💰 Shopify Just Got 10x Better

G'day Sellouts!

There are few things in life I love – coffee, running and Shopify.

If you run or are thinking about running an ecomm store, I can’t recommend the platform more. Chances are if you’ve bought something online recently you were buying it from a Shopify website and checkout.

Last week they released their Shopify's Winter '25 Edition – a HUGE list of product updates that will help supercharge your store.

It's a lot for an update that claims "Nothing new" in the tagline, so today I’m breaking down some of the need-to-know changes to the eCommerce giant.

But first, some other news:

The Boring Edition Improved… Everything

Shopify's fixing what's broken, speeding up what's slow, and making what works... work better. 

I see this as Shopify making an investment in all of its existing users rather than adding big, eye-catching new features to attract new users.

Product updates can be very boring but shout out to the launch team for using AI to make this hilarious feature.

Let's break down the updates that actually matter for your bottom line:

1. Checkout Blocks Are Now For Everyone

One of Shopify’s best (but somewhat frustrating) features is their streamlined checkout page.

It is high-converting but restricts business owners from customising the page unless they pay for the very expensive Shopify Plus package – even then it required advanced knowledge of coding.

But not anymore.

The free Checkout Blocks app now lets any merchant customize thank you and order status pages.

This allows you to add customer widgets to the page including adding dynamic upsell blocks, customer service instructions and full color customisation.

Following-up sales with additional brand building and upsell messaging is a huge component in most successful eCommerce platforms. Now, you can do both right in Shopify:

• Add targeted upsells right after purchase

• Guide customers to your community or social channels when they're most engaged

I tested this on one of my stores last night by adding a "Join Our Community" block that directs customers to our Facebook group right after purchase. The setup took just a few minutes.

2. Search That Actually Works

We’ve all been frustrated by Shopify’s search functions, but no more.

The updates to Search & Discovery are solid. The new combined listings feature lets you control whether customers see parent products, variants, or both in search results.

Translation: customers can more easily find and buy what they want without getting lost in product variations.

The search changes span several categories, including global search improvements, natural language support for non-English, prominent highlights for products aligned with a search, and tons more.

3. Subscriptions Just Got Smarter

Years ago, Shopify didn’t natively support subscription payments – merchants had to use a third party like Recharge.

Then last year we finally got a native version of subscriptions within Shopify and it looks like they’re investing in it heavily.

For subscription store owners, there's now support for "Buy X Get Y" promotions on subscription products. This means you can now offer free gifts with subscriptions without hacky workarounds.

Pro tip: Use this to offer a premium welcome gift for new subscribers instead of just defaulting to a discount.

ICYMI, Why Discounting Could Be Hurting Your Online Store – And What to Do Instead.

There are also improvements to subscription management, including the ability to edit subscriptions directly from the product page and oversell protection.

4. Sidekick: The AI Assistant

If you’re new to Shopify, meet Sidekick, Shopify’s new AI assistant.

While it's still in its early days (and a little bit quirky), it's already proving useful for quick tasks like:

• Pulling specific analytics data

• Creating promotional discounts

• Setting up new products

I've been testing it for basic reporting tasks, and it's saving me time on simple queries.

As this technology continues to improve, you may soon have a day where you can do everything on Shopify as easily as having a natural-language conversation with an assistant.

Sidekick will also make recommendations to you as your store grows, helping you make the most out of Shopify without memorizing every feature update.

5. Bundling that Matters

Maybe I should add a fourth love to the coffee, running, Shopify trio

…bundles.

Bundles now show up as grouped items in orders instead of individual products, and product bundles will now consistently display the same way in orders detail pages, emails and other places. This seems minor until you realize how much easier it makes:

• Inventory tracking

• Order fulfillment

• Bundles at point-of-sale (POS)

• Performance reporting, including a new report on product bundle performance

86% of merchants offering bundles say it increases their average order value, so reporting and consistency improvements are a huge win for sellers.

The Big Picture

What makes this update special isn't any single feature – it's the compound effect of 150+ great improvements. 

The admin loads quicker. Search works better. Each improvement might seem small but in eCommerce, every slight increase in conversion rate directly impacts your revenue.

Features like improved analytics, checkout blocks and bundles – are created specifically to help you close sales.

Not to mention those minutes you save on admin add up to hours across your business.

What should you do first?

It might be overwhelming to adjust to a new Shopify edition, but there's some easy first steps to do right now:

1. Install the Checkout Blocks app and set up at least one post-purchase block

2. Review your search settings if you're using Search & Discovery

3. If you offer subscriptions, test the new Buy X Get Y functionality

4. Enable Sidekick if it's available in your admin (look for the assistant icon in the top right)

Until next week, keep selling out (in the best way possible),
Luke

P.S. Have you implemented any of these updates already? Did you really like one of the updates that I didn't cover? Hit reply and let me know how they're working for you. I read and respond to every email.

• Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe
• Want to put your Google Ads on Autopilot? Stress Less
• Did I miss something? Let me know at [email protected]