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1. Faster cart & checkout
Summary: Shopify has optimized cart loading speeds, achieving up to a 50% increase in performance. This ensures a faster checkout experience for your customers, reducing friction and potentially boosting conversion rates. Learn more here.
Relevant to: All merchants.
Rollout: Available globally.
Melvin (Head of Stores): “Cart speed is critical for conversions. A faster cart and checkout experience connects better with our CWV-focussed themes.”
Patrick (Senior Solution Architect): “Slow checkouts kill conversions. This isn’t the flashiest update, but it’s one of the most impactful for any merchant.”
2. All things new for Shopify B2B
- Self-serve returns for B2B
Summary: Allows B2B customers to initiate returns directly through their customer account, just like DTC. Learn more here.
Relevant to: Shopify Plus merchants.
Rollout: Available globally. - Custom identity providers
Summary: Connect your own OpenID Connect (OIDC) compliant identity provider with customer accounts to provide your customers with a consistent login experience across your platforms. Learn more here.
Relevant to: Shopify Plus merchants.
Rollout: Available globally. - Tax exemptions for companies
Summary: Apply a general tax exemption to all or specific company locations, ensuring no tax is collected for B2B orders. Learn more here.
Relevant to: Shopify Plus merchants.
Rollout: Available globally. - New B2B-compatible apps
Summary: Enhance your store with line sheets, CSV order uploads, preorders, B2B-specific analytics, and more with 18 more apps now compatible with B2B. Learn more here.
Relevant to: All merchants on Shopify B2B.
Rollout: Available globally. - Automate B2B account setup
Summary: Let new customers immediately place orders after requesting access to your store by automating the assignment of permissions, catalogs, and sales staff to company locations with Shopify Flow. Learn more here.
Relevant to: Shopify Plus merchants
Rollout: Available globally.
3. VAT invoices with Shopify tax
Summary: This update easily generates, stores, and displays VAT invoices for both B2B and DTC customers in the EU and UK with Shopify Tax. Learn more here.
Relevant to: Merchants selling in regions where VAT compliance is essential.
Rollout: Gradual global rollout.
Dominick (Head of Solutions): “Tax compliance can be a headache. This update ensures VAT invoicing is no longer a manual process, saving time and reducing errors.”
4. Identity Provider 2.0
Summary: Exclusive to Shopify Plus merchants, this feature enables a consistent login experience across platforms, such as between a store and an app. It serves as the modern successor to Multipass. An improvement over the current (legacy) multipass login, Identity Provider 2.0 supports both legacy and new customer accounts. Learn more here.
Relevant to: Shopify Plus merchants.
Rollout: Available globally.
Patrick (Senior Solution Architect): “This bridges the gap between old and new systems, offering flexibility and security. A great improvement for stores with advanced customer account needs.”
Evert (Solution Engineer): “This ensures seamless customer experiences across platforms, aligning with the expectations of Plus merchants.”
5. Customer Account Extensions
Summary: Customer Account Extensions provide more flexibility for new customer accounts, allowing merchants to add new functionalities to customer account pages under a single login. This feature is set to replace classic accounts in the near future, making it a priority for merchants to integrate. Learn more here.
Relevant to: All merchants.
Rollout: Phased global rollout.
Patrick (Senior Solution Architect): “Account Extensions are the future. They’ll be mandatory soon, so now’s the time to integrate them into your customer journey.”
Melvin (Head of Stores): “Account extensibility opens up a whole new world of possibilities to extend customer accounts in terms of a large library of apps or custom implementations.”
6. Markets
Summary: Shopify’s Markets feature offers a central overview and ease of administration for merchants operating in multiple regions. It enables highly customized market experiences from a single store, simplifying international growth and management. Markets will be available to all merchants over the coming months, enabling custom buyer experiences for retail, B2B, and international. Learn more here.
Relevant to: All merchants.
Rollout: Gradual rollout globally.
Evert (Solution Engineer): “Markets simplifies international growth. Centralized management combined with customization capabilities makes this feature indispensable for scaling businesses.”
7. Action Extensions & Block Extensions on POS
Summary: You can now use action extensions to build unique experiences on the POS's products, customer, and order index surfaces. Learn more here. With the new block extensions, additional inline information on the POS's products, customer, and order index surfaces can easily be accessed. Learn more here.
Relevant to: Merchants using Shopify POS.
Rollout: Gradual rollout globally.
Evert (Solution Engineer): “These extensions bring customization to the forefront of the POS experience. It’s all about tailoring interactions to meet customer needs.”
8. Functions work with 25 automatic discounts & dynamic scaling for execution limits
Summary: Shopify Functions now have execution limits that scale with carts that have over 200 lines to better support larger carts. Learn more here. And, discount functions can now power up to 25 automatic discounts, with improvements to input query performance. Learn more about that here.
Relevant to: Merchants managing large cart sizes or complex discounting.
Rollout: Available globally.
Melvin (Head of Stores): "This scalability enhancement makes Shopify Functions even more robust for large-scale operations."
9. Extension-only discount apps
Summary: Build discount apps using admin extensions with Shopify-hosted UI, reducing the need to build, maintain, or host unnecessary code. Learn more here.
Relevant to: Merchants looking to simplify and enhance their discount functionality.
Rollout: Already rolled out globally.
Melvin (Head of Stores): "For clients with hardcoded discount setups, this feature offers much-needed flexibility and efficiency."
10. Search and Discovery
Summary: The Shopify Search & Discovery app transforms the way customers discover and interact with the products on your online store by allowing you to customize search, filter results, and recommend related products. Learn more here.
Relevant to: All merchants.
Rollout: Available globally.
Robin Huizing (CSM): "The Shopify Search & Discovery app revolutionizes how customers find and engage with your products, giving you full control to customize search, filters, and recommendations."
11. Draft Orders
Summary: When the order is paid for or when you set payment terms, a new order is created from the draft and is listed on your Orders page. You can use draft orders to sell directly to customers or to sell to other businesses. If you regularly sell to other businesses, then review all of Shopify's business to business (B2B) features. Learn more about using draft orders in B2B.
Relevant to: All merchants.
Rollout: Available globally.
Robin Huizing (CSM): "Draft orders are invaluable for handling tasks like creating orders for later payment, sending invoices with secure checkout links, adding custom items for extra costs or non-inventory products, re-creating orders from sales channels, and offering discounted or wholesale pricing."
12. Sidekick GA
Summary: Sidekick is an AI-enabled commerce assistant designed to make it easier for you to start, run, and grow your business on Shopify. Powered by Shopify Magic, it provides highly personalized and relevant support for a range of tasks, helping merchants regardless of expertise or technical skill. Learn more here.
Relevant to: All merchants.
Rollout: Slowly rolling out globally.
Need help?
Shopify’s Winter Edition ’25 proves that focusing on the essentials can deliver outsized value. From faster cart speeds to VAT invoicing, these updates prioritize what matters most: efficiency, compliance, and seamless customer experiences.
We recently hosted a webinar covering the key highlights of Winter Editions '25, where many of these updates were discussed in detail. If you missed it, no worries! We have a recording available and would love to share it with you. You can find the recording here.
For merchants, now’s the time to explore how these features can optimize your operations and elevate your store. Need help implementing these updates? Reach out to our Coders—we’d love to help you make the most of Shopify.
