Shopify is back with its 2023 Summer Edition, full of new features, announcements, and long-awaited developments (did someone say Bundles?). I shared some thoughts on LinkedIn last week, but here's a more comprehensive look at the release.
With 100s of product updates that range from helping SMBs launch e-commerce to amplifying enterprise businesses' growth, Shopify's focus on empowering merchants of all sizes comes through in this edition.
Integrated AI
Shopify is investing in AI in a big way. They announced Shopify Magic in Winter Editions, but now, it represents a suite of AI products geared at helping merchants work smarter and faster. Some highlights were the AI-generated FAQs and long-form blog content. These will be game-changers for businesses looking to get up and running quickly or looking for opportunities to optimize.
Founder/CEO Tobi Lutke's announcement of their new AI-enabled e-commerce assistant, Sidekick, also made a big splash this month. Sidekick will make everyone's lives easier, allowing for more efficient workflows and easier access to data.
The Best Checkout
In a study shared earlier this year, Shopify was named the highest-converting checkout in the world, performing 15% better on average than other platforms, like Salesforce, Magento, and BigCommerce. It's no surprise checkout is a highlight again in this Summer's edition, building on the release of Checkout Extensibility with features like subscription up-sells and the cart transform function, making it easy to merge and expand line items in checkout.
One-page checkout will finally be possible within Shopify without any apps or custom solutions. According to Shopify, beta merchants have increased conversion by up to 7% with a one-page checkout. To be considered for early rollout, merchants:
- Need to be on Checkout Extensibility
- Cannot be using any apps that make use of the checkout validation function
- Using Shopify Plus
Total Commerce
Shopify continues to evolve into a total commerce solution for omnichannel growth. Within the last year, B2B functionality became accessible within the DTC admin. Now, Shopify is taking lessons from DTC and applying them to B2B with features like localized B2B storefronts with Shopify Markets, volume pricing, Shopify flow automation, and vaulted payments.
Shopify Marketplace Connect is a new offering allowing merchants to simplify product listing management across top marketplaces like Amazon and eBay all within their Shopify admin.
POS is also a focus for Shopify that doesn't seem to be going away any time soon, continuing to close the gap between online and in-store functionality. Customers can now take advantage of Shop Pay Installments even when shopping in-store. They've also rolled out other enhanced management tools to improve POS for the retail setting.
Shopify Network
Compared to competitors, Shopify is uniquely positioned as a network offering merchants value beyond the platform, especially for customer acquisition.
With Summer Edition, enterprise retailers not on Shopify will have access to Shop Pay, further growing Shopify's reach. With over 100 million Shop Pay customers, this move is said to give merchants a 5% lift in conversion.
Shopify Collective is a new way for Shopify brands to sell complementary products from like-minded Shopify brands without the hassle of managing, storing, and shipping inventory. Consider a coffee brand that wants to offer customers accessories or a mattress brand looking to provide bedding. Shopify Collective is a great, simple way to increase AOV and drive retention. See how Drake used Shopify Collective to collab with other brands.
The Shop app isn't top of mind for most merchants, but Shopify hasn't stopped investing here. What started as a tool for order tracking has become a destination for shopping and discovery. If you ask me, leveraging it is a no-brainer for customer acquisition. The latest updates include more customized storefronts, AI personalized shopping, post-purchase upsells, and Shop Cash.
Platform Improvements
Beyond all the innovation and new features, Shopify continues to evolve its core product. Here are a few of the exciting advances coming out of the Summer edition:
- Updated UI giving merchants more control over reporting (check out this post from Shopify Senior Staff Designer José Torre on Shopify's evolved design system, Polaris)
- Preview section content and draft PDPs/blogs/pages
- New APIs are in development to (finally) increase Shopify's 100 variant limit, especially important Shopify is currently working on new APIs that will allow support for complex products that come in a variety of colors, sizes, etc. Eyewear is a great example.
- The Bundles app is finally available right within Shopify.
- Offer subscriptions without a third party. Like Shopify Email, we see this as a great way for merchants to get a turnkey subscription offering in place but don't expect the advanced functionality you get with platforms like Recharge.
Explore
We couldn't possibly touch on all of the Summer Edition updates, so feel free to explore the full experience here. Fun fact: The website was built on Shopify leveraging Hydrogen and meta-objects, showing just how flexible Shopify can be.
Lastly, make sure to check out the "Search" button at the bottom right to explore Shopify's AI chatbot.
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This post originally appeared in Edition No. 151 of my newsletter. Subscribe here.
Monday, July 31, 2023
