The Game-Changers: Major Updates from Shopify Winter Edition 2025 You Can’t Miss
Introduction
Shopify has a way of making every summer and winter special for its merchants with its highly anticipated bi-annual updates. This winter, Shopify has outdone itself once again, with approximately 150 game-changing Shopify updates that touch every aspect of the platform.
But it’s not just the updates that have caught our attention—it’s the way Shopify delivers them. From the quirky “boring TV” concept to a remote control that can also be operated through your phone, and a high-tech website packed with URLs leading to the right resources, Shopify has turned its update announcements into an experience in itself.
Whether it’s the updates themselves or the creative way they’re revealed, one thing is clear: Shopify is leaving no stone unturned in its mission to empower merchants and redefine eCommerce.
So, let’s dive right in and check out the top updates you must know.
Enhanced Draft Orders for B2B Transactions
Shopify Draft orders, a feature that allows merchants to create orders on behalf of their customers directly in the Shopify admin, just became significantly more powerful. With the latest updates, Shopify has introduced a host of features designed to simplify complex B2B operations and create a seamless experience for merchants and their customers.
Customizable Checkout
One of the most exciting enhancements is the introduction of Customizable Checkout for draft orders. By leveraging Shopify Functions, developers can now apply consistent logic across both standard and draft checkouts. This means advanced checkout rules, payment customizations, and tailored delivery options are now available within draft orders. Whether you’re fine-tuning your checkout flow or introducing unique rules for specific customers, this update ensures a unified and tailored shopping experience.
But that’s not all. Shopify Updates has also addressed some long-standing challenges for B2B merchants:
B2B Bundle Options: Merchants can now include both fixed and customizable bundles in draft orders. This flexibility allows customers to choose how they place their orders while giving merchants a consistent way to manage bundle sales across all channels.
Vaulted Credit Cards: Merchants can now charge vaulted credit cards directly from draft orders without converting them into standard orders. This saves time and eliminates the need for customers to reconfirm payment details, offering a faster and more convenient payment process.
Deposits on Draft Orders: Plus merchants can now collect deposits to secure customer commitment. This eliminates the need for offline payment methods and provides a more streamlined workflow.
Together, these features make draft orders an indispensable tool for B2B merchants, enhancing both efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Improved Checkout Features
Shopify has also introduced several updates to its checkout system, designed to improve the experience for merchants and customers alike.
Extended Checkout Expiration: Customers now have more time to complete their purchases, thanks to an increased cart lifetime. This update is especially valuable for businesses with longer sales cycles, as it helps reduce cart abandonment and boosts conversion rates.
Split Shipping: Managing orders with multiple destinations just got easier. Split shipping is now available for all merchants and is fully compatible with third-party fulfillment apps like ShipStation and ShipBob.
Accelerated Checkout Preview: Merchants can now view accelerated checkout buttons—such as Shop Pay, PayPal, and Apple Pay—directly within the editor. This improvement simplifies setup and ensures a smoother checkout experience for customers.
These enhancements collectively make the checkout process more efficient and adaptable, catering to the diverse needs of eCommerce businesses.
Customer Account Extensions
To make life easier for both merchants and customers, Shopify has expanded the functionality of customer accounts. As of July 22, 2024, Plus merchants can now use apps with compatible UI extensions in draft order checkouts.
For developers, this means updating their apps to the latest UI extension version to ensure compatibility with draft orders. Once updated, these apps can automatically adapt to draft order-specific restrictions, such as uneditable cart lines or discounts. For merchants, this update saves time, reduces manual errors, and ensures a seamless checkout experience for their customers.
Why These Updates Matter
These updates represent a significant leap forward for Shopify’s B2B capabilities. By enhancing draft orders, improving the checkout process, and expanding app compatibility, Shopify is empowering eCommerce businesses to operate more efficiently and deliver better experiences to their customers.
Ask your certified Shopify partner to implement these updates to your store. Whether you’re managing complex B2B bundles, optimizing your checkout flow, or ensuring smooth payments, these features are designed to help you stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of eCommerce.
Shopify POS Upgrades
Shopify POS (Point of Sale) has become even more powerful with a series of updates designed to enhance retail operations and improve the customer experience. Whether you’re running a brick-and-mortar store, pop-up shop, or hybrid business, these new features bring flexibility, personalization, and efficiency to your operations.
Bundles Integration
Stores using the Shopify Bundles app can now sell bundles directly through the Shopify POS sales channel. A bundle is a group of two or more related products often offered at a discount, making it an attractive option for customers and a great way to boost sales.
With this update, you can now:
Publish bundles to your POS sales channel, alongside your Online Store and Shop channel.
Offer customers a seamless shopping experience across all platforms.
Important Note: To create and manage product bundles, you’ll need to install the Shopify Bundles app.
Retail Customer Segments
Customer segmentation just got smarter with the introduction of two new location-based filters, giving brick-and-mortar businesses the tools to better understand and engage their local customers.
The two location-aware filters are:
customer_within_distance:
Identify customers located within a defined distance from a specific retail location, city, or other area.
Use this filter to drive nearby online shoppers to your physical store, pop-up events, or special promotions.
orders_placed:
Target customers who have made purchases at a specific retail location.
Re-engage these in-store shoppers with personalized offers to encourage repeat visits or online purchases.
These filters provide invaluable insights for tailoring marketing efforts and increasing foot traffic to physical stores.
Customer Metafields
Customer metafields allow you to capture additional, customized data about your buyers, extending beyond the basics like name, email, and address. With this new feature, in-store staff can effortlessly collect data that matters most to your business, such as:
Birthdays and special occasions.
Loyalty program details.
Customer preferences or special requests.
Tax IDs or other compliance-related information.
These metafields empower your team to:
Deliver personalized customer experiences.
Integrate loyalty programs seamlessly.
Power advanced customer segmentation for targeted marketing campaigns.
Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
With just a few taps, staff can contribute to consistent and structured datasets that fuel more meaningful customer interactions and effective marketing strategies.
These Shopify POS upgrades bring new opportunities for retail businesses to thrive by combining robust data tools, seamless product bundling, and personalized customer experiences. Whether you’re aiming to enhance in-store operations or bridge the gap between online and offline sales, these updates are here to help you take your retail business to the next level.
Enhanced Search & Discovery
Shopify Winter Edition 2025 has significantly improved the Search & Discovery features, making it easier for merchants to improve product visibility and enhance the shopping experience. These tools empower businesses to deliver personalized, seamless search results and recommendations, driving conversions and boosting customer satisfaction.
Combined Listings for Smarter Search and Recommendations
A smooth shopping journey begins with intuitive search and discovery. Shopify’s Search & Discovery app now enables merchants to:
Customize Search Results: Tailor search functionality to display the most relevant products, ensuring customers find what they need quickly.
Optimize Product Recommendations: Increase average order value by showcasing personalized recommendations on product pages.
Analyze Customer Behavior: Use analytics to understand how shoppers navigate your store and refine your search and discovery settings accordingly.
Control Product Visibility: Decide whether parent or child products appear in search results and recommendations, offering greater control over how your catalog is presented.
These features not only enhance product relevance but also help merchants sell more by aligning search results with customer intent.
Category Metafields for Precise Filtering
Category metafields take product categorization and discoverability to the next level. Built on Shopify’s Standard Product Taxonomy, this feature allows merchants to assign detailed product attributes to specific categories, making products easier to find on their site, marketplaces, and search engines.
Key Benefits of Category Metafields:
Improved Product Discoverability: Add precise details like size, color, sleeve length, or neckline to specific product categories, helping customers refine their searches.
Default and Suggested Entries: Shopify Magic predicts and adds some category metafields automatically, while also suggesting others that you can choose to include.
Customizable Entries: Use default entries as-is or customize them to align with your branding. For instance, change the color name “black” to “graphite,” and it will update across all relevant product listings.
Seamless Variant Integration: Connect category metafields to product variant options, allowing features like color swatches to display on storefront product pages for a more engaging user experience.
Example in Action:
If your product category is Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Clothing Tops > Shirts, you can add metafields for attributes like clothing size, neckline, and sleeve length. These details make it easier for customers to filter and discover the exact products they’re looking for, whether browsing your store or searching online.
Why These Updates Matter
With the enhanced Search & Discovery features, Shopify equips merchants with the tools to deliver a more personalized and efficient shopping experience. By tailoring search results, leveraging detailed product attributes, and utilizing analytics, businesses can drive higher engagement, improve product visibility, and ultimately increase sales.
Whether you’re helping customers find the perfect product or guiding them toward complementary recommendations, these updates are designed to make your store stand out in the crowded eCommerce landscape.
Pro Tip – You can ask your Shopify expert agency to implement these changes to your eCommerce store to avoid downtime.
Improved Performance and Analytics
Speed and insights are critical for eCommerce success, and Shopify continues to raise the bar with enhanced performance and analytics tools. These updates are designed to provide faster shopping experiences, boost conversions, and offer merchants actionable insights to optimize their stores.
Faster Load Times for Global Carts
Shopify has optimized cart load times globally, making them up to 50% faster. This improvement is powered by Shopify’s advanced infrastructure, ensuring that customers experience seamless shopping, regardless of their location.
Why This Matters:
Faster carts reduce friction in the purchasing process, leading to higher conversion rates.
Customers benefit from a smoother, more enjoyable shopping experience, increasing the likelihood of completing their purchases.
Longer-lasting Carts for Higher Conversions
In today’s fast-paced world, distractions are inevitable. Recognizing this, Shopify has extended the lifespan of customer carts, allowing shoppers to pick up where they left off with fewer clicks.
Key Benefits:
Increased Conversion Rates: Customers returning to their carts are more likely to complete their purchases.
Opportunities for Re-engagement: Merchants can send reminders or personalized offers to encourage customers to finalize their orders.
Higher Average Order Value (AOV): A longer cart lifespan provides more time for customers to browse and add additional items.
New Analytics Tools for Faster Insights
Shopify has streamlined its approach to loading code, ensuring only the most critical bundles are sent for immediate tasks. This enhancement speeds up the rendering of admin pages by 25%, providing merchants with quicker access to vital data.
Why This Matters:
Faster access to analytics means merchants can make data-driven decisions more efficiently.
A smoother admin experience reduces frustration and saves time, allowing merchants to focus on growing their business.
Sidekick, Markets, and Customer Account Extensions
Now, it’s time for most anticipated update from Shopify Winter Edition 2025. Shopify is introducing innovative tools to make managing your store easier and more efficient. From AI-powered assistance to advanced customer account features, these updates are designed to simplify operations and enhance customer experiences.
Sidekick: Your AI-Enabled Commerce Assistant
Sidekick is Shopify’s AI-powered assistant, designed to help merchants navigate Shopify’s features, optimize store performance, and tackle everyday tasks.
What Sidekick Can Do:
Provide Personalized Support: Sidekick uses Shopify Magic to access your store’s context and data, offering tailored suggestions and solutions.
Streamline Tasks: From jump-starting creative projects to improving store quality, Sidekick handles time-consuming tasks with ease.
Assist Decision-Making: Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned merchant, Sidekick helps inform your business decisions with data-backed insights.
How It Works:
Sidekick operates within the context of your shop, learning from your actions and new content.
It never makes changes without your approval, ensuring you remain in full control of your store.
Markets: Simplifying Global and Multi-Segment Expansion
Markets, formerly Shopify’s cross-border selling solution, has transformed into a comprehensive growth hub. It’s now a one-stop shop for merchants looking to expand their business across international, retail, and B2B segments (with B2B features available on Plus plans). With Markets, merchants can customize every aspect of their store for different audiences—all from a single Shopify shop. From catalog variations to themes, currencies, domains, and even business entities, the platform ensures tailored buyer experiences for every market. Key Benefits of Markets:
Unified Growth Management: Previously, cross-border selling, B2B operations, and Shopify POS were managed separately. Markets consolidates all these functionalities into one streamlined interface, enabling merchants to monitor and control their expansion activities effortlessly.
Customizable Buyer Experiences: Create market-specific experiences for different customer segments:
D2C Buyers in Japan: Offer a curated product list with prices in Japanese yen.
B2B Buyers in the UK: Display a unique store theme with a special banner tailored for B2B customers.
Retail Shoppers in New York: Stock only your bestsellers at your flagship store.
Simplified Setup Process: Expanding to new markets has never been easier. Whether you’re targeting a new country, entering a B2B market, or setting up a retail location, the process remains consistent:
Create a new market.
Customize the experience.
Start selling.
Streamlined Operations: Markets eliminates the need for long integration times, repetitive processes, or syncing inventory and data across multiple stores. Everything is managed in one place, providing both high-level insights and granular control. Markets empowers merchants to grow seamlessly, ensuring that every market feels like it was designed just for its audience.
Customer Account Extensions: Redefining the Customer Experience
Shopify’s new Customer Account Extensions allow merchants to elevate their customer accounts with versatile, dynamic features. By integrating functionalities like loyalty programs, wishlists, and personalized post-purchase offers, merchants can create a more engaging and interactive shopping journey.
Key Use Cases of Customer Account Extensions:
Simplified Returns and Order Management:
Enable customers to handle returns and track orders effortlessly within a unified account interface.
Building Social Proof and Trust:
Collect and display verified reviews to boost credibility and drive conversions.
Personalized Recommendations:
Use customer insights to offer tailored product suggestions and optimize marketing campaigns.
Enhanced Post-Purchase Offers:
Display wishlists and curated offers to encourage repeat purchases and increase order values.
Subscription Management:
Provide a seamless subscription experience, improving retention rates and reducing churn.
Loyalty and Referral Programs:
Foster brand advocacy by embedding loyalty points and referral incentives directly into customer accounts.
B2B Buying Experience:
Simplify bulk ordering, invoicing, and quote management for B2B customers.
Creative Customization Opportunities:
Offer unique features like gifting options, sustainability tracking, or appointment scheduling.
Faster Login and Checkout:
Simplify account access with passwordless authentication, enabling quicker logins and streamlined checkouts.
No Coding Required:
The best part? Shopify’s Customer Account Extensions are designed to be accessible for merchants of all technical levels. You can implement these features without any coding, making it easy to provide an exceptional customer experience. These updates—Markets and Customer Account Extensions—showcase Shopify’s commitment to helping merchants create tailored, seamless experiences for their customers while simplifying the complexities of growth and operations. Whether you’re expanding globally or enhancing customer engagement, Shopify has the tools to make it happen.
Why These Updates Matter
Shopify’s Winter ’25 Edition isn’t just about adding features—it’s about empowering businesses to:
Operate Efficiently: Streamline processes and reduce manual interventions.
Delight Customers: Offer a seamless shopping experience with advanced tools and features.
Scale Confidently: Adapt to changing market demands with scalable solutions.
Whether you’re a small business or an enterprise, these updates are designed to help you stay competitive and thrive in the ever-evolving eCommerce space.
Looking for a Shopify Expert Agency to implement these changes?
The Shopify Winter Edition 2025 is a game-changer, packed with enhanced features designed to empower merchants like never before. But we understand—it can be overwhelming to decide which updates suit your store, how to implement them seamlessly, and how to minimize downtime—all while running a thriving eCommerce business.
That’s where IT Geeks steps in. As your Shopify expert agency, we ensure you don’t miss out on these opportunities. From selecting the right tools to implementing updates without stress, we help your store stand out in a crowded market.
With IT Geeks by your side, adopting these features becomes effortless. As Shopify experts, we’re here to help you unlock your store’s full potential and deliver an exceptional shopping experience for your customers.
Let’s build a future-ready store together!
Contact IT Geeks, your Shopify website agency, today and transform your eCommerce journey.
