What's New in Shopify Editions Summer 2024? Our Highlights
Shopify Product Updates
The theme of this season’s Editions is “Unified” and it’s all about making it easier for brands to expand and manage sales between regions, retail locations and B2B using Markets. Since the theme is all about expansion, these updates are moreso for the mid-sized growing business, rather than small teams. Regardless, let’s look into what Shopify has in store for us.
1. Flex Sections: Style Settings
Flex Sections were announced two editions ago. In the last edition, we had heard two announcements about the progression of this: nested blocks and reusable blocks, although we have yet to see these changes ready to use on any theme.
In another step towards Flex Sections, Style Settings are being introduced into sections which allows merchants to create more advanced layouts. By having to ability to completely customize the layout of sections and blocks (customize size, spacing and layout for different devices), it allows for more complex layouts.
2. New Markets
Improvements to Markets provides further ways to tailor customer experiences for different sales channels or audiences. Visualize the different rules and content available to different countries, retail and B2B customers all on one page. Previously, sometimes stores would need to be duplicated to achieve certain functionalities, but now these improvements should mean that everything can be managed in one place in one store, helping businesses expand with less friction.
3. Search & Discovery App
The Search & Discovery app can be used for collection page filtering, product recommendations and more. New features include: using Category as a filter option, and visual filtering by allowing filtering based on logos, icons or images. This app is a crucial tool for helping customers find the right products for them and we're excited about seeing these improvements.
Additionally, semantic search is now available on the Advanced and Plus plan. This is an AI-powered storefront search feature that understands the customer’s search intent and returns relevant results.
4. New Analytics
There is a new analytics platform that gives real time performance data, compared to the 24 hour delay from before. There are more ways to view data, allowing merchants to curate and gather insights in prebuilt reports.
Additionally, you're now able to easily measure return on ad spend in the ad performance data. You can sync campaigns from important sales channels to see how marketing efforts are paying off.
5. New AI Tools
Sidekick, Shopify's AI assistant, was announced in a previous Edition and is now ready to use. It can help answer questions to inform business ideas or create a strategy based on your store data, and do time-consuming tasks. Available by request.
For stores using Shopify Inbox as a real-time chat tool, there are now AI generated suggested replies. Shopify Magic will suggest responses to customer questions using data from your store. Merchants can approve or edit responses, ultimately allowing them to provide better support faster.
6. Shipping & Pickup
There is now more flexibility and convenience for customers to receive their orders. On the retail side, customers can choose to pick up at the store closest to them by enabling inventory store transfers. Additionally, retail stores can decide which location to fulfill online orders from, depending on what makes the most sense.
On the online store side, split shipping options are now available. If an order has items that will ship separately, customers can now choose delivery options for each shipment, giving them clarity and flexibility in receiving their items.
Additionally, customers in the UK and Spain can now get their orders shipped to convenient pickup spots like post offices.
7. Headless Visual Editor
For developers building headless stores, a new visual editor will allow them to create, build, ship and debug in a visual environment while still using the same code tools they're used to such as VS Code and GitHub. This will also allow non-technical teams the ability to make changes independently.
Additionally, the Shopify Liquid VS Code extension has some updates that make writing JSON for liquid themes easier with smart completion and more.
Other exciting updates…
- Customize More Pages: All plans can now customize the thank you & order status pages with apps. Customization of the checkout page remains a Plus-only feature. For Plus stores, the Checkout Blocks app is now free (previously $99/month) as it has been acquired by Shopify.
- Bulk import & export metafields: Bulk product exports now include metafield data, allowing you to easily manage product metafields in bulk.
- Selling on Target.com: Approved brands can sell their products on target.com with Shopify Marketplace Connect.
- Collect Tax ID at checkout: Add an optional tax ID field on the checkout (often a requirement for B2B sales in European countries). Available by request.
- Store Credit: Issuing customers store credit to spend at checkout is now possible.
- Edit existing orders: Manually edit orders after they’re placed.
- Youtube Shopping Affiliates program: Sync products and allow a network on YouTube creators to tag them in their videos (Advanced & Plus plans in the US only).
- Theme for B2B: The free Trade theme allows you to easily set up a B2B store designed for bulk purchasing.
- Pixel Helper: The Shopify Pixel helper has launched to help merchants verify that their custom pixels are loading and receiving data to help ensure that their tracking is working as expected.
- Shipping Options for Subscriptions: Customers can choose the shipping speed for their first subscription delivery so that they may get the product faster, while subsequent shipments will use the cheapest option by default.
- Prices by unit of measurement: Display product prices by unit of measurement, for example, price per gram, to increase price transparency
- Include duties: Include duties and taxes as part of the product price for international customers. This helps avoid price shock at checkout. Available by request.
- Regional Selling Restrictions: Now know which products are restricted from sale in certain regions and why.
- USD payouts in Canada: Shopify Payments can now pay out in both USD and CAD in Canadian stores, saving fees on currency conversions.
- Draft Orders & Bundles: Draft orders now work with bundles.
You can read the full Shopify Editions Summer ‘24 update here.
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