Shopsmith Forums

I was somewhat surprised today when trying to complete an online purchase from Woodcraft that when, at account login and check out, I got redirected away from www. woodcraft .com to shopify.com. And, was to enter my email address on Shopify.com to receive a login code from Shopify.com to gain access to my Woodcraft account. At first, I thought I got hacked and the redirect was some sort of phishing attempt. I backed out of the purchase, and called Woodcraft’s customer service and was told that Shopify went live today(2/8/24).

My reason for posting this on this forum is a sanity check for me. For some reason I am just reluctant to be adding an additional entity to the financial transaction between me (my card) and Woodcraft. A Google search says that Shopify and the Shop.App are by the same company.

I have been a Woodcraft customer for along time, regularly get emails from them, and yet received no notice of this change in logging in and cart check out procedures.

I guess this is like using PayPal, which is something I don’t do either. Am I being overly concerned about this change when shopping online with Woodcraft?

Shopify is a legitimate business used by a growing number of companies to handle their online sales. Two of my current clients are using Shopify for their online stores (both clothing companies)

The security issues and liabilities around handling people's financial data, credit cards bank accounts etc., are too much for all but the largest companies to deal with; in addition, being able to properly charge sales tax at the nearly unlimited number of tax rates across the US is expensive and requires constant work to keep up to date.

I am quite disappointed that Woodcraft didn't include some sort of notice on their site that you will be transferred to a non woodcraft domain when you attempt to login.

I don't think there is any cause for concern in this instance but kudos on your diligence.

Thanks for your insights. I guess one upside to getting a special login code emailed prior logging into my Woodcraft account is like two factor authentication. I appreciate your response

Shopify is completely legit — I use it for my ecommerce website toolquest.net.

FWIW, it’s unlikely that even Woodcraft had access to your credit card data on their old website. Although invisible to you, payment transactions are usually processed by large third-party transaction processors, which presumably are compensated with some fraction of the credit-card fee. Shopify uses Stripe for processing credit-card transactions.

Were you to purchase something on my website, I don’t believe that even Shopify could access your credit-card number. And I can guarantee you that I couldn’t.