The 7 new features of Shopify not to be missed in November 2022
#Shopify #news #eCommerce #features #newfeatures
The novelties do not stop in November for Shopify, with many features that have been unveiled by the editor in recent weeks.
Discover them in this article.
Here is an overview of the various product evolutions, always with the aim of enabling brands to sell better online.
This month, Shopify offers us new features in the following areas:
- Checkout Extensions
- Post-purchase page
- Advanced Analytics with visitor cohorts
- Setting focal points in images
- Custom Front-End Fields
- Shopify Tax for selling in the USA
- Tap to Pay for Shopify POS
#1 – Checkout Extensibility :
Checkout
Currently, on Shopify Plus, it is possible to modify some of the checkout components.
With Checkout Extensibility coming soon, we will have access to many more possibilities. For example, we will be able to add new features such as product offers, custom fields, or even promotional banners at various places in the checkout process.
Using the Checkout Branding APIs, e-commerce merchants using Shopify Plus will be able to customize the logo, fonts, and colors of the checkout to create a personalized brand experience.
This new feature also offers developers the opportunity to expand the capabilities of checkouts by offering their extension applications directly on the Shopify app store. (Until now, applications could only extend capabilities outside of the checkout process.)
Here is an example, with a product offered in cross-selling on the shopping cart, which is also found at the order confirmation step in the checkout.
To illustrate this new feature, here is an overview of all the customizable locations in the checkout:
#2 – Post-Purchase Page
Another new feature for Shopify Plus merchants that will delight many is the post-purchase page. It now appears after order confirmation but before the thank you page.
DATASOLUTION shares some ideas for optimizing your post-purchase page to the fullest:
- Upsell offers
- Survey requests, feedback, or donations
- Offers including discount codes
- Important notifications to share with customers
- Incentives for joining loyalty programs or newsletters
#3 – Shopify Customer Cohorts
Reportings
Natively in Shopify, you had the ability to automatically generate very comprehensive sales reports that categorize your customers based on various aspects, as listed below:
- Customers over time
- First-time sales vs. repeat customers
- Customers by location
- Loyal customers
- One-time customers
- Expected spending level
To complement this initial data, Google Analytics remained important for more in-depth cohort analysis. However, today this functionality is directly integrated into Shopify with several available reports, such as:
- Cohort Analysis Table
- Retention Rate Table
- Cohort Analysis Details
However, please note that customer reports are limited to 250,000 unique customers.
To illustrate this new feature, here is a graphical representation of cohorts by location.
#4 – Focal Points
Currently, like with most eCommerce CMS solutions on the market, image resizing starts from the center of the images, which can sometimes crop important parts of your visuals.
One of the many new features from Shopify this month is the implementation of focal points in images.
Now you can set a focal point on your image to indicate to Shopify the most important part of your visual. This simple manipulation will help the tool better understand your image and preserve it better during resizing.
Please note that this feature applies only to theme images, not to product catalog images, for example.
This option is native in Shopify’s standard themes, and here is the list of themes where it’s available.
#5 – Shopify POS
With Tap to Pay
In Canada and the United States, we are witnessing a significant advancement for Shopify POS.
(For those unfamiliar, Shopify POS is the point of sale system for physical retail, including the application and hardware.)
The platform has unveiled a brand-new payment method, Tap to Pay for iPhone, which allows the seller to offer their checkout on their mobile device, enabling buyers to pay with their NFC-enabled payment card or directly with Apple Pay!
This solution perfectly illustrates the smoothness achievable in physical sales, within a seamless omnichannel experience, as Shopify POS is directly linked to the eCommerce store. This integration allows for centralized product catalogs, stock management, and customer information.
#6 – Shopify Tax for Sales in the USA
The new feature, Shopify Tax, improves the accuracy of tax calculations for US merchants selling products to customers located in the United States. This is crucial considering that there are over 11,000 possible tax configurations just for sales in the USA, depending on regions and various localities. These e-commerce businesses now have the following functionalities:
- Enhanced accuracy through geolocation, meaning taxes are calculated with high precision based on the street address, rather than being limited to zip codes.
- Product categories that improve tax calculation accuracy and reduce the need for tax exemptions.
- Tax estimates are displayed for customers during the checkout process. Once the process is completed, the final tax amount is calculated and billed to the customer.
- Information about tax obligations is available at any time to help merchants determine where their stores have taxable business presence.
Most importantly, these taxes are continuously updated, and no manual intervention is required from Shopify merchants.
#7 – Other improvements
Segmentation
We now have the ability to create visitor segments based on purchases of certain tagged products.
This new filter helps to create and define customer groups based on their interest in specific types of products.
Tracking
Among the new features expected, we also find the implementation of custom tracking or conversion pixels, as well as external applications, directly from the Shopify back-office. No need to go through theme editing or involve a developer anymore.
Learn more.
But also…
Automatic conversion of GIF images to WebP format. This is another complex point to implement on on-premise eCommerce solutions, but it is native and integrated into Shopify! This allows e-commerce merchants to upload a GIF animation, which will be dynamically converted by Shopify to WebP format, which is optimized and better suited for performance and SEO.
Implementation of call-to-action for adding to cart or one-click purchase via Shop Pay, directly in marketing emails sent to customers.
Automation of CI/CD pipelines for theme deployment updates.
More to come…
GraphQL
Very soon, a new GraphQL interface, Shopify QL Notebooks, will be released, allowing users to extract and manipulate all sales data. This interface will be available in the coming months. Stay tuned!
What do we think about it?
As we’ve observed, the significant pace of innovations at Shopify remains consistent, a testament to the company’s strong health. Shopify has secured the top spot as Canada’s leading digital enterprise, generating nearly $2 billion in revenue from licenses and commissions, and an impressive $156 billion in revenue from the e-commerce stores that trust their solution.
We are eagerly looking forward to the next set of innovations and are proud to be part of the first circle of Shopify agency partners!
Got an idea? A need? Want to discuss a project? Don’t hesitate to contact our team for a conversation about your venture!
Yann Fressignaud / Director of Consulting DATASOLUTION
