If you haven't been living under a rock outside the Ecommerce world, you've certainly heard about the latest Shopify Editions, where they boasted more than 100 updates and new features (I even teased you about it in my weekly newsletter).
If you want to explore them yourself, you can now check out the great landing page Shopify created for all of us:
If you don't want to spend another 2 hours browsing through it, read this short overview of the most important releases and why you should care about them. To make it even easier, I've divided the news into categories so you can quickly scroll down and find what interests you:
- The Age of AI
- B2B is Cool Again
- For Pro Users
- The World's Best Checkout
- Native Shopify Apps
- Themes and Customization
- Admin on Steroids
- Better Logistics
- Marketing Tools
- Shopify Fintech
- For the Nerds... Ahem... I Mean, Developers
The Age of AI
We believe entrepreneurs are heroes. And every hero needs a sidekick.
-- Shopify CEO, Tobias Lütke
Sidekick is coming in early August. If you want to get early access, you can fill out this form. These new AI-powered solutions will allow you to perform all tasks on Shopify faster, simply by communicating with a chatbot similar to chatGPT. Some examples of what you can do with it:
- Create discounts and promotions across your entire store
- Customize and add more content to your theme
- Analyze your store's data and analytics to answer any questions about your business
- Provide support based on all the information in Shopify's help center and documentation
In addition to this amazing solution, we must mention the overall AI initiative called Shopify Magic, under which Sidekick falls. Although it has already been announced and released for some time, you should know about its great capabilities:
- Long-form content creation
- Generating text directly into the online store
- Shopify Email taken to the next level with AI-generated email subject lines, email copy, and optimized sending times. On top of that, there are new custom email templates and a high-volume pricing quote.
- FAQ generation and AI-powered search: Shopify Inbox just got a much more advanced version.
- How much time do you spend reading app reviews? Now you can make an informed app choice with much less effort, based on AI-generated app review summaries.
AI-powered review summary for the Translate & Adapt app
B2B is Cool Again
Shopify is investing A LOT into its B2B capabilities. For that we thank the e-commerce gods! We're seeing more and more merchants interested in simple solutions that work for both DTC (direct-to-consumer) and B2B. Here are some of the most valuable new features:
- Vaulted payment cards (available only when using Shopify Payments)
- Quantity pricing discounts (in early access mode)
- Company account requests (in early access mode)
- Quick order lists
- B2B Shopify Flow automations
- PayPal payment option
- B2B Migration Kit from the original wholesale channel to the new B2B solution
If you previously needed a lot of custom development or third-party apps to manage your wholesale business, now that Shopify B2B is dramatically improving, you might want to think twice. Note that all these features are exclusive to Shopify Plus.
For Pro Users
If you're playing in the big leagues, you'll care deeply about these updates. Maybe you're not quite ready for Shopify Plus yet, but you're using the Advanced plan to its maximum capabilities. You've done a lot of custom work to tailor the user experience and internal processes to your needs. Now you can rest even easier, because the Shopify Admin API has doubled its rate limit for the Shopify Advanced plan.
Now that you can easily maintain your backend code, you might wish for something extra to make your life easier: what if the Shopify admin were completely flexible for my specific needs? That's now possible (coming soon – early access) with Admin UI extensions. You'll be able to embed apps directly into your store's dashboards and work with them without leaving your command center. This is an opportunity not only for app developers, but also for large enterprises that are capable of building custom apps to suit their personalization needs.
Beyond all these pro features, don't think Shopify has neglected its POS. A range of new features is coming:
- Unified inventory management
- Product details page improvements
- Retail workflow detail optimizations
- New POS UI extensions to customize your in-person selling system
- Sales attribution
- Increased PIN combination count for POS
The World's Best Checkout
Shopify has proudly been announcing for some time now that it truly has the world's best converting checkout:
Not building on Shopify is now a competitive disadvantage. -- Shopify President, Harley Finkelstein
We even talked about it in one of the latest AMAs with Harvey on Twitter Spaces:
Since the checkout is Shopify's crown jewel, it's natural that some of the most significant advances and updates were made in this area. Three main categories of improvements were made: Customization, Conversion, and Functionality. Note that most of these improvements are only available for Shopify Plus.
I. Customization
- Checkout extensions: Subscription and pre-order offers
- Customized delivery methods
- Custom fonts
- Local in-person pickup available on draft orders
II. Conversion
- One-page checkout
- More payment options
- Shop Pay available on non-Shopify checkouts for enterprise clients
- Shop Pay increases conversion by 50%
- Shop Pay installments (only for select businesses in the United States)
III. Functionality
Native Shopify Apps
More apps built by Shopify means several things: more merchants can access new features without having to pay for an additional app; app developers need to step up their game to stay relevant; and new possibilities are opened up for everyone in the ecosystem. Let's go through the most important news:
- New subscriptions app (sign up for early access)
- New bundles app
- Shopify Collective: like dropshipping, but directly from other Shopify brands.
- Shopify Marketplace Connect
- Improved Shopify Forms
- The Shopify Search & Discovery app now supports filter renaming, filter translation, and filter value grouping.
- Shopify Flow is now available on all plans (from Basic).
Themes and Customization
There hasn't been such a massive revolution since the update to Online Store 2.0. Now that we have sections everywhere and can customize stores with much less coding than in the past, Shopify has surprised us with another leap in the same direction. In the past, some considered Wix and Squarespace to have a competitive advantage over Shopify's design tools, but that is now completely coming to an end:
- Simple drag and drop of sections (Sign up for a preview later this year)
- Changing color schemes with one click
- Customization of the theme header that boosts conversion
- Built-in animations on free Shopify themes (ReleaseNotes)
- Store contexts for different content across markets and between B2B and DTC
- Even faster stores!
Admin on Steroids
Your store overview is much more than just a pretty face. While there is a beautiful new UI, Shopify has also launched a range of new functionalities:
- Benchmarks to help you make better data-driven decisions
- Centralized organization of your Shopify Plus stores
- Custom landing pages using metaobjects
- More discount combinations
- Upcoming support for 250 variants (instead of the current 100)
- Product filtering in the admin using metafields
- Improved language offered by customer support: currently English, French, Spanish, and German, with more coming soon.
Better Logistics
Running an e-commerce business doesn't just mean having a nice store with cool products. A big part of it is managing inventory, shipping products, and handling returns. Shopify is not just a website builder. It's a full-featured solution that helps with the overall development of your online store. They absolutely showed they know this and care about your brand, with all the improvements added in the logistics area:
- Fulfill orders faster with Shopify Shipping (available in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Italy, and Spain)
- Manage your inventory with Purchase Orders
- Split orders for fulfillment
- Smart order routing leads to increased efficiency
- Self-serve returns
Marketing Tools
Ever since customer acquisition costs started growing exponentially (also influenced by new privacy policies that make it harder to target the right audience), Shopify has been thinking outside the box to make it easier for you to reach your future customers. How are they doing it? Take a look:
- Shopify Audiences 2.0 to reduce customer acquisition costs by 50% (available for Shopify Plus stores in the US or Canada using Shopify Payments)
- TikTok Shop (Sign up for early access)
- Shop channel customization in the Shop app
- Shop Cash offers are now available in early access for most businesses in the United States.
- Shop Minis
- New customer segmentation filters
- More automations across Shopify's native marketing apps
Shopify Fintech
While Shopify isn't in the banking industry, it is committed to empowering entrepreneurs. That's why they can't just stand by and watch any business fail due to a lack of opportunities. You may have already heard of Shopify Capital, which helps fund early-stage e-commerce projects. Shopify is committed to providing all the tools you need to move forward, and so it continues to bring you more good news:
- Shopify Credit is a new credit card you can use to power your business (available for select businesses in the United States)
- If your store offers products with CBD content, tobacco, sexual wellness, or pharmaceutical products, you may now be eligible to use Shopify Payments (join the waitlist here)
For the Nerds... Ahem... I Mean, Developers
There are simply too many reasons to be excited. If you want to hear the first reactions to these updates from a Shopify developer, check out the Twitter Spaces organized by Youness Idbakkasse.
Key highlights for the nerds:
- Faster headless development with Hydrogen and Oxygen
- Customer Account API available for headless projects
- Unlimited Storefront API with support for predictive search and faceted filters
- Liquid rendering pipeline has been rebuilt for even faster output
- More and more Shopify Functions for great customizability and extensibility
- Build Shopify apps with the Remix app template
- Extension-only apps
- Metafields 4x faster
In Conclusion
Ages ago (or at least it feels that way), when I thought about writing this in-depth article on all the Shopify Editions updates, I was convinced I'd be able to cover everything. Ugh, how naive I was (and still am). I've presented you with what I consider the best things from my perspective, and somehow I feel like I'm only barely scratching the surface of what all these updates actually mean for the entire e-commerce ecosystem.
The main takeaway from another Shopify Editions is simple: Nobody can compete with Shopify's level of innovation in the commerce world. Feel free to quote me on that! That's why I continue to recommend that both large and small businesses switch to Shopify, if they don't want to keep investing piles of money just to fall further behind the curve.
If you don't want to do that, it's simple. Start your store today! Or even book a free call with me, and I'll be happy to advise you on your needs.
agency in CZ and SK
