Why Does Shopify Inbox AI Answer in the Wrong Timezone?
Shopify’s help center lets you set Inbox availability hours, but the pages we checked don’t say which time zone they or the Inbox agent use. Merchants report the agent answering time questions in UTC instead of the store’s time zone. In AeroChat, you set your business hours with your time zone in the dashboard, and your recipe tells it to give every cutoff, slot and opening time in that zone.
Shopify Inbox behavior from Shopify’s help center: availability and first reply and Assigning your Inbox agent to conversations, checked 11 November 2026.
Why merchants ask
A merchant on the Shopify Community reported that the Inbox agent answers time questions in UTC instead of the store’s time zone. For a store with delivery slots, that breaks the answers that matter most: whether same-day delivery is still open, which slots are left today, when the shop opens. A shopper told the cutoff has passed, when it hasn’t, buys elsewhere. A shopper told it’s still open, when it isn’t, complains later.
What Shopify Inbox does today
Per Shopify’s help center, checked 11 November 2026:
- You set availability hours under Sales channels, Inbox, Chat settings, Availability. You can set different hours for each day, make a day always available, or apply one day’s hours to the week. By default, the store is always available.
- Availability hours decide whether the Inbox agent or your staff handle new conversations in the “Only when your staff is unavailable” mode, and whether a request for a person goes to staff or gets your sender email address.
- Shopify suggests keeping facts such as business hours and response times in your store sources, such as your policies or Knowledge Base.
- The help center pages we checked don’t say which time zone availability hours use or which time zone the agent uses in its answers. We could not confirm the behavior merchants report from Shopify’s own pages.
The usual fixes and their limits
- Write times with the zone in your store sources. “Same-day orders close at 11am Eastern Time” on your shipping page gives any assistant a clear fact. It doesn’t stop the agent working out “now” in another zone.
- Avoid relative answers. State fixed cutoffs instead of “you have two hours left”. Shoppers still ask “can I get it today?”, which needs the current time in your zone.
- Answer time-sensitive questions yourself. Accurate, but only while someone is online.
How to handle it in chat with AeroChat
In the AeroChat dashboard, you set your business hours for each day with your time zone. AeroChat uses those hours to decide whether your team is online before it hands a conversation over, and to tell shoppers when the team is back. In your recipe, you write your cutoffs and slots and tell AeroChat to give every time in your store’s zone. If you keep your delivery slots in a Google Sheet, it checks what is left for that day before it answers.
Customer: Can I still get same-day delivery? (example)
AeroChat: Yes. It’s 10:15am here in Chicago, and same-day orders close at 11am Central Time (example). Today’s 3pm to 6pm slot has space. Order in the next 45 minutes and choose that slot in your cart.
In AeroChat: the answer uses the business hours and time zone you set, and your same-day cutoff.
Copy this into AeroChat
Our store runs on Chicago time (example). Give every time, cutoff and opening hour in Central Time and say so. Same-day delivery orders close at 11am, next-day orders at 8pm, and we don’t deliver on Sundays (example). When a shopper asks if they can still get something today, compare the current Central Time with the cutoff. If it has passed, offer the next available day. If our team is offline, tell the shopper when we’re back, in Central Time. Reply in the customer’s language.
Change the time zone, cutoffs and closed days to match your store before you paste it.
What to connect
- Your Shopify store. Built in. Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store and connect your store, so AeroChat answers from your products, shipping rules and orders.
- Your business hours and time zone. Set them per day in the AeroChat dashboard.
- A Google Sheet with your slots, if you run delivery slots. Google Sheets connects through its API, so AeroChat checks space before it answers.
Questions
Which time zone does the Shopify Inbox agent use?
Shopify’s help center, checked 11 November 2026, doesn’t say. It describes setting availability hours per day but not the time zone they use.
Where do I set the time zone in AeroChat?
In the business hours settings in the AeroChat dashboard, along with your hours for each day.
What if I have customers in other time zones?
The recipe above tells AeroChat to give times in your store’s zone and say so, which avoids confusion for shoppers elsewhere.
Can AeroChat take the delivery slot in chat?
Yes. See letting customers choose a delivery date or pickup slot.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
Answer in your store’s time zone
Install AeroChat, set your business hours and time zone, paste the recipe, and ask your own store chat whether same-day delivery is still open.
7-day free trial.