– Lily Hargreaves, Senior Account Manager – Ecom Nation
In what I like to lovingly refer to as Coachella for eCommerce Managers, Shopify unveiled a tonne of new features at last week’s Shopify Editions | Summer ’22 event. I geek out on these announcements, so I’ve collected some of my highlights below and expanded on them to show how they will be game-changers for eCommerce brands around the world.
Shopify Markets
More details were announced about the Shopify Markets app that will facilitate market-by-market customisation on the platform. For global retailers this allows for a single site to adapt to customers by region with customised domains, languages and pricing but also will simplify the collection of appropriate duties and taxes, creating better experiences for international customers and site managers at the same time.
Why this is a game-changer…
This is another feature that has many workarounds available but by incorporating this functionality directly into the platform Shopify has saved a lot of management time by having everything feed back to the only platform. If you manage a multi-region brand, this is a big announcement and likely to make your world very different.
Twitter Shopping Channel
Again, not initially available in all regions but will be a big release once it becomes available for all. Being able to add Shopping cards to Twitter, much like in-app shopping for Instagram, turns your Twitter profile into another sales engine where people can purchase your products directly.
Why this is a game-changer…
A smooth customer experience is always the goal but drawing people from apps like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. to your website creates friction and steps between the engaging content and the conversion. Purchasing from the social platform removes this friction and creates a better experience all-round.
Link Pop
There is a thousand ‘link in bio’ services that help turn the one available URL slot on platforms like Instagram and Twitter into a list of links, but with the development of Linkpop, Shopify is making these tools directly shoppable.
Why this is a game-changer…
Linkpop is free, but, for the low monthly cost of $USD5 merchants can activate the shopping options on their list with all transactions powered by Shopify’s checkout. This is another example of curating a frictionless shopping experience both on and off-site with Shopify, unfortunately, it is another feature that may not be available everywhere immediately.
Shopify Audiences
Shopify Audiences has been created to help merchants find and target high-intent buyers on advertising platforms such as Facebook & Instagram. Audiences is a prospecting tool, and uses machine learning, data from Shopify’s extensive merchant network and buyer intent signals to identify potential prospects and support top-of-funnel activity. These audiences can then be synced to ad platforms like Facebook Ads. Initially, Shopify Audiences will only be available in certain regions and only to Shopify Plus merchants who utilise Shopify Payments.
Why this is a game-changer…
This new app from Shopify allows you to plug your site into Shopify sites around the world, contribute to and benefit from a vast data network and have Shopify serve up customer recommendations to you directly. By drawing on Shopify data (so session and purchase data presumably) the recommendations are primed for eCommerce and have shown a history of interacting with other brands similar to your own, making them the perfect target for advertising and lead acquisition.
Dovetale
Dovetale is a creator management platform, recently acquired and now powered by Shopify, and is intended to help merchants to better manage their affiliate programs. The platform can handle everything from reviewing affiliate applicants, to tracking sales, paying out commissions and even identifying new creators. The early feedback since the Shopify acquisition isn’t stellar, but it’s certainly one to keep an eye on.
Why this is a game-changer…
If you are working on Shopify and with affiliates then bringing these two worlds closer together will be a game-changer. If they can work out some of the kinks there is a real chance that this becomes one of THE ways affiliate programs are managed.
Multiple Discounts
eCommerce Managers all around the world shed tears of joy for this announcement. No longer are you restricted to single code usage at checkout but can now offer multiple codes that can be used in tandem. The big application here is going to start being the %-off + a free shipping combination but it will be interesting to see how creative we can be now that the functionality has opened up across both automatic discounts and discount codes.
Why this is a game-changer…
For many, this was a gripe that would draw some eCommerce Managers to other platforms. With this update, Shopify’s discounting options expand dramatically allowing managers and owners to craft better discounts for their customers.
Metafields
Building on the previous announcement that enabled merchants to add native metafields to their products, this functionality has now been extended to customers and orders. This enables merchants to segment their customers based on metafield data, and easily create segment-specific discount codes.
Why this is a game-changer…
In safe hands, more data means more segmentation, personalisation and customisation – in other words, an experience built around the customer. There is good evidence that the more personal the experience the more engaged the customer is and this leads to better conversion outcomes.
Search & Discovery App
This is Shopify’s own search, filtering & product recommendations app. It’s still early days, and only available for early access sign-up at present, but will hopefully offer more powerful search and merchandising without having to pay for an additional 3rd party app.
Why this is a game-changer…
If your potential customers can’t find your products on your own site, there is no way they can purchase them! Better search and discoverability helps your site work better for customers so will be a welcome addition for many, although it is not available in all regions initially and you will have to sign up for early access.
B2B on Shopify
B2B will provide some much-needed streamlining of the wholesale vs direct customer management options. Instead of running and maintaining multiple Shopify instances, this update will allow for wholesale pricing and net terms to be built into the one product database allowing you the ability to manage the B2B experience alongside your B2C experience in the same storefront. Alternatively, you can still keep things separate with the ability to customise site themes, pricing, discounting etc. to curate two distinct experiences if you prefer to work that way. One platform, multiple tailored customer experiences. This is currently available only to Plus merchants.
Why this is a game-changer…
A quick search on this topic shows that people have been developing workarounds for this exact problem for some time. When a company takes ownership of an issue like this and commits to improving the experience for everyone it can’t help but be a game-changing update.
And so much more…
Seriously, there was a lot more announced but these are just our highlights. If you are interested in things like tokengated commerce, headless storefronts, new themes, Shopify Inbox updates and a raft of new Admin and management features you can read the full release on the Shopify website.
Alternatively, you can get in touch to talk about the new Shopify updates with the team!
