For the full list of all the Editions updates, check out Shopify’s dedicated Editions Winter ' 24 landing page.

Shopify B2B 

Use case: Merchants with a B2B experience (Shopify Plus plan only) 

Quick summary: New updates include a one-page checkout and B2B discount codes to enhance the B2B experience for customers and B2B admin ordering and headless for streamlining operations and management for merchants. 

Detailed Breakdown: Since the launch of Shopify B2B, Shopify has continued to release updates to improve the offering. Within this Editions, Shopify has focused on specifically enhancing the B2B experience for customers and streamlining operations for merchants, including updates such as: 

Customer Experience 

• One-page checkout for B2B: Shopify has enabled their one-page checkout for B2B customers, creating a speedy checkout experience with high conversion rates.
• Custom B2B discount codes: Now, merchants can create promotional discounts, automatically applied at checkout,  for their wholesale customers using 3P or custom apps powered by Shopify Functions.

Operations

• Digital Products: Merchants can expand their wholesale offering beyond physical products, including digital downloads, warranties, and services.
• Partial payments off-platform: Partial payments off-platform e.g., bank transfers, can be recorded in Shopify admin, including paid and outstanding balances for each order (B2B and D2C) for more efficient payment tracking.
• Support for sales reps: Assign sales reps to B2B customers and allow them to place orders and view customer information for only their assigned company locations. Enable staff permissions to limit or extend access levels.
• B2B flagship theme: Set up your B2B store quickly with an out-of-the-box theme dedicated to wholesale business, complete with quick order features for bulk orders.
• Headless in B2B (in Developer Preview): B2B merchants can create unique wholesale experiences without the limitations of a monolithic structure (see our free e-book on headless commerce for more details). 

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Hot take: “It’s great to see these additions, and they’re certainly going to be useful for the brands we’re working with. However, there are still some killer features missing in B2B, but we’ve seen the roadmap, and I fully expect Shopify B2B to become a leading solution.”

- Piers Thorogood, Co-Founder & Managing Director | We Make Websites

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Shopify POS 

Use case: All merchants with retail stores, including merchants not on Shopify.

Quick summary: Shopify has streamlined the POS experience for merchants - refining and improving the smaller bugbears to create a truly powerful POS solution. 

Detailed breakdown: 

POS management

• New POS terminal: Merchants can accept, tap, chip and swipe payments using Shopify’s new POS terminal, backed by their 99.9% platform uptime.  
• Capture customer emails: Streamline communication and marketing efforts by enabling one-tap digital receipts and collect customer emails through Shop Pay integration.
• Remote logout: Heighten security measures by remotely logging out of any POS Go device directly from their Shopify admin , limiting security concerns and unauthorized access. 
• Returns process: Simplify the returns process with a pre-defined list of return reasons, ensuring efficiency and consistency in handling returns directly through the POS.
• Manage taxes, order cancellations and void payments: Benefit from Shopify Tax support in POS, allowing retail sales to be taxed at the same rate as the online store. Staff can now cancel and void orders within 15 minutes of completing a transaction without incurring additional transaction fees.
• Enhanced security: Strengthen security measures with the ability to set 4, 5, or 6 digit pins, with per-location access for staff coming soon.
• UI extensions: Effortlessly control and customize UI extensions across various retail locations directly from the Shopify admin.

Branding and Customer Experience

• Full-featured display: Enhance the customer experience by incorporating custom images or logos during the payment process, maintaining brand consistency throughout.
• Language settings: Tailor the customer experience by displaying translated product titles, descriptions, and discounts on POS devices and receipts, managed through language preferences in the Shopify Admin.
• Branded receipts: Utilize the new liquid code editor for printed receipts, offering an easy-to-use platform for customizing the look to align with your brand.

Operations and fulfillment 

• Fulfillment from retail locations: Enable staff to fulfill online orders seamlessly through the POS, with the added convenience of picking, packing, and shipping via the new Ship from Store feature.
• Attribute online sales to retail locations: Track and attribute in-store buyer journeys that lead to online fulfillment through the innovative Send Cart feature.
• Inventory transfers extension: Streamline inventory management by viewing and receiving inventory transfers from other retail locations within the Shopify POS.
• POS Go regions: POS Go is now available in the UK and Ireland. 

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Hot take:  “Previously, Shopify POS was a great tool for smaller merchants, but Shopify’s recent updates clearly demonstrate a focus on improving their product for larger retailers, more specifically fashion retailers. Their current update list and improved functionality, such as sales assignments, and focus on Omnichannel both within Shopify (e-comm and physical) as well as with external systems (ERP, OMS, etc.) show a real focus toward making their POS enterprise-ready.”

- Gregoire Barre, Head of Solutions | We Make Websites

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Checkout Extensibility 

Use case: Shopify merchants of all sizes. 

Quick summary: One-page checkout extensions, including delivery customization, cart validation, privacy, product thumbnails, and visual customization updates. 

Detailed Breakdown: While Shopify’s one-page checkout, “best-converting checkout on the internet,” has changed the game for Shopify merchants – including our client HyperX, whose recent checkout migration resulted in a 107% conversion rate increase – there were some sticking points. With this latest update, Shopify has introduced new capabilities to improve the checkout experience, including: 

• Delivery customization: Local Pickup Generator API and Order Routing API
• Checkout extensions for Thank You and Order Status pages
• Checkout/Cart Validation
• Privacy Consent
• Map Components
• Choice List
• Payment Icon
• Product Thumbnails

Plus, advanced color settings/schemes, header and footer customizations, and container styles enable merchants to customize the look and feel of their checkout in line with their brand.  

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Hot take: “Checkout extensibility is a solid update. Whilst we’ve loved implementing the new checkout for our clients, it’s definitely had its challenges. These updates remove a lot of those constraints.”

- Piers Thorogood, Co-Founder & Managing Director | We Make Websites

100 variant limit increase

Use case: All merchants with high numbers of product variants, including Enterprise and B2B merchants. 

Quick summary: Off the back of the 100 variant limit increase announcement in Shopify’s Editions Summer 2023, they have released new product APIs in developer preview and to select merchants that support 2000 variants per product, allowing developers to build support for more complex catalogs. But still no update on the wider rollout. 

Detailed Breakdown: In the summer, Shopify announced an increase in their 100 variant limit, and while there was no timeline for when this would go live, agencies and merchants alike were hoping to see the update sooner rather than later. An increase in variant limit would be a game changer for enterprise merchants migrating to Shopify from other platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud, often with lots of product variants. The same goes for B2B merchants, who have been excited by Shopify’s B2B offering but are restricted by the limit. 

In this round of Editions, it seems there's still no clarity on when this will be rolled out widely –  however, new product APIs that support 2000 variants per product are currently available in developer preview and available to select merchants. 

As a workaround for merchants who weren’t able to snag access, Shopify has launched “Combined Listings,” an app exclusive to Shopify Plus Plan merchants. The app allows merchants to show products with lots of variants, e.g., colors and styles, to customers as separate products while still sitting under the same product in the backend. Currently, customers see 1 product and can then choose the variants in the PDP. 

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Hot take: “We’ve been asking for variant limit increases since we first started working on Shopify back in 2009. This will dramatically improve how we handle complex products on the front end — up until now, we’ve had to rely on a lot of front-end trickery to get a great user experience.”

- Piers Thorogood, Co-Founder & Managing Director | We Make Websites

Shop Pay

Use case: All Shopify merchants, plus Enterprise brands who aren’t on Shopify. 

Quick summary: Now, along with a host of updates, Shop Pay has become a product of its own by becoming available to all merchants regardless of the e-commerce platform they’re using. 

Detailed Breakdown: Shop Pay has consistently proved successful for Shopify merchants, boosting conversion rates by up to 50% compared to a guest checkout experience. However, with this latest Editions launch, Shopify has introduced some updates to further improve the user experience, including installments in the PDP. But the most significant update is transforming Shop Pay into a Commerce Component. This means Enterprise brands not using the Shopify platform can integrate Shop Pay into their existing commerce stack. 

Here’s all the updates: 

• Shop Pay Integration for non-Shopify: Shop Pay now integrates with any checkout, regardless of whether the merchant is using the Shopify platform. 
• Shop Pay installments: Offer flexible purchasing options to your customers with Shop Pay installments and allow them to estimate loan amounts directly on product pages. 
• Save payment methods: Customers can now easily secure, add, edit, or delete card information on their account and choose their preferred payment method during checkout.  
• Card Account Updater: Card Account Updater is now included with Shop Pay, automatically updating vaulted credit card information to avoid lost sales due to outdated card details.   
• Capture payments at fulfillment (sign-up access - exclusive to Shopify Plus): streamline your payment process by automating payment capture for orders with multiple shipments – capture payments as each part of the order is fulfilled. 
• Increased payment options for subscriptions and pre-orders: Payment providers can securely access stored credit card information, enabling seamless integration with a variety of payment options for your subscription and pre-order apps.

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‍Hot take: "We Make Websites is one of few global agencies poised for Commerce Components, so we’re excited to see Shopify broaden their Shop Pay availability to enterprise brands with complex tech stacks that make a full migration challenging. If you want to discuss implementing Shop Pay as a Commerce Component to your existing tech stack, reach out to our expert team."

‍- Gregoire Barre, Head of Solutions | We Make Websites

Final words...

The latest features from Shopify’s Winter Editions demonstrate a big step toward enterprise for the platform – they’re building their offering and improving their products to fit the needs of these larger merchants, including Shop Pay and Variant Limit Increase as well as the ever-evolving needs in the market such as B2B, Checkout Extensibility, etc. While this isn’t the most glamorous list of features, it shows Shopify’s listening to client feedback to cater to their roadmap and offer them the tools they need to be successful and grow on the Shopify platform. We’re excited to see what’s in store for Summer Editions 2024 and whether Shopify will continue the format of saving big product releases until then. To find out what Shopify launched last Summer Editions, read our article or drop us a message to discuss these latest updates with our team.