What is Shopify Editions?
Shopify Editions is Shopify's documented release of its newest features and they sure haven't disappointed with their 'Shopify Editions Winter 2023' release. This Shopify Edition brings over 100 new features focusing on improving the customer experience online to make it easier for brands to sell through the platform. This Shopify Edition focuses on 8 key areas which we'll explore in this article. Please note this article does not include every single new feature release, you can visit their website for a complete list.
Improvements to Shopify Conversion Rates
The first set of firsts we'll discuss are those of Shopify that have been released to help improve the conversion rate of buyers on Shopify stores.
Improved Shopify Site Speed
Given that Shopify provides the hosting for theme-based Shopify stores, it's vital that the servers perform well and the architecture can manage the scale that Shopify brands require. Shopify has expanded its global infrastructure with now 270 points of presence around the world and more being deployed - stores are seeing sites performance twice as fast!
One-Page Checkout
We are so excited for the released updates to the checkout page functionality! The Shopify checkout has historically been something of a frustration for many brands wanting to offer a highly personalised look and feel, or of course to have a one-page checkout reducing the checks and pages required at the most crucial point of a customer's journey. Well, the good news is Shopify is rolling out an overhaul one-page checkout that is faster, higher-converting and reduces friction.
Drag-and-drop Checkout Editor
Whilst Shopify Plus merchants have been able to make cosmetic changes to the checkout by editing the checkout.liquid file, now Plus merchants can leverage the drag-and-drop checkout editor to add checkout apps to the checkout experience and customise the checkout branding too with ease. This does require an upgrade to
checkout extensibility.
Shop Sign-In & Shop Promise
Shopify's Shop Pay is their answer to one-click checkout and now can be used to build trust with customers but also customers can use Shop to sign in earlier in the buying journey to make checkout even easier when they decide to buy!
AI Writer
Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have seen the uprising of
ChatGPT, but Shopify is listening and has implemented an AI auto-writer to add text content with ease to the Shopify frontend for example write product descriptions with the click of a button!
Improved Search & Recommendations
Search & product recommendations are vital for customers to find the most relevant products and also the ones customers are the most likely to buy. Shopify has
enhanced search & recommendations to allow customers to see search results in real-time, see more relevant results and even receive product recommendations without the need for historical purchase data too!
New Made by Shopify Apps
Shopify is also releasing two exciting new home-grown apps - Shopify Bundles & Shopify Discounts. We always love product updates! Shopify Bundles will allow sellers to sell multiple products in bundles and offer a single price accordingly! You'll be able to control sizes and products in bundles with ease. Shopify Discounts apps will be an example apps of how Shopify Functions can be used to combine multiple discounts or offer more discount types like a gift with a purchase. Of course, custom apps can be built with Shopify Functions to offer bespoke discount requirements.
Improvements to how merchants sell cross channels
Whilst the primary way that merchants sell on Shopify is via their online stores, Shopify does make it very easy to sell products across other channels too. Shopify POS and POS Go allows merchants to sell in-store with Shopify's hardware and system powering transactions whilst also keeping products and inventory in sync. Gift cards are now included with POS! Shopify has also released a native integration to allow Shopify merchants to sell their Shopify products on Youtube with ease! Finally, brands selling on the Shopify Shop App now have enhanced levels of customizability on their storefronts too!
Updates to how brands sell globally with Shopify
Shopify has supported
international selling with the release of
Shopify Markets and Shopify Plus multi-store, however, they haven't stopped there with the launch of a Translation app and Shopify Markets Pro.
Shopify Translate & Adapt App
Store translation is something that historically was managed by a third-party provider or via the not-so-easy language files, but Shopify has now released a translation app to allow you to offer your store in the native languages of the visitor, you can even pair this app with Shopify markets so everything remains in sync.
Shopify Markets Pro
Whilst currently only being trialled in the USA, Markets provide offers a complete cross-border shipping and fulfilment solution and shopping experience allowing merchants to offload tax filing, automatically remove items with restrictions for a particular market and access fraud protection on every cross-border order. Shopify Markets Pro is in collaboration with Global-E, if you require this or more advanced requirements and tools then we recommend you consider
Global-E directly.
Other great internationalisation features released include order routing for specific markets and the ability to show unique products to different markets too!
Bespoke Shopify Plus Websites