Shopify Winter Edition 2024

A summary of what’s to come

16 min readFeb 28, 2024

As a disclosure, we are not covering the developer updates like codes, extensibility, and new script options, and all the developer experience changes for this blog.

CONVERSION

Powering more complex products and attributes

Shopify has recently undergone a significant enhancement, revolutionizing the listing and discovery process for all products, including the most intricate ones. This substantial update represents the most extensive transformation to our product model in over a decade. Among the notable improvements are a new application designed for merchandising products available in multiple colors and styles, a revamped product taxonomy, and other enhancements.

Shopify Combined Listings: Streamlines the merchandising of products available in multiple colors or styles through a unified parent listing. Each variation within this consolidated listing maintains its distinct description, media gallery, and URL. This feature is exclusively available for Shopify Plus users.
Rich attributes for each product category: Experience the enhanced taxonomy on Shopify that meticulously associates each standard product category with a comprehensive set of attributes. This improvement simplifies the product creation, classification, and organization processes while also automating the generation of variants.
APIs supporting up to 2,000 variants per product: Introducing new product APIs from Shopify, designed to unleash the potential of your product catalogs. Now, with the capacity to support up to 2,000 variants per product, these APIs are tailored to enhance the handling of more intricate and expansive catalogs. Currently available in developer preview, with plans to roll out to select businesses in 2024.

Smarter search that better understands a customer’s intent

Introducing Semantic Search, a cutting-edge AI-powered storefront search feature designed to transcend traditional keyword matching. This innovative technology delves deeper into understanding the intent behind a customer’s search, allowing users to employ more natural words and phrases. The result? A more refined and relevant set of search outcomes, enriching the customer experience. Exclusively available for Shopify Plus users.

Swatch Filters for Visual Precision: Discover the latest in the Search & Discovery app as swatch filters make their debut. Now, customers can easily find products based on specific colors, patterns, or materials, enhancing the visual appeal of your Collection and search result pages.
Tailored Filter Logic for Personalized Results: Customize filter logic to enable customers to discover products that match multiple values, such as jackets that are both “waterproof” and “insulated.” Plus, choose how filters are displayed, providing a more personalized and engaging shopping experience. Stay tuned for these exciting enhancements to elevate your Shopify store’s search functionality!

Shopify Subscriptions app now in full release

Boost customer lifetime value and ensure predictable revenue by providing your products as subscriptions using Shopify’s latest free subscriptions app. Effortlessly set up and oversee subscriptions right from your Shopify admin, offering customers the convenience to adjust or skip subscription orders directly from their accounts. Enhance your business model and foster customer loyalty with this new subscription feature.

Shopify Bundles: Shopify now allows you to create bundles containing up to 30 products, a significant expansion from the previous limit of 10. Merchants utilizing Shopify Scripts can leverage this enhanced bundle feature to elevate their average order value and provide customers with more comprehensive product offerings.
Draft Order: Enhance your sales strategy with Shopify’s improved draft order capabilities, now supporting discount codes, automatic discounts, and the ability to combine various discounts within draft orders. Additionally, meta fields associated with your draft orders will seamlessly transfer to completed orders, providing a more integrated and streamlined experience.
Discounts: Captivate your audience and boost conversions with enticing new discount options on Shopify. Offer the allure of free automatic shipping or entice buyers with fixed amounts off through Buy X get Y promotions. The added transparency ensures that customers can easily see the exact savings right in their cart view, enhancing their shopping experience.

Extend the world’s best checkout with more APIs and features

Transform your checkout experience with the enhanced Checkout Extensibility, the ultimate tool to customize the highest-converting checkout on the internet. Now fortified with 14 new APIs and UI components, this feature has extended support to the Thank You and Order Status pages, ensuring a seamless and tailored shopping journey. This exclusive offering is available to Shopify Plus merchants, providing an unrivaled opportunity to elevate your e-commerce game. Don’t miss out — upgrade from checkout. Liquid today and kickstart your journey with a personalized customization report.

Faster One-Page Design: Experience a streamlined one-page checkout that reduces buyer completion times by 4 seconds, coupled with infrastructure improvements that accelerate checkout loading speeds by up to 95%.
Monos Elevates Checkout: Witness Monos, a premium luggage brand, enhancing their checkout speed and upsell capability by upgrading to Checkout Extensibility. Enjoy a faster, more efficient, and easily maintainable checkout experience across multiple stores.
App Store Expansion: Explore over 90 new apps in the Shopify App Store, enriching your checkout experience. With a growing ecosystem of 400+ apps since the Summer ’23 Edition, customize your checkout with features like upsells, loyalty programs, post-purchase surveys, conversion tracking, and custom content.
Checkout Sheet Kit for Mobile Apps: Revolutionize your mobile app checkout with the Checkout Sheet Kit, offering the world’s highest-converting and customizable checkout. Now available for iOS/Swift, Android, and React Native, bring the power of Shopify’s checkout to your fingertips.
Estimated Loan Amounts Display: Elevate customer confidence and conversion rates with the Shop Pay Installments Purchasing Power feature. Allow customers to view estimated loan amounts directly from the product page, providing transparency and empowering them to complete their purchases with ease.
Universal Integration for Enterprise Checkout: Supercharge any enterprise checkout with Shop Pay, the internet’s leading digital wallet. Now seamlessly integrated with any checkout, even for non-Shopify brands like Everlane, expanding their reach and enhancing conversion rates.

New web performance dashboard

Elevate your Shopify storefront with the latest enhancements! Gain control over your web performance using the newly introduced web performance dashboard, allowing you to track and optimize based on three Core Web Vitals. Benefit from a 35% boost in infrastructure speed over the past year, ensuring a faster and more responsive online shopping experience. Additionally, our expanded global points of presence guarantee a broader reach, making your Shopify store accessible and efficient for customers worldwide. Experience the next level of performance optimization for your online business.

CHANNELS

Upgrade your in-store checkout with the new POS Terminal

Ensure seamless and reliable transactions at your counter with Shopify’s point-of-sale system. Accept tap, chip, and swipe payments effortlessly, supported by robust Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity, backed by Shopify’s 99.9% platform uptime for uninterrupted sales on even the busiest days. Customize your display to reflect your brand identity, featuring full-featured displays that showcase custom images or logos. Simplify customer engagement by offering one-tap digital receipts and effortlessly collecting customer emails and marketing opt-ins, leveraging the extensive buyer network of Shop Pay. Elevate your in-store experience with Shopify’s comprehensive point-of-sale capabilities.

Manage UI Extensions Across Locations: Retailers with multiple locations and hardware devices can effortlessly install and activate new UI extensions from the POS channel in the admin, streamlining the management process.
New Smart Grid Editor in the Admin: Reduce setup time with the introduction of the new smart grid editor in the admin. Configure and assign smart grid layouts on a per-location basis, enhancing flexibility and efficiency in your POS setup.
Customized Receipts Reflecting Your Brand: Utilize the new Liquid code editor for printed receipts, allowing easy customization of the presentation to match your brand. Ensure that every transaction leaves a lasting impression with receipts tailored to your brand identity.

Easier fulfillment from retail locations

Enhancing the efficiency of retail staff, the latest update enables seamless fulfillment of online orders directly within the POS system. With the addition of fulfillment tasks integrated into the POS, retail staff can easily manage tasks such as picking, packing, and shipping orders. The new Ship from Store feature, coupled with an intuitive index menu in Orders, further facilitates the streamlined fulfillment process, empowering retail teams to handle online orders with greater ease and effectiveness.

Empower your sales reps with new permissions for B2B orders

Trade Theme for B2B Efficiency: Experience accelerated store setup with Trade, our optimized theme designed specifically for B2B businesses. This out-of-the-box solution streamlines wholesale operations, allowing customers to effortlessly place bulk orders with new quick order features while providing customization options to align Trade with your unique business needs.
Headless B2B Experiences: Elevate your B2B storefront with a headless approach, enabling unparalleled flexibility and customization. Exclusively available to Shopify Plus users in developer preview, this feature empowers you to build unique experiences, implement B2B checkouts, and access personalized products and prices using the Storefront API, Customer Accounts API, and a suite of developer tools.
Tailored Promotions for B2B Customers: Introduce custom promotional discounts exclusively for your B2B clientele. Leveraging third-party or custom apps powered by Shopify Functions, you can create targeted discounts that complement the customer-specific wholesale prices assigned in Catalogs. This exclusive feature, available on Shopify Plus, adds a layer of flexibility to your B2B pricing strategy.
Shopify Collective Product Discovery: Explore an extensive range of products on Shopify Collective with enhanced filters and detailed supplier information. Access thousands of brands and refine your search based on retail price, category, margins, and free shipping. Evaluate product quality confidently with verified ratings, empowering you to curate a diverse and high-quality product assortment.
Efficient Order Tracking with Timelines: Stay informed about your Shopify Collective orders through clear and concise timelines. Track key milestones such as order placement, fulfillment, payouts, and archiving at a glance. This streamlined feature ensures you have real-time visibility into the status of your orders, facilitating smoother operations and decision-making.
Faire Wholesale Integration for B2B Expansion: Unlock new B2B opportunities with the Faire: Sell Wholesale app, a strategic partnership between Shopify and Faire, the leading online wholesale marketplace. Seamlessly sync your products, install the app, and tap into a vast network of retailers. This collaboration enables Shopify merchants to effortlessly connect with Faire, expanding their reach and boosting wholesale sales.
Optimized Inventory Management: Enhance inventory accuracy and streamline operations by syncing real-time inventory levels directly from fulfillment locations to specific regional marketplaces. This feature ensures that your product listings on platforms like Amazon France, Amazon Canada, Walmart US, eBay Japan, and others reflect accurate stock information, minimizing discrepancies and improving overall efficiency.
Effortless Apparel Listing on Amazon: Simplify the apparel listing process on Amazon with Shopify Marketplace Connect. Configure a minimal set of fields, and let the platform automatically calculate and populate the extensive range of required fields for your apparel listings on Amazon. This automation not only saves time but also ensures accurate and efficient management of your apparel inventory on the marketplace.

Simplify international selling with Markets Pro, now available in the US

Shopify Markets Pro is now accessible to all businesses in the US, providing a robust solution for global expansion. This comprehensive tool integrates operational features, leverages the localization tools inherent in Shopify Markets, introduces additional automation capabilities, and offers a merchant of record service to streamline complexity. With these enhancements, Shopify Markets Pro empowers businesses to effectively scale their operations on a global scale.

Shopify Markets Pro

DHL eCommerce with USPS first mile: Introducing new standard shipping options through DHL eCommerce, including USPS first mile, offering delivered duty paid (DDP) shipping labels and eliminating order minimums.

Performance analytics for the Australian market: Access market-specific reports and filter Analytics based on markets, providing detailed insights and analytics tailored to the Australian market.

Translate & Adapt Ad

Improved search in the Shopify Translate & Adapt app: Enhancements include a global search feature across all languages, streamlining the translation process and providing a more user-friendly navigation experience for users.

MARKETING

Stronger retargeting and benchmarks for your ads

Enhanced Retargeting Boost lists: Smarter algorithms in V2.2 maximize performance on leading ad platforms, enabling most merchants to double the size of their retargeting audiences. This exclusive feature is available to Shopify Plus users.
New benchmarks for measuring performance: Utilize Shopify Audiences to compare ad performance with similar stores or industry benchmarks. Access key metrics and differentiate seasonal trends from campaign performance using historical data, providing valuable insights for optimization.
Enhanced Creator Discovery: Improve the creator recruitment process with intuitive filters and search functionalities. Discover creators effortlessly across social platforms using new location and audience filters, in-network tags, and efficient review options for applicants, saved profiles, and pending invites.
Automated Commissions with Shopify Billing: Streamline commission payments by leveraging Shopify Billing. Automate the commission process, monitoring, tracking, and removing earned commissions for refunded orders, ensuring efficient and accurate compensation for creators.
Consolidated Creator Profiles: Access comprehensive information about creators in one place. Explore a creator’s social media stats, extend collaboration invitations, and review collaboration history, including current affiliate offers and sales, within a consolidated profile.

Attract new customers across more channels with Shop Campaigns

Shop Cash Offers has transformed into Shop Campaigns, broadening its reach to engage buyers not only on the Shop app and the web but also soon on Meta and Google. This expansion allows merchants to continue driving orders on Shop at a fixed cost per acquisition. With new estimates and analytics, businesses can access real-time projections for acquiring new customers, sales, and return on spend. The enhanced analytics feature provides a deeper understanding of campaign performance, empowering brands to refine and optimize their strategies. Notably, Shop Campaigns has demonstrated its effectiveness, contributing to up to 24% new customer growth for brands like Olukai, Caraway, and Thrive Causemetics, collectively acquiring over 1 million new customers.

Shop Minis introduces engaging features such as shoppable videos on the home feed from Tolstoy, in-store shoppable videos from Videowise and Showday, and interactive product recommendation quizzes via Shop Quiz, aiming to captivate users and provide a more personalized shopping experience.
Merchants can now enhance order conversion by seamlessly integrating lead capture forms with Shop. This feature allows over 100 million Shop account holders to sign in on lead capture forms, streamlining the checkout process and contributing to increased order conversion rates.
The AI-powered shopping assistant from Shop continues to evolve, offering smarter assistance across various surfaces. With features like complementary product ideas and suggestions, the assistant becomes a valuable tool for personalized recommendations, fostering a more informed and enjoyable shopping journey for users, whether online or in the app.

Display reviews across more surfaces

Merchants now benefit from expanded capabilities in managing reviews with the integration of new partners such as Yotpo, Loox, Judge.me, Okendo, and Stamped.io. This synchronization allows for seamless sharing of ratings and reviews across various surfaces, including the online store, Shop app, and Shopify Collective. Additionally, improvements to data management powered by metaobjects enable replies to reviews in Shop to sync across channels, providing a cohesive and streamlined interaction for merchants. To instill trust in customers, Shop-generated reviews displayed on the online store now feature a Verified by Shop badge, enhancing the credibility of product feedback and contributing to a more transparent shopping experience.

Marketing Integrations: Enhance your marketing insights by syncing customer data from third-party channels like Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Seguno, and Pinterest. Soon, access ad cost and impression data from platforms such as Google, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok, allowing you to comprehensively analyze and optimize your marketing efforts across diverse channels.
Marketing Reporting: Gain a deeper understanding of customer cohorts with the Cohort Analysis report. Utilize historical and predictive spending metrics to assess the long-term value of your customers. Armed with Shopify-powered insights, you can strategically optimize customer retention strategies over time, ensuring sustained business growth.
Metafields & Metaobjects: Streamline your customer information on Shopify by importing and exporting customer metafields. This feature empowers you to manage and analyze precise customer details efficiently, providing flexibility and control over your customer data for enhanced business operations.

OPERATIONS

Transform your product photography with AI

Unleash the power of AI for your product photos with our upcoming image editing features, set to launch in early 2024. Effortlessly generate, match, or remove backgrounds with just a few clicks or keywords, ensuring your visuals are professional and eye-catching. No design expertise needed — create stunning product presentations effortlessly and elevate your brand’s visual appeal.

Your Business Sidekick: Introducing Sidekick — an unparalleled Shopify expert at your service. Imagine a personal advisor with deep expertise and intelligence, providing tailored guidance for accelerated success. With Sidekick, achieve more in less time, thanks to personalized advice crafted just for you.

Storytelling Made Easy: Let Shopify Magic weave your brand’s narrative effortlessly. Utilize AI to swiftly create new store pages, from engaging About Us sections to informative FAQs. Shopify Magic streamlines content creation, helping build customer trust in your brand with compelling storytelling. Elevate your online presence with the magic touch of Shopify.

Built-in tools for managing privacy and compliance across markets

Boost buyer confidence by implementing seamless privacy and consent management tools. Enjoy the convenience of centralized privacy settings, accessible from a single page. Receive helpful recommendations on optimal settings to activate, ensuring compliance and user trust. Tailor configurations by region to align with specific privacy requirements. Elevate your customer experience with user-friendly privacy features.

The only lending portfolio made for commerce

Embark on the next stage of your business journey with the enhanced Shopify Capital. Our evolved lending portfolio introduces three dynamic financial solutions tailored to fuel the growth of scaling enterprises. Access Capital Loans and Cash Advances for immediate financial support, explore Term Loans for structured funding, and leverage the flexibility of a Line of Credit. Exclusively available to eligible Shopify merchants, these customizable financing options are designed to empower your business’s success.

Flexible Line of Credit: Seamlessly navigate uncertainties with Shopify’s Line of Credit directly accessible from your admin. Enjoy the freedom to request funds as needed, pay interest solely on utilized amounts, and easily replenish your credit as you repay.
Tailored Term Loans: Unlock business financing on your terms with Shopify’s Term Loans. Experience the flexibility to customize your offer and establish a payment schedule aligned with your operational needs. No credit checks and transparent terms mean no surprises.
Earning Rewards with Shopify Balance: Maximize the potential of your idle cash with Shopify Balance, now offering an annual percentage yield (APY). Benefit from earning on all funds in your free Balance account, without worrying about minimum balances or earning limits.

Simplify your filing with the US sales tax report

Ease the burden of sales tax management with the Shopify US sales tax report designed for seamless annual, quarterly, and monthly filings. Choose your state, apply filters based on your filing period, and gain access to a comprehensive report consolidating essential data. The report meticulously breaks down information at the state, county, and city levels, streamlining the process and allowing you to focus on your business without the stress of intricate tax filing details.

Efficient Store Expansion: Soon, you can expedite the growth of new stores by importing and exporting smart collections, as well as variants and collections metafield data, streamlining the process of populating new stores with existing data.
Real-time Performance Tracking on iOS: Stay informed about your store’s performance effortlessly with a widget that provides at-a-glance insights directly from the home and lock screen of your mobile device or macOS Sonoma desktop, ensuring you can monitor key metrics on the go.
Seamless 3D Product Models: Enhance your product pages with interactive 3D models created in minutes using Shopify’s 3D scanner for iOS. Without additional software or costs, you can increase buyer confidence and boost conversions with visually appealing 3D representations of your products.

New code action, search, and notifications for Flow

Streamline complex business operations effortlessly with code automation powered by JavaScript, enabling you to execute custom logic, aggregate data, calculate dates, and more using the Run code action. Additionally, discover pre-built automation more efficiently with natural language search, facilitating easier access to tasks and templates. Moreover, receive automatic notifications in the event of workflow failures, allowing you to promptly address any issues and mitigate disruptions to your business operations.

Fulfill orders faster, with fewer errors

Enhance your shipping strategy and surpass customer delivery expectations with our latest fulfillment features. Enjoy the benefits of automatic address validation, ensuring accurate and error-free shipments. Optimize efficiency by outsourcing fulfillment tasks, saving valuable time and reducing overall shipping costs. Elevate your customer experience by leveraging these new features to streamline your fulfillment process.

Always-on address validation: Bid farewell to delivery issues and address-related fees. Our new feature ensures seamless deliveries by automatically validating and correcting addresses during checkout, eliminating the hassle of failed deliveries and potential sales loss.
Connect your buyers to the right stock: Avoid overselling with Fulfillable inventory. This feature restricts the display and purchase of products to only those available for fulfillment based on your configured shipping zones, enhancing accuracy and preventing inventory discrepancies.
Outsource fulfillment with the Shopify Fulfillment Network: Streamline your operations and accelerate growth by outsourcing fulfillment through our official partner, Flexport. With just a few clicks, integrate your store, track fulfillments within Shopify, and enjoy potential savings of up to 10% on your initial inventory batch for eligible merchants.

Exchanges on Shopify

In our continuous efforts to enhance the post-purchase journey, we’ve introduced a significant upgrade by integrating native exchanges into Shopify. Following the earlier addition of native returns, this new feature allows you to seamlessly create, track, and manage exchanges for any order directly from the admin interface. This improvement streamlines the exchange process, providing a more efficient and user-friendly experience for both merchants and customers. Look forward to experiencing this update, set to be available in early 2024.

Find the best apps for your business using AI

Unlock AI-powered guidance tailored to address your unique business challenges with our latest feature. Utilize our guided search functionality by entering specific topics such as “simplify the returns process” or “let buyers customize products.” The system will then intelligently recommend the most suitable apps and features to meet your needs. This innovative approach ensures you receive tailored solutions that align precisely with your business requirements, helping you navigate challenges effectively and optimize your operations.