silliest part is while you can’t edit HS codes in the GUI, you can still easily do so via API. My script looks up the Product Type field and has a CASE statement for setting the HS Code accordingly, and I just loop through every single product. I run the script every couple of days. The AI usually won’t change anything unless you add, modify, or delete products. (But if you change one product, the AI might change a dozen at that time.)
Annoying for sure, but I’ve been surprised at how good our international sales have been, so it’s worth the time.
I ended up removing the markets app. It caused so many visibility issues for the customers it was supposed to help that it wasn’t worth having in my store- but if there’s a way to solve it,I’m interested.
So you know, Shopify CLAIMS that you can contact TCTSNBN (or Gl0bal-e - you can’t actually use the name here, or haven’t been able to), and request that they fix the HS codes. I have zero faith in that, and I’m tired of looking at my things being classified as tricycles. I’d definitely go back if it weren’t a disaster with the codes. Plus, someone just posted that you can’t even see the codes in the bulk editor, which is absolutely UNBELIEVABLE. You used to be able to at least see them, point, laugh, cry. Couldn’t edit them, but at least see how you got raked over the coals.
It seems they’ve made it even worse. And for this they want 6.5%?