Shopify Summer ’24 Edition: A Breakdown on the Revolutionary Update

As we head into the summer of 2024, Shopify has once again announced its rollout of anticipated new updates, set to innovate the ecommerce landscape with the anticipated Summer ’24 Edition. Shopify has been consistently rolling out exciting updates that keep Shopify merchants on the cutting edge of ecommerce innovation, allowing them to stay ahead of the curve and on top of emerging ecommerce trends and best practices. This year’s summer updates are just as extensive as the last, showing Shopify’s constant commitment to keeping its platform and its merchants at the top of the ecommerce game.

This year’s summer theme? Unified. Shopify is unifying commerce in the summer of 2024 so that online brands can sell more, scale more, build more, and get more done—all in one place.

With this year’s theme centered on unification, updates are set to redefine how businesses and consumers interact in the digital and physical marketplace, offering new tools, features, and enhancements designed to cater to the ever-evolving needs of online merchants. In this article by Ecommerce Pro, we are breaking down some of the most exciting updates aimed at Shopify merchants. Now let’s dive into the key updates that are making waves this summer.

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Introducing the Shopify Summer ‘24 Edition:

1. Expand Across Markets

Expand your business and its reach with Shopify Markets. The new Markets is becoming more unified with this summer’s new update, evolving into a one-stop shop for international expansion and B2B (B2B is still only available for Shopify Plus stores).

With this update, expanding across B2B, retail, and various regions is set to become easier, with Markets as your command center for expansion and growth. Markets will allow you to see all the markets you operate in from one dashboard, allowing you to compare performances, and expand your business to new countries. With the new market update, you can:

Expand to New Places, All in One Place :

Gain full control over your market strategies with an intuitive interface that brings all your expansion efforts under one roof. This new and improved centralized approach is going to simplify managing multiple markets, enabling you to streamline operations and stay on top of performance analytics from a single, unified dashboard.

Customize B2B, Retail & International Markets:

Tailoring the customer experience with Shopify’s Markets. Merchants can now customize various aspects of their storefronts to suit different market needs. This is the kind of flexibility online businesses need to address the unique preferences and behaviors of different customer groups, driving engagement and sales across the regions you operate in.

2. Sell Online

The Summer '24 Edition update is set to unlock the potential of conducting online business even further. The updates will enhance ecommerce capabilities, from enhanced search, and product bundles, to improved AI integrations. Here is how Shopify is set to empower its merchants and their businesses, maximizing your sales opportunities at every turn.

Sign In with Shop Anywhere

Shopify introduces a new way to identify customers with the “Sign In with Shop Anywhere” feature. This functionality ensures quick and secure sign-ins and allows merchants to place custom avatars and secure, one-click passkeys anywhere on their store, enhancing security and personalizing the shopping experience.

A Built-In Taxonomy to Power Products

An update that effectively enhances product discovery and navigation across your store, search functionalities have never been better. Shopify has overhauled its product taxonomy, introducing more than 10,000 categories and 2,000 comprehensive attributes. They are even introducing image filters for search. This extensive taxonomy is powered by AI.

Combined Listing

You can now create combined listings to showcase unique and rich media galleries, descriptions, and URLs for multiple options of a product placed under one parent listing. This enhances the way you showcase versions of a product—such as different colors, sizes, or models—under a single, unified listing.

Store Credit on Shopify

Shopify’s new feature for issuing store credit directly from the admin panel revolutionizes how merchants manage customer transactions and customer satisfaction. This new functionality allows businesses a seamless method for compensating customers or resolving issues, enhancing and maintaining customer loyalty. Merchants can view store credit balances, track transaction history, and enable customers to utilize their credit during checkout. This not only simplifies transactions but also encourages repeat purchases and increases customer satisfaction.

Track how Events Impact Store Performance

A new and improved element to store analytics, you can now track how events, such as app uninstalls, theme updates, and new code impact your store performance. This will enable you to make adjustments that will optimize your store further.

Product Bundles: Product Bundles in Draft Orders & Shop

The introduction of product bundles within draft orders and on the Shop platform empowers Shopify merchants to boost their average order value and drive sales. This feature enables businesses to curate bundled product offerings, encouraging customers to purchase complementary items together, and showcasing product bundles during the checkout process. This update works to increase upsell opportunities and enhance the shopping experience.

3. Shop in Person (Streamlined Retail)

Shopify is streamlining the in-person shopping experience with its new Summer '24 Edition update to Shopify POS (Point of Sale). This should be exciting for brands working both online and physical shops who are set to discover a new era of streamlined retail operations through Shopify. From effortless email capture and streamlined return processes to enhanced data collection at checkout, Shopify is paving the way for a smooth ecommerce and physical retail experience.

With the update, merchants will be able to offer seamless one-tap digital receipts through Shop Pay, enabling quick email capture and subscription options. With improved tools for staff attribution and clearer return rules, Shopify POS ensures retailers can focus on delivering exceptional customer service while maximizing operational efficiency. Here are the details on some of the most exciting new updates:

Effortless Email Capture with Shop Pay

You can now simplify checkout with seamless one-tap digital receipts via Shop Pay. This new feature automatically suggests customer emails and allows them to opt-in for marketing updates in the process. This allows you to keep in touch with customers through updates and marketing emails, boosting engagement, while also enhancing customer convenience.

Reliable Rules for Return

One major update to Shopify POS is the function of reliable rules for returns. Shopify POS will now automatically determine whether or not a product can be returned, according to store policy. This system can be overturned by the store manager if ever the need arises. These enhancements ensure smoother transactions and better, more consistent customer service.

Unique Catalogs for Each Retail Store

For businesses with multiple retail locations, you can now customize pricing and product listings for each of your locations. This feature allows for regionalized checkout flows and translated product catalogs, enhancing the shopping experience for customers in different markets or countries.

Retail Customers Can Buy X Get Y

Entice and retain customers with your Buy X Get Y discount codes that are now on POS.

You can now easily add these discounts to the POS smart grid for seamless application during checkout and start attracting customers with even better offers.

Stack Discounts in Store

Another way to entice customers in your retail location is through stacked discounts in-store. You can offer multiple discounts in a single transaction. For example, combine product discounts with order discounts to provide better deals and enhance the shopping experience—not to mention increased sales. With this feature, you can experiment with creating different promotional combinations to suit different marketing strategies and customer segments.

Require Customer & Staff Info at Checkout

This update Enhances transaction security and insights at checkout by collecting vital information and staff details directly during checkout. This data allows you to identify your high-performing staff members and to reward commissions accordingly.

4. Sell Wholesale

Shopify has been placing a lot of energy and attention into developing its B2B capabilities (only available on Shopify Plus ). Recent updates are set to provide Shopify merchants with more powerful tools that tailor their wholesale operations, meet the varying needs of different markets, enhance the transaction process, and streamline product management. From the brand-new Trade theme designed for bulk purchasing to the advanced customization options, and accurate shipping calculations, Shopify is fully dedicated to optimizing the wholesale experience down the the finest details. Selling B2B on Shopify has never looked better. Here’s a closer look at the key features that will transform your B2B sales strategy:

Trade Theme Now Available

Trade is the new dedicated theme for B2B and wholesale operations. With Trade, you can easily set up a highly efficient B2B store, designed specifically for B2B and bulk wholesale purchases. This out-of-the-box solution to B2B simplifies the creation of a professional and functional wholesale storefront for wholesale merchants, offering them a streamlined and efficient solution. The Trade theme was designed with wholesale buyers in mind and has an easy set-up process so that you can get your B2B business off the ground with minimal effort.

Customize Your Store for Each B2B Market

B2B wholesale businesses often operate across multiple markets. With the Summer '24 Edition update, you can easily create and manage multiple B2B markets with unique catalogs and storefront theme customizations—all with no coding required. The market-specific customization option allows you to provide a distinct shopping experience to your customers from across different markets, tailoring your offerings and presentation to cater to the different wholesale segments that you may be working with.

Collect Deposits at Checkout

You can now implement a percentage-based deposit at checkout for each of your B2B customers. This new feature of requiring a deposit from your customers to confirm large orders ensures buyer commitment. The deposit requirement is adjustable and can be based on customer profiles and certain order specifics.

Fetch Supplier Shipping Rates at Checkout

At checkout, B2B customers can get accurate shipping rates based on supplier costs by weight and location through Shopify Collective, which will reflect the real-time supplier shipping rates to ensure a fair and precise charge for shipping no matter where your customers need their purchase shipped.

Manage Products from Suppliers in Bulk

Conduct your B2B wholesale operations with new and improved bulk management. The update to Shopify B2B is set to speed up your time-to-market by importing, managing, and publishing thousands of supplier products at the same time, saving you time and effort. Shopify Collective allows for the syncing of more product fields, ensuring comprehensive and efficient product management for a smoother experience in managing your B2B operations.

5. Sell Globally

Expanding across borders with Shopify has always been one of its strong suits, and with Summer 2024 Editions, Shopify is taking you on leaps and bounds onto new markets. Expanding your business internationally with Shopify is more accessible with their new Managed Markets toolset, which provides a comprehensive solution to navigating some of the most complex aspects of selling internationally—namely taxes, duties, regional restrictions, and optimizing shipping. These updates ensure a seamless and buyer-friendly experience for your global customers, allowing you to focus on growing your business seamlessly and more easily than ever across borders. Here’s what to look out for in the new update:

Markets Pro is Now Managed Markets

Shopify is removing the barriers to selling internationally with Managed Markets (formerly Markets Pro). Managed Markets is set to put aside some of the complexities of international sales by seamlessly adding all duties and taxes in regional prices, avoiding selling restricted products, and securing better shipping rates for an international buyer-friendly experience. This helps build trust and transparency. You can now also edit existing orders to adapt to changing customer needs or corrections post checkout— all on the new and improved Managed Markets system that helps you handle all the hardest parts of global selling.

Ship Faster for Less with UPS

Managed Markets also allows you to access UPS Worldwide Expedited® and UPS® Standard to Canada and Mexico. This ensures that your shipping process is not only faster but also more economical. This service is set to simplify your logistics and improve your delivery times, with better rates and duties paid upfront, mitigating any unpleasant surprise charges. Faster, reliable shipping will only enhance the customer experience, increasing the likelihood of repeat business.

Multiple Business Entities, One Store

In keeping with this year’s “Unified” theme, you can now operate multiple Shopify Payment accounts tied to different business entities within one Shopify single storefront, centralizing your operations, and making it easier to oversee all your activities in one place. This feature is exciting because it will allow companies to enjoy more operational efficiency, improve financial management, and simplify accounting.

6. World’s Best Checkout

Shopify has been holding the title of the world’s best checkout since May 2023, having fine-tuned the checkout process to be as seamless and frictionless as possible. The best-converting checkout experience is also getting exciting new updates that will have you increasing your bottom line, solidifying your position as the ecommerce world’s best. These updates are focused on improving customer experience by offering greater clarity, customization, and convenience that will streamline the whole checkout process, cutting corners on unnecessary frills. From split shipping options to customizable checkout pages, Shopify ensures a seamless and efficient checkout journey for both merchants and customers. Here’s a look at the updates:

Split Shipping at Checkout

The split shipping update is designed to give your customers more clarity and choice at checkout. Split checkout will now display when an order is split into multiple shipments, giving customers the option to choose the lowest price, the fastest delivery, or custom shipping options, enhancing their shopping experience.

Checkout Blocks is Now Free

Checkout Blocks is now a free and easy way to customize checkouts with checkout extensions. This allows merchants to tailor their checkout process without any coding. Exclusive to Shopify Plus.

Customize More Pages with Apps

All plans can now use apps to add functionality to the Thank You and Order Status pages, allowing for an upgrade-safe customization process from the checkout and accounts editor. This enhancement provides more opportunities for businesses to personalize customer interactions post-purchase, keeping your store aesthetics aligned with your branding.

Capture Payment Per Fulfillment

You can now Automate payment capture when part of an order is fulfilled to meet customer preferences and reporting requirements. This allows for more flexible and accurate payment processing. Exclusive to Shopify Plus.

Shop Pay Supports Pickup in-store

The Shop Pay Component now allows customers to choose to buy online or pick up in-store, allowing customers more choice and flexibility. This is great for businesses managing both online and physical locations. Exclusive to Shopify Plus.

7. AI for Commerce

As we continue into the new age of AI, Shopify has been keeping its merchants in pace with new AI technology integrations that help make running your online shop a breeze. With Shopify's Summer '24 Edition, Shopify continues to harness the power of artificial intelligence to enhance various aspects of running your business, making operations smoother, marketing more effective, and customer interactions more efficient. These new AI-driven tools and features are designed to help you save even more time, boost creativity, and optimize your business strategies with ease—freeing you to do more (or less) for your business while AI handles the tasks. Here are the AI integrations to look forward to:

Get More Done, Powered by AI

Sidekick, Shopify’s personal AI assistant, is live in thousands of Shopify stores. You can now unlock AI media editing on mobile and across the admin. Additionally, merchants can easily answer customer questions with AI-suggested replies in their Inboxes, streamlining customer service, and managing customer concerns and queries on the fly.

Sidekick, Your Personal Shopify Assistant

There are thousands of stores now harnessing the power of Sidekick to tackle time-consuming and menial tasks, jumpstart creativity, and make better business decisions with AI’s help. This AI assistant has been helping merchants manage their operations more efficiently and will continue to do so in 2024, improving its operations and capabilities along the way.

Suggested Replies in Inbox

Eligible stores will soon be able to quickly answer customer questions in Shopify Inbox with AI-generated replies. This feature enhances customer service and satisfaction by providing quick and accurate responses to their questions, alleviating any concerns, and freeing them up to make a purchase decision.

Segmentation in Plain Language

Shopify Magic now translates the ShopifyQL code for a segment into a simple description that’s easier for laypersons to understand. This makes it easier for merchants to comprehend and utilize their store data for targeted marketing efforts.

Suggested Categories & Attributes

Easily classify your products with AI-suggested categories, attributes, and values to make them more discoverable in your shop and other marketplaces. This feature ensures that products are accurately categorized for better visibility. Grouping your products will also help you boost your average order value.

Enhance Images Everywhere

AI has many promising features when it comes to image generation and enhancement. You can now instantly transform ordinary photos into professional product images with the AI-powered media editor on mobile, and coming soon to more places across the admin, allowing you to enhance and generate high-quality images with less effort.

8. Connect with Customers

Finding better ways to build stronger connections with our customers is something to be strived for always, and with Shopify’s Summer '24 Edition, you can enhance customer connections through advanced advertising, improved customer acquisition strategies, comprehensive analytics, and innovative marketing tools. These updates are designed to help merchants engage their audiences more effectively, optimize ad spending, and drive conversions. All in all, Shopify is fine-tuning communications to be more effective and efficient with these updates:

Convert Across More Ad Platforms

Shopify Plus is extending its reach. Online businesses can now convert customers across various ad platforms using Shop Campaigns and Shopify Audiences, maximizing ad spend efficiency, extending your reach, and driving higher returns on your ad investment.

Drive Up to 2X More Retargeting Conversions

Retarget customers and increase your orders for every marketing dollar spent with custom Retargeting Boost lists. This feature helps merchants achieve higher conversion rates from their retargeting efforts and is powered by the improved Shopify Audiences algorithms.

Zero-Risk Campaigns on Google & Meta

Enjoy risk-free ad campaigns and expand your reach across Meta and Google with Shop Campaigns. With this feature, you only have to pay when new customers convert, making it a risk-free approach that helps merchants optimize their marketing budget.

Shop Campaigns Now in Canada

Shop Campaigns are now available in Canada and the US, allowing merchants to reach a broader audience across these two major markets. This expansion into North America helps increase market penetration and customer base growth.

Measure Your Return on Ad Spend

Get better analytics and insight into your ad performance with Shopify analytics ad performance data. You can now sync campaign data from channels like Google and TikTok, allowing easy comparisons of metrics so you can refine your ad strategies.

Automate Marketing with Segments

Automate email marketing and more based on when customers perform actions, like joining or leaving a segment. This feature can be found on Flow and is designed to ensure targeted and timely marketing efforts, enhancing customer engagement and retention.

Pixels Based on Customer Consent

Set permissions for each custom pixel individually, maximizing data collection while respecting customer privacy preferences. This feature helps maintain trust and compliance with privacy regulations.

Tap Into Trusted YouTube Creators

Advanced Shopify and Shopify Plus plan users can soon access the YouTube Shopping affiliates program, connecting them to trusted and verified YouTube creators who can tag them in their videos. This feature helps you leverage YouTube influencer marketing to boost product visibility and sales. Available in the US.

Boost Sales with New Shop Minis

Increase your order value and boost conversions on Shop with new Shop Minis, including Simple Bundles and Zoorix Bundle Kit & Cross Sell. These tools enhance the shopping experience and encourage customers to make additional purchases.

9. Ship & Fulfill

Improving the shipping and fulfillment process can only do wonders for your online business. With Shopify’s Summer '24 Edition, they are introducing several new features to enhance shipping and fulfillment processes, offering greater flexibility and efficiency for merchants. These updates were designed to streamline operations, reduce errors, and improve the overall customer experience setting you up for improving customer satisfaction and repeat purchases. Here’s what’s new to shipping and fulfillment:

Ship to and From Any Store

An update that provides customers with flexibility and convenience, you can now enable store transfers so customers can transfer online orders to their preferred store pickup locations, or even ship products directly from a store using Shopify POS.

Find & Fix Address Errors

Reduce failed deliveries by identifying and correcting address issues in the admin. This feature provides suggestions and context to fix flagged address errors, eliminating common shipping inconveniences and ensuring successful deliveries across all channels.

Easily Reassign Fulfillment Locations

Get suggested locations when changing where individual orders are fulfilled, based on delivery and order routing settings. This convenient new update helps optimize the fulfillment process, ensuring timely deliveries and perhaps helping you cut costs on delivery.

New Fulfillment Actions in Flow

Get more done with automate workflows that help reduce human error and manual costs. Set up rules to merge orders, mark them as fulfilled, and alter fulfillment locations in Shopify Flow, streamlining the fulfillment process and freeing you up to manage other aspects of the business.

Target Joins Marketplace Connect

Shopify Marketplace Connect has partnered with Target. Approved brands can sell to millions of monthly visitors on target.com, expanding sales opportunities and market reach for Shopify merchants.

10. Centralize Operations

With this year’s unified theme, Shopify’s Summer '24 Edition brings new features designed to help merchants streamline their operations by centralizing various aspects of store management. This makes running your store easier and more efficient for you and your team. These updates aim to improve efficiency, enhance user management, and provide deeper insights into store performance. Here are the new updates to look forward to:

All New Analytics

Data analytics is one of the most important aspects of running an online business. Shopify has rebuilt its analytics tech stack to be faster, more flexible, and more intuitive than ever before. This upgrade provides deeper insights into performance in real time. Soon, merchants will be able to use ShopifyQL to query their data directly within a report.

Organization Settings for All Plans

With Shopify Summer '24 Edition, all Shopify plans will be able to efficiently manage billing, staff access, and other settings for multiple stores by consolidating them under a single organization.

Assign Staff Access with Roles

For merchants running an online business with multiple team members, you can now assign user access based on roles. Shopify Plus users can also organize and manage users in bulk with groups, enhancing control over staff permissions and improving store security.

Import More Data from Existing Stores

Shopify Plus users will now be able to quickly create a new product or develop a new website by importing the data of an existing store. This brand-new feature includes importing products, variants, collections, and their associated metafields, accelerates the setup process, and ensures consistency across stores.

A Context-Aware Top Navigation

Shopify is reimagining store management navigation by replacing traditional buttons and models with a sleek, intuitive top bar that adapts seamlessly to the task at hand. This context-aware navigation enhances user experience and streamlines your workflow for a more intuitive experience.

Conclusion

We’ve wrapped up the most exciting new features for released for merchants in Shopify's Summer '24 Edition. Shopify’s consistent updates and addition of new features are a testament to their commitment to staying at the forefront of ecommerce innovation, empowering merchants and their businesses. With this year’s focus on unifying commerce, the latest updates provide merchants with cutting-edge tools to expand across markets, streamline operations, and enhance customer experiences—both online and in-store.

The integration and enhancement of the platform’s use of Artificial Intelligence, enhanced analytics, and improved fulfillment processes further solidify Shopify’s position as a cutting-edge platform that works to stay ahead of the commerce game. As Shopify continues to evolve its platform, merchants can stay secure and confident, and know that they will always be equipped with the best and latest tools to grow and succeed in 2024 and the years to come.