Winter Shopify Editions

Shopify’s Edition releases are important inflection points in the ecommerce calendar because they help steer public understanding of where Shopify is taking their platform’s capabilities. This year’s Summer Editions was a big one: Unified Commerce and POS updates were the name of the game, with the update seeing Shopify focus on Unified Markets, AI Integrations, and advanced analytics dashboarding for omnichannel solutions.

‘25’s Winter Editions is perhaps less flashy than its Summer counterpart, but no less important. This set of updates, released December 11th, is focused on improving Shopify’s existing capabilities and optimizing the performance of many components.

With Shopify’s exponential growth, performance issues and general instability can follow, so it’s reassuring to see Shopify release an update centered around reliability and performance stability. Read on to learn about some of the more notable updates and enhancements from this Edition.

SHOPIFY POS EXPANDS CAPABILITIES
Omnichannel commerce is a key capability for a modern brand. Whether B2B or D2C, customers demand the ability to interact with a brand from anywhere and any device. Shopify understands this and has enhanced the performance and use cases of their POS system.

• Shopify POS now works with bundles, meaning products can be bundled together and those promotional offerings are available across all channels, digital or brick-and-mortar.
• Location-based filters can now create marketing segments established from location-specific purchasing data and documented browsing habits.
• POS can now collect in-store customer behavior data which is immediately available for analysis by a connected digital storefront.

B2B ENHANCEMENTS
B2B ecommerce is the next frontier. The number of B2B organizations moving their ordering and purchasing systems to digital is growing exponentially every year, and Shopify is wisely creating capabilities on their platform to grow their market share of B2B clients. Some of the updates to Shopify’s B2B capabilities include:

• Self-serve returns for B2B customers are now available.
• Custom tax exemptions can be selected for specific customers based on location or industry.
• B2B customers now have a consistent login experience across all current platforms by enabling an existing identity provider.
• Let new customers place orders ASAP by automating the assignment of catalogs, permissions, and sales staff to company locations with Shopify Flow.

STREAMLINING INTERNAL OPERATIONS

• Group stores into a single organization to more efficiently manage staff in one place, and consolidate to a single bill.
• Admin page load speeds increased by 25%
• New custom analytics capabilities allow merchants to choose which analytics their dashboard tracks
• Reviews and ratings for themes are now included on the homepage allowing merchants more insight into which theme is best for them.
• Personalize customer accounts without code using apps, like you do in checkout. Add powerful functionality like order management, returns, subscriptions, and more.

FOUNDATIONS FOR POTENTIAL BIG FUTURE UPDATES
While this update was about improving already existing features, Shopify is teasing the breakout of splashier features in 2025. These are foundations of features that when expanded, could be game changers.

• AI-Sidekick is soon to be launched, its capabilities are not yet known
• Markets will be available to all merchants over the coming months, enabling custom buyer experiences for retail, B2B, and international.
• Chat apps are available to be added to checkout, offering support at a critical inflection point of the customer journey.

Many merchants choose Shopify for its ease of use, its reliability, and its speed to market. This update doubles down on those strengths and shows Shopify expanding its capabilities, reaching towards the enterprise.

Check out some of our Shopify case studies below to learn about custom solutions Corra has built on Shopify.

• Cuadra
• Moroccanoil
• STAUD
• Corsair