Unlocking Shopify Editions Winter '24
Last week, Shopify announced their latest product updates with the launch of Shopify Editions Winter ‘24: Foundations. Through Editions, they rolled out a suite of new platform capabilities, all designed to further empower merchants using the Shopify platform.
Our team at Tomorrow/Half Helix teamed up with Kurt Elster, one of the most highly-regarded independent consultants in the industry, to host a live session to discuss some of the updates we are most excited about and break down why they are important. Check it out here.
We summarized some of our favorite updates from Shopify Editions Winter ‘24 below:
Merchandising
One of the most significant updates comes in the form of new product APIs supporting an increased variant limit, now allowing up to 2,000 variants per product— a substantial leap from the previous 100 variant cap. This enhancement is a game-changer for fashion brands and other eCommerce businesses offering products with diverse attributes.
For example, with just three attributes (such as sizes, colors, and fabric for example), the former 100 variant limit could quickly be exceeded.
Previously, managing products with multiple attributes required custom features and workarounds to stitch products together in order to list them on a singular Product Detail Page (PDP). Now, with the expanded variant limit, merchants can group more products under one PDP natively within Shopify and provide a more seamless experience both on the admin side and for their customers.
Current availability: Developer preview only.
Additionally, Shopify has introduced a Combined Listings app, enabling consolidated parent products directly within their admin. This creates flexibility for increased merchandising capabilities on Product Listing Pages (PLPs), which allows brand operators to surface products in a variety of different ways, such as for capsule collections, to show different colorways, and more.
This new native app provides a standardized solution for displaying product variations, offering flexibility for merchandising while optimizing products for search (SEO). Previously, this was a popular theme customization we built for many of our clients, but this new integration eliminates that need for custom development and provides a seamless experience for both brands and customers.
Current availability: Invite beta only. Reach out to your partner manager for access.
Finally, Shopify announced rich attributes for product categories. Currently, merchants manage what information is displayed on PDPs per product category in a variety of ways, most notably by pinning metaobjects and metafields so they are visible. The limitation is that only 20 of those can be pinned at a time.
The new taxonomy facilitated by rich attributes makes it easier to classify and organize products with a standard approach. This represents a huge unlock for brands who don’t operate with a Product Information Management (PIM) and allows richer information to be stored within Shopify directly.
Current availability: Developer preview only.
B2B Enhancements
With the new business-to-business (B2B) features announced in Editions, Shopify is enhancing merchants’ ability to manage their entire eCommerce business- whether it’s B2B, direct-to-consumer (DTC), or both- all in one place. To streamline B2B transactions, Shopify introduced several new account settings and enhancements.
From assigning sales reps to customers and locations, to customizing pricing and discounts per region, these new features empower merchants to cater to the unique requirements of their B2B clientele. By creating silos for identifying information and introducing more granularity, Shopify is also becoming more secure over time and limiting risk for all parties involved.
Lastly, they have made it easier to match B2B site styling with a brand’s DTC site, creating a unified brand experience across different channels.
With these updates, Shopify continues to bridge the gap between B2B and DTC, lowering the barrier for more brands to venture into B2B sales.
Current availability: available for everyone.
AI-Powered Features
With the new built-in photo editor within Shopify Magic, brands can now use generative AI to run enhancements on images, swap out backgrounds, and more. With the ability to reuse and edit their existing imagery, this can represent huge time and money savings for brands as they work to improve and enhance their site design.
Current availability: available for everyone.
With Semantic Search, Shopify introduces a new way to deliver personalized shopping experiences. This AI-powered storefront search can distinguish beyond keywords to identify what a customer is looking for.
John Festa-- Sr. Solutions Architect for Tomorrow/Half Helix, shared during our live session that ‘chocolate milk’ and ‘milk chocolate’ represent two entirely different things, but a traditional keyword search may return the same results. Semantic search helps solve for this, delivering a better experience for the customer.
Additionally, factors that may be on the fringe but not directly part of a customer’s purchase journey (such as browsing history, previous search terms, and more) now become accessible natively within Shopify, instead of through a third-party app, allowing brands to further personalize search experiences. These AI-powered tools prove crucial in enabling merchants to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Current availability: available for everyone.
Returns, Exchanges, and Store Credit
Functionality that allows native returns and exchanges have been added to the Shopify admin, allowing merchants to create a return, make an exchange, and even offer store credit natively through the platform. This is a crucial feature that will help prevent brands from losing that conversion and ultimately keep their customers engaged.
This is another example of Shopify moving important day-to-day operations into the native Shopify admin. Previously, merchants had to use discount codes and gift cards as a solution, but this new feature allows them to properly track returns and exchanges more precisely in order to understand and troubleshoot issues.
In addition, this enhancement allows a customer’s entire history to be more accurately tracked within customer account profiles, which facilitates higher touch customer service to address pain points with more impact.
Current availability: early access for select merchants.
Subscriptions
Shopify Subscriptions was announced in the previous Shopify Editions, and is finally now available for everyone. Previously, to launch a subscription program, brands only had the option to use a paid third-party app.
With this functionality now live, the barrier for brands looking to test out a subscription model without the overhead is now much lower. This is key for brands selling consumable products, empowering them to ventured into this new revenue stream with lowered risks.
Current availability: available for everyone.
In Conclusion
The latest Shopify Editions represents a significant leap forward in empowering merchants to do more directly within Shopify admin, while enhancing the shopping experience for customers. From expanded variant limits to AI-powered enhancements, these updates support Shopify's commitment to innovation and excellence in eCommerce. As merchants embrace these new features and capabilities, they are poised to unlock new opportunities and drive growth in the digital marketplace.
Listen to the recording of our live session on Shopify Editions here.
To learn more or if you have any questions, please send us an email at hello@tomorrowagency.com, or contact us via the button in our header.