Shopify Editions Winter 2024 – Key Takeaways

Ecommerce businesses rely heavily on their chosen platform to provide the tools they need for success. 

No one wants an out-of-date solution fuelling their online store, forcing them to look elsewhere. 

So, partnering with an eCommerce platform committed to innovation and continual improvement is imperative. 

This is where Shopify shines. 

Shopify announces and releases new features and updates twice a year. These are called Shopify Editions.

So, today, I'm exploring Shopify's Editions for Winter 2024, which are aimed at eCommerce businesses, Shopify partners, and developers building and running online stores. 

Best of all, according to one Shopify Community Thread, there’s “no need for a new subscription” to access these new updates or features. 

With all that said, I'll briefly explore each new feature to give you a better sense of what it does and how it might benefit your business. 

There’s lots to discuss, so let’s get going. 

Shopify Editions Winter 2024 Summary

As stated above, Shopify's Winter Editions 2024 will be Shopify's latest release of features and updates. 

It's split into the following categories:

1. Conversion
2. Channels
3. Marketing
4. Operations
5. Developer

Shopify also calls these categories and the features within them “Foundations,” and there are 100+ product updates in total!

It’s worth noting that some of the tools below had already launched at the time of writing, with links embedded in the Shopify Editions 2024 launch page. 

However, some tools have yet to be launched. Users can register for early access by clicking a “Sign Up” icon next to each tool description. 

It’s also worth noting that some of the tools below are only available to Shopify Plus customers (for clarity, I’ve noted where that's the case).

Needless to say, I can't explore all 100+ updates in this article! So, instead, I'm going to cover the highlights.

First up, conversion-related updates:

Conversion

As you may have guessed, Shopify's conversion-related updates aim to help sellers optimize their stores for sales. 

Under the umbrella of ‘Conversion' features, there are four main sub-categories:

1. Product merchandising
2. Semantic search
3. Shopify checkout
4. Storefront performance

Let's quickly look at each:

Product Merchandising

There are seven main updates to see here:

1. Shopify combined listings: Exclusive to Shopify Plus, products in multiple colors or styles can be sold from what Shopify calls “a single parent listing,” with each variant having its own description, media gallery, and URL. However, you’ll need to use the Combined Listings app to access these features. 
2. Rich attributes for each product category: Shopify has improved how merchants classify their products, making it easier to create, categorize, and organize items and automatically generate product variants. 
3. APIs supporting up to 2,000 variants per product: To better support complex product catalogs, Shopify has released new APIs allowing you to offer up to 2,000 variants per product. 
4. View and bulk edit variants grouped by option: You can manage multiple variants simultaneously, including editing prices and product availability for single and multiple inventory locations.
5. Color swatches: To help customers find your products, you can add color or pattern swatches to your product listings. 
6. Access all your media files across Shopify: Access all your images, videos, and 3D models in a single file picker. This is available on products and variants pages, allowing you to create or edit products without re-uploading existing media files.
7. Add and edit metaobjects directly in the online store editor.

Semantic Search

Exclusive to Shopify Plus subscribers, this new AI-powered feature set aims to surpass traditional keyword matching used in product searches. 

Instead, it focuses on establishing the intent behind a shopper’s search, consequently offering results more relevant to their query (while allowing customers to use more natural words and phrases).

There are two main updates to note here: 

• Swatch filters in the ‘Search and Discovery' app: This lets you add visual filters for color, material, and pattern swatches on your Collection and search results pages. This should make it easier for customers to find products that meet their needs. 
• Configure filter logic in the ‘Search and Discovery' app: Modify filter logic so products match several values (i.e., terms that might be used interchangeably or for similar searches). On top of that, you can also control how filters are displayed in situations where filtering the product search doesn't lead to a result.  

Shopify Checkout

The Shopify checkout updates are only available to Shopify Plus users. As you may have anticipated, these new features aim to expand your checkout customization options. 

Shopify is introducing 14 new APIs and UI components (which are also supported on your thank you and order status pages). 

Other improvements include:

• Shopify has launched a new one-page checkout design for faster customer purchases. They say this will quicken buyer completion times by four seconds and speed up page loading by 95%.
• To improve the checkout experience, 90+ apps will be added to the Shopify App Store. These apps will provide access to functionalities like post-purchase surveys, upsells, and loyalty programs. 

Storefront Performance

Shopify has launched a new web performance dashboard that allows you to better track and optimize your store’s performance, with a particular emphasis on your site's speed, stability, and interactivity. 

Channels

Here, we find improvements to Shopify's sales channels, including POS, B2B orders, and Shopify Markets. Let’s take a look:

First off:

POS

Staff will be able to execute order fulfillment tasks directly within the Shopify POS app. They can also pick, pack, and ship orders with the new “Ship from Store” feature and index menu in “Orders.” 

Available only to Shopify Pro customers, the new Stocky app empowers you to track stock transfers between locations, allowing you to keep tabs on your inventory at all times. 

A new in-store POS return feature will let you capture data about why customers return their items. You can select a reason from a predefined list and run a report on why returns are occurring.

Armed with this information, you'll be better positioned to improve your product offering.

In the last few months, merchants have also been able to remotely log out of any Shopify POS Go device from the convenience of their Shopify admin dashboard.

It's also worth highlighting that Shopify Tax is now supported in the Shopify POS app. This means your retail sales can easily be taxed at the same rate as your online store's.

Merchants can also cancel and void orders within 15 minutes of transaction completion without getting stung with a transaction fee. 

B2B on Shopify

Exclusive to Shopify Plus merchants, Shopify has recently launched new staff permissions for sales reps and managers. For example, you can now limit each of your sales rep's access to information on their own accounts.

In addition, Shopify Plus customers can create tailored promotional B2B discounts using Shopify’s third-party or custom apps fuelled by Shopify Functions. This lets you add discounts to customer-specific wholesale prices already in your catalogs. 

Shopify plans to launch Trade, its new customizable theme optimized for wholesale companies. This theme will empower your customers to effortlessly place bulk orders using Shopify's brand-new “quick order features.”

Shopify Markets Pro

Shopify Markets Pro is now available to US merchants. This enables sellers to do business in 150+ countries and comes with built-in features that simplify international shipping, including common hurdles pertaining to tax and shipping costs. 

Upgraded features include an improved search option in the Shopify Translate & Adapt app. This now allows for searches in all languages for store resources, making finding what you want to translate easier. 

Shopify has also added improved analytics so you can filter reports in Shopify Analytics by markets. You can also retrieve market-specific reports via the markets page in your settings.

Marketing

Shopify's marketing updates are split into four sub-categories:

1. Shopify Audiences
2. Shopify Collabs
3. Shop
4. Integrated Reviews

Shopify Audiences

Shopify has improved its ad retargeting, so you can retarget twice as many prospective customers. They've achieved this by introducing “smarter algorithms” designed to optimize your ads on popular ad platforms.

Shopify states that “most merchants at least double the size of their retargeting audiences.” However, please note that this tool is exclusive to Shopify Plus customers. 

Shopify has also released new benchmarks for measuring ad performance. These allow you to compare your ads' performance against similar stores and industry categories in Shopify Audiences.

In addition, historical data can help you pinpoint and separate seasonal trends from your campaign performance.

Shopify Collabs

Shopify Collabs now brings businesses and creators together via a marketplace-style app. Companies can send direct invitations to creators/affiliates and offer instant commissions. 

Shopify Collabs updates include:

Improved search fields and filters to help you find creators across social platforms. New filters include location and audience filters. Businesses can now source creators with in-network tags, save creator profiles, and view pending invites. 

In addition, creator profiles have been consolidated so you can quickly see their social media stats and your collaboration history and invite them to promote your business.

Businesses can also use Shopify Billing to automatically pay creators' commissions, remove commissions for refunded orders, and monitor payments. 

Shop

You can now attract new customers using Shopify's Shop Campaigns within the Shop App and the web. However, Shopify hopes to offer this feature to Meta and Google in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

You'll also receive real-time estimates for sales, new customers, and return on spend for your Shop campaign. Also, thanks to Shop's expanded analytics, you'll be better able to make data-driven decisions that empower you to run more successful campaigns. 

Other updates in this category include shoppable short videos called Shop Minis and product recommendation quizzes. You can add videos to your home feed from Tolstoy, shoppable videos in your store from Videowise and Showday, and product recommendation quizzes from Shop Quiz apps.    

Shopify is also planning to improve its AI-powered Shop assistant, which will allow you to offer consumers product ideas and suggestions suitable to their needs. 

Integrated Reviews

You can now sync your customer's ratings and reviews across more touchpoints, including your online store, the Shop app, and Shopify Collective, by using the following apps: Yotpo, Loox, Judge.me, Okendo, and Stamped.io. 

In addition, you can sync your review responses across these platforms, and if you use one of the apps mentioned above, you can display a “Verified by Shop” badge on reviews left by customers on your Shopify store. 

Operations

Here’s a set of tools aimed to help you better manage the operational aspects of your store, and these fall into seven main categories:

1. Shopify Magic
2. Data privacy
3. Shopify lending
4. Shopify tax
5. Shopify flow
6. Shipping and fulfillment
7. Shopify App Store

Taking each in turn:

Shopify Magic

This is a new AI-enabled image editor, product description generator, personalized FAQ, and customer response tool. 

You can instantly generate images and match or remove backgrounds with just a few clicks or keywords. You don’t need any design skills to use Shopify Magic. 

You can also type in a few keywords, and Shopify Magic will generate SEO-friendly, commerce-related ideas to enhance your product descriptions. 

Shopify Magic also suggests personalized responses to add to your Shopify Inbox, such as those about returns or shopping. This lets you instantly respond to customer questions in your store’s chat window. 

Data privacy

Shopify's built-in data privacy tools help you manage online compliance across international markets. 

All Shopify privacy settings are now visible on a central page. You'll also benefit from recommendations on which privacy settings you need depending on where you trade.

Shopify Lending

This feature is an upgrade of Shopify Capital and is exclusive to Shopify merchants that meet the eligibility criteria. 

In short, Shopify Lending offers more customizable and flexible financing options. 

Three new products are available:

• Capital loans and cash advances
• Term loans
• Line of credit

It's also worth noting that you'll now be rewarded with an annual percentage yield (APY) on money in your Shopify Balance account. There's no minimum balance or limit to how much can be rewarded. 

Shopify tax

Shopify tax simplifies filing annual, quarterly, and monthly US sales tax reports. 

You can access a single report with all the data you need by picking the relevant US state and filtering by time period. 

In addition, Shopify offers VAT registration guidance to sellers in the UK, Germany, and France to help them stay compliant and meet selling rules on platforms like Pinterest and Meta. 

Shopify Flow

Thanks to Shopify Flow, you can write JavaScript code to execute custom logic, calculate dates, aggregate data, and more. 

The editor has a new centralized search, so you can find new pre-built automations quickly. 

You'll also be notified when a workflow fails, allowing you to respond faster and lessen potential disruptions to your business. 

Shipping and fulfillment

New shipping and fulfillment features include an address checker that ensures addresses inputted at checkout are right and corrects them if they're wrong. 

You can also connect your store to Shopify’s official order fulfillment partner, Flexport. Eligible businesses can save up to 10% on their first inventory batch. 

In addition, Shopify can suggest the best shipping service for each order, and USPS Ground Advantage is now available on Shopify Shipping with savings of up to 86%.

Shopify App Store

AI-powered app guidance helps you find the best apps to run your business. Just type what you need, and Shopify’s new tool suggests the best apps to perform that function. 

You can also compare up to four apps side by side in the App Store (prices, key features, rating, etc).

Lastly, Shopify has improved its app install flow to make installation faster. 

Developer

Lastly, developers can enjoy the following updates:

1. Storefronts
2. Extensibility
3. Developer experience
4. App growth

Taking each in turn:

Storefronts

There are 17 updates in this category. 

These include up to eight layers of theme blocks for more design control. Plus, developers will be able to build custom dashboards to monitor web performance using Shopify’s public RUM API. This will give developers valuable insights into a store’s Core Web Vitals.

Developers can also quickly test Liquid code snippets or explore new filters in the online store editor or CLI. 

Other storefront updates include:

• Being able to share storefront previews with tokenized links.
• Runtime mirroring between Hydrogen’s dev environment and Oxygen.
• Customer Privacy API is now on Hydrogen.
• Being able to build with the stable release of the Customer Account API.

Extensibility

This category has ten updates, including being able to build extensions directly into new customer accounts with the same UI components as Shopify Checkout. 

In addition, checkout extensibility upgrades are now available, including upgrades for the thank you and order status pages. 

Developers can also expand styling options for checkout pages with 50+ new color properties. 

There are also updates to make Flow more developer-friendly, including a range of new actions, including ‘run code,’ preview Flow tasks, a new Store Credit Primitive, and an API in Developer Preview. 

Developer experience

Developers can build seamless eCommerce merchant experiences by offering fast app loading with OAuth2 Token Exchange. They can also accelerate development with Remix and libraries.

In addition, there are also performance improvements for Shopify Functions, faster API queries, mutations, and access grants for metafields. 

GraphQL Admin API improvements mean double the rate limits for GraphQL and Admin API. Developers can launch GraphQL with a hotkey from the CLI during ‘app dev' and improve the app’s latency and performance by making GraphOL queries from the embedded app’s front-end, with direct API access support for App Bridge.

App growth

Shopify is making it easier for developers to get noticed on its App Store by offering advertising on its homepage (this will soon be available on category pages, too). 

Developers can also demonstrate how their app stands out by highlighting its key features on the new app comparison page.

Also, Shopify App Store listings are now automatically translated into eight languages. So developers could benefit from four times more installs in non-English-speaking markets.

Last but not least, you can include app permissions on your app details page. This enables a faster installation experience with OAuth2 Token Exchange and more managed installation for the merchant.

Are You Ready to Make the Most Out of Shopify Editions Winter 2024?

Hopefully, you now have a better idea of what Shopify has been working on behind the scenes. 

Given the 100+ different updates, there’s lots of information for you to plow through. However, it’s worth taking an afternoon to read through everything included in Shopify's latest updates.

Click the links provided to see if these updates are worth further exploring to help you run your store more efficiently and, ultimately, make more money. 

Are you ready to explore Shopify Editions 2024? In the comments below, let us know what you think about Shopify's latest updates.