One of the reasons we love Shopify is that it always puts a heavy focus on expanding its native functionality. With the new features brought in early 2023, you can have even more things covered by Shopify and not rely on external tools.

Let’s dig into the major Shopify Editions 2023 updates and how you can utilize them on your store. 

1. One-page checkout and higher flexibility

Shopify makes it even easier to optimize your checkout. The native checkout is now a fully updated, one-page experience. It contains fewer fields and fewer page loads, which makes it super-fast for customers to complete a purchase. Learn more about the new one-page checkout in our dedicated article "Shopify one-page checkout: all you need to know".

Shopify Plus merchants can go further and use a new checkout drag-and-drop editor to control the components of the checkout experience, brand it, set custom rules to it, and integrate additional functionality. 

2. Dynamic content models with Shopify Metaobjects

Metaobjects are custom data structures that can contain whatever fits the business and be dynamically displayed across different store’s pages. For example, you can create shoppable galleries, quizzes, or collection banners. 

The Smash + Tess store created custom content blocks dedicated to influencer collaborations. After populating the metaobject with all applicable fields (influencer profile, collection link, etc.), the store’s managers can easily control it in the store editor, adding it to different pages in different variations. 

3. Improved search functionality

It’s very likely that Shopify apps for smart site search will soon become obsolete, as Shopify enhances the search capabilities available out-of-the-box.  

What has changed: internal search offers product suggestions along the typing process, and it got better at understanding misspelled words. These improvements mean that your store’s search can easily bring relevant results even before a customer enters the full query or when they make a typo. 

4. AI-powered descriptions and recommendations

While AI-driven content is the talk of the town, Shopify is not lagging behind. The platform introduced Shopify Magic which can generate compelling product descriptions based on minimal input. You can select the tone of writing and adjust the generated copy. 

Besides that, AI-based product recommendations got more powerful. They can be automatically surfaced even for products with no purchase history—the algorithm will use the data from similar products.

5. Smart delivery dates with Shop Promise

Shop Promise is a new delivery-related feature suitable for stores that are using Shopify’s own Shop channel and Shop Pay. If you have a certain shipping volume and delivery timeframe that is eligible for this feature, you can have the Shop Promise badge displayed in the checkout that guarantees customers a specific delivery date (if the order isn’t delivered within the specified timeframe, customers get Shop Cash in the value of the shipping costs).

Based on Shopify’s data from multiple merchants, the Shop Promise badge has already helped them boost trust and increase conversions by up to 25%.

6. Enhanced shopping localization

Shopify expands the range of tools that help merchants sell to more markets. Markets Pro is a new solution that offers cross-border shipping and fulfillment, automated domain redirection based on geolocation, and other localization tools. You can control which products are shown to each market, as well as configure order routing based on stock proximity to different locations (the latter is available in early access). 

On top of that, Shopify launched a new localization app (Translate & Adapt) with a side-by-side editor to translate and review any store content.

7. New options in inventory tracking and returns management

To help you get a more comprehensive view of inventory, Shopify provides you with the new Inventory States API to sync on-hand stock across locations. You can also sync data from external platforms. 

Returns management also got several improvements: new APIs allow for greater control, while self-serve returns make the process more convenient for customers. Plus, you can offer instant exchanges with the help of Shopify’s integration with Loop Returns.

8. New hardware and other POS features

Shopify offers a mobile POS Go device with an all-day battery life that has a barcode scanner and a card reader built in. Currently, it’s only available in the US. It’s an easy and powerful solution for stores that want to start selling in person.

Besides that, Shopify’s POS has expanded the number of markets where it’s available and has included gift card integration.

9. Simplified tax calculation

Issues related to tax liability and collection have been among the major challenges for Shopify merchants that had to use external tools to understand their taxes and keep them clean. Now, US-based stores can have a lot of these troubles covered for them by Shopify Tax: they’ll get a state-by-state tax overview, an automated calculation based on customers’ addresses, and automated tax adjustments based on the product category. 

Not US taxes alone, Shopify also simplifies accounting with the Shopify Balance app and integrations with accounting services. 

10. Customized B2B experiences

For B2B sellers, there’s a new possibility to set quantity rules that can include minimums and maximums for different products and variants. The rules can vary from one customer to another. 

It’s also possible to add custom logic to the checkout using Shopify Functions and create B2B catalogs assigned to different customers. Catalogs can help tailor the experience by including chosen products or product subsets, applying custom discounts for customers with access to catalogs, etc. 

Among other things, updates for B2B stores make the reordering process easier, include payment reminders, allow receiving orders as drafts to finalize them, as well as creating draft orders on behalf of customers.

Other important updates

• New image optimization options where you can choose the focal point on your pictures to improve rendering. Shopify also improved the technology that automatically renders images in the cache and delivers the most optimized file size to store visitors. 
• If you’re selling subscriptions, now you can easily make changes to subscription contracts, as well as add local delivery and in-store pickup options for subscription orders. 
• Shopify’s accelerated checkout solution Shop Pay can now be added to emails, leading customers right to fast checkout.
• Shopify Audiences now support the Google network and Pinterest in addition to Facebook and Instagram so that you can improve your ad campaigns across all these channels.
• There are 10 new staff permissions to delegate different store management tasks. On Shopify Plus, you can also duplicate existing roles. 
• Alerts will be displayed in the admin based on staff role: only those whose tasks are impacted by some updates will see the notification.
• New cohort analysis to easily identify the most loyal customers and time range comparisons in the reports. 
• New tools for headless commerce include storefront prototyping with sample data.
• For enterprise retailers, Shopify introduced a low-code solution Commerce Components with 30+ modular components to build stores in a highly flexible way. 

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If you need more customizations on your Shopify store, you can reach out to our Shopify experts.