Status
SparkLayer System Status ✅ All Systems Operational
If there are interruptions the SparkLayer service, we will post details here for visibility. As always, if you are experiencing any issues with SparkLayer, please contact us via the details document in our Support guide.
Shopify shipping issue affecting B2B checkout Incident Started: 31st October, 04:30 (London time) Resolution: 31st October, 09:30 (London time) ✅ Resolved
Incident status This incident has now been fully resolved. See "Resolution" below. Last update: 31st October, 09:30 (London time)
Summary of issue
A number of our merchants are currently experiencing an issue with their B2B customers not being able to checkout on their Shopify store. When a customer reaches the final step of the checkout, an error message shows and prevents them from being able to place an order.
Who it affects
- This issue will affect any SparkLayer merchant who is using the built-in Shopify shipping system to manage their checkout shipping rules. This also applies to any third-party shipping apps that are controlled via your Shopify admin. The Shopify shipping system can be accessed here.
- This issue does not affect SparkLayer merchants who are using the built-in SparkLayer B2B shipping system which can be accessed here. Any SparkLayer merchant using this will not be affected by this issue.
Source of the issue
The issue stems from a change upstream from Shopify that is affecting third-party solutions using their draft order system (this includes SparkLayer). A modification to the way shipping is calculated via the Shopify Draft order system has caused a ‘breaking change’ in their API, resulting in shipping methods not being calculated correctly. As a result, when a customer reaches the shipping step of the SparkLayer checkout, no shipping method data is returned, resulting in an error showing to them and blocking them from proceeding.
Suggested short-term workarounds
This issue will only affect SparkLayer merchants that use the Shopify system to calculate shipping rules. As a short term solution until the issue is resolved, we recommend switching on the SparkLayer shipping system.
- This will allow B2B customers to proceed through the checkout and place orders
- This can be turned off as soon as the Shopify issue has been remedied (and we'll notify our customers accordingly).
To enable the temporary workaround, please follow the below steps:
- Click the "Enable SparkLayer Shipping Rate" toggle
- Proceed to create a shipping rule that applies to all your shipping countries (e.g. United States, United Kingdom, Germany), and applies to all your customer groups
- Create a shipping band and either set up specific costs or set the costs to be 0.00
- You can also create a 'custom shipping message' by upgrading your SparkLayer Core Script (found in /themes/layout.liquid) to version 1.4.x and following these steps
- Finally, you may want to add a custom message on the checkout step to inform customers about the temporary change in shipping costs (see our guide here)
Important If you're using the SparkLayer shipping system, you may need to adjust the shipping costs after the order is placed. By default, B2B orders will enter Shopify in the "Draft" orders and from there, you can make any edits to the shipping as required.
Resolution time
This issue has been acknowledged by Shopify and we are communicating with their technical team. We have escalated the issue and will notify affected customers and update this page as soon as we have a status update.
It goes without that we are taking this matter very seriously and we apologise for the inconvenience this is causing our own customers affected by this issue.
Resolution
This issue is now resolved Last update: 31st October, 09:30 (London time)
- We can confirm the issue has now been resolved and your B2B customers can now checkout as normal.
- We received an update from Shopify confirming that it was an issue on their side and they have “rolled back” the affecting change.
- If you did temporarily update your B2B store to use the SparkLayer shipping system, you can now safely switch it off here
- We apologise for the inconvenience caused here and we will be keeping a close eye on this issue for the next few days.