A (re)cap of all the great (re)unite features now available or coming to Shopify in 2020!

With COVID-19 moving this years conference to a fully remote set up. Shopify made sure it was packed with awesome news and features, providing some inspiring support as we move forward into an even more online centric future.

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Finance

In recent years Shopify has shown its commitment to helping business through all stages of development. One such area is business finance, Shopify is not only expanding ways vendors can get funding, it’s also helping vendors increase conversion with Shop Pay instalments.

1. Shopify Capital | Improved | Available now
   Expanded from the US to Canada, and UK. In UK, Shopify Capital provides merchant’s cash advances ranging from $200 to $1,000,000, and rather than focus on your personal credit history it uses your store data to check eligibility. Learn more here
2. Shopify Balance | New | US-only. Launch later this year.
   With the goal of doing a better job than banks this aims to give merchants access to critical financial products that will allow them to start, run, and grow their businesses. Including bank account, debit card, and rewards. Learn more here
3. Shop Pay Instalments | New | US-only. Launch later this year
   As part of the US only app Shop Pay customers will be able to pay for purchases in four equal payments over time, with no interest or fees.
   Learn more here.

Online Store Improvements

Shopify have released some great online store improvements geared around making it both easier to get up and running and to take tips, which will be hugely useful for the many new businesses looking to get online quickly. Further down the line the much needed ability to create local domains is in the pipeline as well as the ability to maintain smart multi-currency pricing points.

1. Express theme | New | Available now
   Designed as a one-page shopping experience, and optimised for mobile. This theme can be used to get stores online super quickly, and supports small to medium catalogs of products. Learn more here
2. Tipping | New | Available NowLearn how to set-up tips for your client’s online store. Learn more here
3. Local domains | New | This YearThis will enable merchants to assign individual domains to a country or currency, as well as a language or set of languages. Learn more here
4. Custom FX | New | This YearIf you are using multi-currency will be able to maintain a stable price for products, even as currencies fluctuate.
5. Improved Theme Editing | New | This Year
   This is a hugely anticipated feature and will provide the same flexibility currently available to the homepage to all pages throughout the store.
   Learn more here

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Retail Store (POS)

The Shopify POS system has rapidly matured over the last few years and with (re)unite we see further progress in a completely remodelled more extensible POS app. While many sales have moved online stores during the recent COVID-19 situation, it presents a great opportunity to update your instore POS processes ready for when customers return, here’s the highlights.

Note. As a bonus Shopify have made the Pro version complete free until October 2020

1. Extensible Apps | New | Available now
   Now provides dark mode, customisable dashboard with embeddable apps and increased access to your stores data. Learn more here
2. Improved Staff Permissions | New | Available Now
   A highly requested feature now makes it to this release allowing store owners fine grain control over staff permissions from store to store. The app also allows these permission to be managed directly from the store admin. Learn more here
3. Delivery Options | New | Available Now
   Shopify POS will allow you to expose inventory information to your customer. This will allow you to show stock availability for a given store and help the customer navigate delivery options available like curb-side pick up and local delivery. Learn more here
4. Hands Free Transactions | New | Available now
   With the current climate stores will have to make sure there in person payment methods are as handsfree and contactless as possible. Shopify is making this possible, effectively allowing you to pay via QR code completely handsfree. Learn more here
5. International Tap/Chip Reader Rollout | New | This Year
   Shopify are committing to rolling this out internationally. It’s now available in Canada and will be in the UK later this year. Learn more here

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Sales Channels

Shopify extends its already impressive multichannel abilities with some great new features. More details here

1. Facebook Shops | New | Coming later this yearA new Facebook shopping experience that allows merchants to build a simple, branded version of their online store within Facebook and Instagram, syncing right from Shopify.
2. Shopify Ping Staff Accounts + Android & Web version | New | Coming later this yearShopify will be adding staff accounts meaning different staff members can help customers individually, with the help of a ticketing system. Ping will also allow a merchant’s team to collaborate and message each other. More details here
3. Shopify Email Automation | New | This year
   Along with being closely tied to your store look and feel, massively reducing set up times, Shopify have also announced they will soon be bring automation to this product. Making it more of a contender to replace bespoke platform services such as Campaign Monitor, Klaviyo or Mailchimp. Also now completely free to use until October this year! More details here
4. Shop App | New | US Only Later this year

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The Back Office (Admin)

Given that store vendors spend a huge amount of time managing their online operations from this aspect of the platform, Shopify are understandably laser focused on making your store admin experience as optimised and time efficient as possible. Here are some of the highlights which will combine to make some of the harder more time consuming tasks, especially around product management, that little bit easier.

1. Product states | New | This year
   Merchants will be able to create a product and save it as a draft, add more details later, hand it over to a team member, and publish it when they’re ready. They will also be able to archive products. More details here
2. Faster product creation | New | Coming later this year
   Merchants will have the ability to set up products directly from a phone. Capturing product photos, adding the required details like title, price, and variants, and scanning the barcode can all be done from a phone’s camera, including photos for each variant then, reviewed and published directly from the phone. Create products in bulk; add product images, prices, titles, variants, inventory, and more via a single screen. More details here
3. Purchase Orders | New | Rolling Out Now
   Let’s merchants order, track, and receive inventory from their suppliers. Inventory can be received using the scanning feature on Shopify’s mobile app, which makes updating inventory counts easier and more accurate. More details here
4. Orders list page redesign | New | Weekly releasesThe most viewed page in Shopify is getting a solid rethink to allow you to get to the information more quickly. With the ability to customise this for your particular viewing use case coming down the road. Learn more here

Shipping Updates

Shopify have quite rightly focused on features that will be in great demand notably bringing Curb-side Pickup & local Delivery to forefront.

1. Local and curb-side pickup | New | Basics Available Now
   Allows customers to pick up orders in-store, curb-side, or from any location they choose. Merchants will soon be able to fulfil orders directly from the Shopify POS, the admin, or the Shopify mobile app, and have customers come to their location for pickup. Learn more here
2. Local Delivery App | New |Rolling outDefine a local delivery area using zip and postal codes, or by radius, set local delivery fees and minimum order prices. Then, optimise delivery routes & send notifications to customers through the app. Learn more here

Shopify Fulfilment Network

Announced last year, Shopify have been developing their global delivery network, testing capacity during the last years holiday seasons. Their goal is to allow all Shopify merchants to get their products to customers with 2 day shipping, any where in the world, whilst simplify the process to managing delivery logistics. Things have been moving forward really well and they are now open for business for all merchants with 10+ orders per day and 2k SKU’s or less. Learn more here

Store Performance

Historically a bit of a black box, the Shopify CDN is highly optimised for delivery of content to your customer location. However Shopify have announced further tweaks to the storefront renderers to speed things up as well as providing more performance visibility to merchants with performance dashboard, allowing you to review the stores theme speed over time.

1. Storefront renderer | New | Rolling Out NowWill account for a 40–200% improvement in load times on live stores, helping merchants get better conversion rates globally.
2. Online store performance dashboard | New | This YearWill allow merchants to understand how various actions, such as theme code customisations and app installations, impact their store’s speed. Learn more here