Shopify Editions Summer 2023 Recap

Today at 19:00 (GMT+3), Shopify will release a new update: Shopify Editions Winter 2024.

I will share my reviews post-update, but before that, I want to review the previous version and provide an overview of which features have actively impacted the Shopify ecosystem over time. I want to emphasize beforehand that this is entirely subjective and more about how it affected me as a Theme Developer. The reason I want to share this recap is because not every feature introduced immediately goes into active use. So, even though the upcoming releases may excite you, you should already know that not all features will be immediately available for use.

Shopify Editions Summer 2023

AI Features - Sidekick, Magic, etc.

Many AI features were introduced in the previous version, but their active usage remained quite limited. The highlights were content creation with AI or using Shopify Inbox for chat, but they are still not at a satisfactory level. For instance, using AI for content creation generates rather ordinary and limited content, mostly staying at the level of dummy content.

Furthermore, despite working with numerous Shopify stores last season, I didn’t encounter any store using Sidekick. This could be attributed to the feature still being in the Early Access stage; maybe it will be opened to general use with Winter 2024.

Checkout Extensions

The introduced Checkout Extensions elevated the Checkout page to a whole new level, allowing for unlimited customization. Undoubtedly one of the best features of the version. I highly recommend trying out the Checkout Blocks App, which I’ve been closely following its development with admiration; its developer crafts it like a work of art.

However, be cautious not to lose control and turn your Checkout page into a flea market; make sure to conduct good A/B tests before adding an app and app block 😉

Shopify Markets & B2B

This feature was one of my favorites and caught my attention the most last season. With Shopify Markets, customizing your store for different countries becomes possible, which will greatly facilitate your work if you sell to different countries. However, there is a significant issue: you cannot separate country inventories and administrations, so if they solve this issue, it will be superb. Otherwise, you’ll have to continue opening different stores for different countries as it is now.

Also, last season, B2B features were significantly enhanced and actively started being used. I believe these features will hold an important place in Shopify’s future.

Shop App

We can say it was one of the most actively used features of Summer 2023. I believe Shopify’s positioning of Shop App as an independent brand played a significant role because now you can use Shop with non-Shopify stores, making it more than just a Shopify App; it has become an independent brand. This will certainly increase the usage of the Shop App.

Shopify Marketplace Connect App

It’s a well-received app that allows you to sell your products on Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Etsy marketplaces, rated 4.3 by users, indicating it has been actively used. I didn’t get a chance to use it, but if the marketplace diversity can be increased, it will become an indispensable part of Shopify.

Shopify Subscriptions App

This app is yet to be actively used. Although it’s known to have quite basic features, it hasn’t even found its place in the Shopify App Store yet. Interestingly, we saw Shopify Product Review App being discontinued last season.

Shopify Bundles App

One of the features that went into active use. Although its features are quite simple compared to its major competitors in the Shopify App Store, it serves its purpose. Sometimes, it can create issues with extra advanced themes. If this app doesn’t work smoothly with Shopify’s basic theme Dawn but works fine with your theme, you can contact your theme developer.

Discount Combinations

Although it doesn’t allow for very extreme customizations, I believe this feature is quite sufficient. Of course, sellers may have much more creative demands, but generally, simpler is better 😉

Search & Discovery App

This app, which is the backbone of Shopify’s Predictive Search feature, has seen some really successful improvements this season. Renaming and grouping filters, translation support, and starting to support metafields have significantly expanded and diversified the search scope in stores. Hopefully, SKU search will be included this season too because oddly enough, the search feature currently can’t search for SKUs, which surprised me a lot when I noticed it 😕

Shopify Flow App

One of my favorite Shopify apps. With a structure similar to IFTTT, you can create triggers like “If this happens, then do this” in Flow. It’s a feature that can be quite beneficial and rescue you from some third-party apps when used actively and effectively.

Shopify Functions

Shopify has started to move the extra customization structure in stores from the Script level to the Function level and has made many improvements in this regard. With Shopify Functions, the limits of what you can do are only bound by your imagination, but it’s advisable to use it carefully; you can turn e-commerce transactions, which you can customize every aspect with APIs, into a mess 😄 I mean, it’s better to keep some things simple 😉

Shopify Fraud Analysis

Fraud is every seller’s nightmare, and effective solutions for e-commerce platforms are essential. Shopify has quite effective tools in this regard, and with the fraud analysis features introduced this season, it has started to enable you to monitor fraud risks more closely and come up with solutions accordingly.

Shopify Marketing Tools

With Email, Forms, Automations, Segmentation, and Inbox tools, you can solve your store’s marketing needs without needing third-party apps. Of course, you can use third-party apps for much more comprehensive and complex tasks, but as I always say, keeping it simple is good 😉

I will dive into the details of these tools in another post 🤩

Shopify Collective

It’s a feature that has been actively used, but since it can only be used in U.S.-based stores, I personally haven’t encountered it.

Shopify Credit

It’s a credit card limited to the United States, with cashback features and Visa support. This limited availability restricts many things. Perhaps Shopify should separate versions based on regions.

Shopify Admin

There have been many design changes and improvements in the Shopify Admin panel, providing a smoother and more effective interface for sellers.

Theme Customizer

Color Schemes

This feature greatly simplifies and enhances the color management in sellers’ store designs. To use this feature, your theme needs to support it, but Shopify hasn’t yet provided a way to smoothly transition old settings to this feature. Therefore, if you want to use this feature, you either need to use a new theme that supports Color Schemes or work with a developer to add this feature to your existing theme.

Section Preview

You can now preview the ‘section’ you can add to your store with Theme Customizer, provided that the theme developer has added a ‘preset’ and made some necessary improvements.

As a theme developer, I can say that this is not always easy, and ‘section’ features are not always fully shown to the user. I wish Shopify wouldn’t create this preview itself and would allow us as theme developers to customize it, even providing screenshots or videos.

Enhanced File Picker

We had very successful improvements in this regard last season. For example, until recently, we couldn’t upload SVGs, or when we changed a file name, we had to correct every instance it was used. But with the improvements made, a more fluid and effective file management experience has been provided.

Metafields

The ability to filter products in Shopify Admin based on metafields has been introduced, which can greatly ease your work if you actively use custom features.

Metaobjects

Everything about Metaobjects is great, and it’s even better that the capabilities of these objects are increasing. The only problematic aspect is the usage limit on these objects; hopefully, these limits will be lifted in the future.

Custom Landing Pages

You can now create a landing page specific to your Metaobject. I haven’t seen it actively used in the stores I work with, but I think it’s an undervalued treasure. For instance, if you have a store selling laptops and you received support from Nvidia for laptops with Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards. Nvidia will ask you to create a landing page with the visual materials they provide. This special page can be easily launched with this feature, and you can gather all the products defined by this metaobject on the page.

Flex Sections

It was one of the features that excited us as theme developers and Shopify users who love customizing themes the most, but unfortunately, it is not yet actively used. Beyond not being able to use it, a roadmap has not been shared; it’s unknown how it will be integrated into existing themes or when users will be able to start using it.

Faster Stores

They made significant progress in this regard, especially during the Black Friday period, despite the massive transaction volume, there wasn’t a significant breakdown in Shopify services; this is truly a remarkable achievement. I can say that we will see more developments in this regard in the coming days; Shopify attaches great importance to store performance 😉

Shopify Help

The language options of Shopify Help have been increased, and an AI-supported chatbot has been added.

Regarding this chatbot, I want to mention a couple of things. Since it’s AI-supported, I expect a more fluent communication, but currently, using classic methods like looking at search results is more efficient than the bot’s responses. Of course, there will be improvements, but the AI support at this stage shouldn’t excite you too much 😉

Hydrogen & Oxygen

It’s not possible for me to express opinions about these features at this stage because I am native to Shopify, meaning I’m not involved in developing with Hydrogen and Oxygen, which are parts of Headless development; anything I say about these features would be inaccurate 😊

Shopify POS

It’s one of the groups where I will keep my silence; I’ve worked with stores using these features, but my experiences haven’t gone beyond “Oh, they’re using POS.” 🙃

Let’s see what Winter 2024 will bring, what features will be introduced, and more importantly, which of the introduced features we will be able to start using immediately. I’m eagerly looking forward to it 🤩