What’s New On Shopify? Highlights from Winter ’24 Shopify Editions

Shopify’s commitment to keeping its merchants ahead of the curve continues with the release of the Winter ’24 Shopify Edition updates. The update to the ever-popular ecommerce platform includes over 100 enhancements that we all can’t wait to explore in 2024, with its promise to make online business more streamlined and better than ever for both merchants and customers.

In this article by Ecommerce Pro, we are breaking down some of the biggest enhancements and updates to the Shopify platform in 2024, helping you grasp the changes to categories like conversion, channels, marketing, and improvements to operations that promise to provide merchants with cutting-edge tools for success.

Shopify is highlighting 4 different categories in their  Winter ’24 Shopify Edition release, which we simplify in its essence down below.

Let’s get started:

1. More Ways to Convert

Shopify has added new and improved ways to convert your buyers, from merchandising upgrades to enhanced subscription services.

Merchandising Upgrades:

• 2,000 Variant Limit: Shopify's new GraphQL APIs increase the variant limit from 100 to 2,000 per product. A big boost that caters to those with complex catalogs, with lots of colorways, sizing, and SKU options. 
• Combined Listings: Buyers can now purchase any variation of a product from a single product listing, streamlining the shopping experience. With the new update, each variation can now have its own description, media gallery, and descriptive URL.
• Better Product Classification: Shopify’s new taxonomy reduces the time and effort it takes you to create product listings, automatically applying standardized categories and attributes, like color, age group, or size across different variants so you don’t have to do it manually over and over, saving merchants plenty of time and effort.

Storefront Performance:

• Web Performance Dashboard: With the new Web Performance Dashboard, Shopify just got a lot faster, with the introduction of industry-standard Core Web Vitals, focusing on loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. The platform's infrastructure is now 35% faster, with global points of presence expanded to nearly 300.

Semantic Search:

• AI-powered Semantic Search: Shopify’s new AI-powered Semantic search feature goes beyond keywords to better understand shopper intent, giving them more relevant search results for products and services they’re most likely to buy.

Checkout Enhancements:

• One-Page Checkout: Still the fastest and highest converting checkout on the internet, Shopify Checkout only got more streamlined in the latest update, going from three pages to one, reducing buyer completion time by 4 seconds on average.
• Checkout Extensibility: Shopify has added 14 new APIs and 90+ apps for you to customize Shopify’s checkout experience.

Subscriptions:

Free Subscriptions App: Shopify has since come out with its very own new free Subscriptions app! You can now manage product and service subscriptions directly from the Shopify admin.

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2. More Channels & Better Global Reach:

Shopify is simplifying the process of expanding into new markets and channels, making it as simple as adding a new product. Now you can sell in a new region, marketplace, social media channel, or physical retail locations in a more streamlined manner.

POS Ship from Store:

• Fulfillment Flexibility: Soon you’ll be able to select a retail store as the fulfillment location, streamlining POS fulfillment, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

Markets Pro:

• International Selling Simplified: With worldwide ecommerce sales expected to grow by 9.4% in 2024, Shopify is making it easier for merchants to sell across borders with Markets Pro. Markets Pro simplifies the complexity of selling across different countries, helping you manage taxes, duties, shipping labels, and more. (Now available in the US).

3. Maximizing Marketing Impact:

Shopify Winter Editions 2024 is making marketing more impactful, with enhancements to Shopify Audiences and Shop Campaigns, helping you reach a wider audience and better analyze data to understand and improve your marketing efforts.

Shopify Audiences:

• Smarter Retargeting: Shopify Audiences helps merchants find more customers. With this Edition, Shopify has improved retargeting algorithms allowing merchants to retarget twice as many potential buyers with improved custom Retargeting Boost lists in V2.2 (Exclusive to Shopify Plus).

Shop Campaigns:

• Rebranded Shop Cash Offers:  In this Edition, Shopify is rebranding Shop Cash Offers as Shop Campaigns. You can use Shop Campaigns to attract buyers on the Shop app, the web, and soon, Meta and Google. They’re also amping up estimates and analytics for new customers, sales, and return on spend.

4. Streamlining Business Operations:

Shopify is empowering its merchants with better AI-enabled tools to help them run better online businesses. Moreover, they’re helping you run your business operations through a suite of financing options with flexible financing and loans.

Shopify Magic:

• AI-enabled Tools: Shopify has built AI right into the very foundations of their ecommerce platform with Shopify Magic, their suite of free AI-enabled tools. Shopify’s embrace of AI tools allows merchants to stay on the cutting edge, giving merchants the AI-related support and assistance they need to run their online shops.
• Media Editor: Shopify’s new Media Editor lets merchants use generative AI to DIY product images instantly and for free, directly within your Shopify Admin. You can now create original images for free, saving you tons on cost.
• Sidekick: Sidekick is Shopify’s AI-enabled assistant for ecommerce, and they have dubbed it the very best of AI assistants for online stores. Merchants can use Sidekick to increase productivity, improve workflows, and make smarter online business decisions.

Shopify Capital:

• Expanded Lending Solutions: Shopify is growing its suite of lending solutions with two new products. They have introduced the Shopify Line of Credit to allow merchants to access funding from the admin with no hidden fees. They’ve also introduced  Shopify Term Loans for more flexible financing options.

Conclusion

We’ve given you the highlights of Shopify’s Winter 24 Editions. To get a look at the full scope, check out Shopify Editions for deeper details into the 100+ updates Shopify has or will soon be releasing across the platform.

With the release of Winter ’24 Edition, we’re excited to see how these updates enhance the overall Shopify and online store experience. These updates go to show that Shopify remains constant in its commitment to innovation and providing the very best and most up-to-date solutions for their merchants on their platforms, creating better and more empowering experiences for all.

To access more valuable resources regarding ecommerce and the latest Shopify news and advice, check out the Ecommerce Pro Blog.

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