Every year, Shopify hosts Unite, an annual conference that brings together Shopify merchants, developers, and partners (like us!) to announce new products, features, updates, and more. This year’s Unite was the second incarnation of the online version of this exciting event. In case you didn’t have time to watch the livestream, which ran a little over an hour, we’ve rounded up Shopify's announcements for merchants in this handy highlights reel.

“We start every project here with a question. Does this increase the creative possibilities for our merchants, or does it not? This is the why behind everything we do.”

— TOBI LUTKE, FOUNDER AND CEO OF SHOPIFY

The biggest new release of this year is undoubtedly Shopify’s Online Store 2.0, which entirely reworks the way you can customize your Shopify store without ever touching any code. Including this exciting announcement, here’s a comprehensive list of the announcements Shopify made this year that will matter to you:

Online store

Announcement of Online Store 2.0 (new)

Online store editor (new)
Metafields (update)
Faster themes (update)

Customer experience

Shopify Storefront API (update)
Shopify Payments Platform (new)
Shopify Email (coming soon)

Merchant experience

Checkout extensions (update)
Shopify Scripts (update)
Handshake (new)

The big reveal of Shopify’s Online Store 2.0

The way your Shopify store looks is a key influence on how your customer views your brand. It’s their first impression! Consequently, Shopify has introduced “a big platform upgrade” to their store that it garnered the name Online Store 2.0, available on select development stores and coming soon to all merchants. The following sections cover each of the major changes that make up this grand platform revamp.

Edit your online Shopify store with sections and blocks

When you customize your online store in Shopify, this change will mean that you’ll see a store editor with sections and blocks. Instead of having to put a ton of effort into coding, which could be daunting if you don’t have coding experience, you can instead adjust, add, and replace sections and blocks without code! Drag and drop entire sections of video, products, or image galleries onto any page, including your home page, landing pages, and more. And if you do have coding experience, you can always jump in and edit the easily customizable Liquid code that makes up these sections and blocks to create an experience unique to your brand.

You can also add templates for specific products and sections. Since these templates are built into Shopify, you can map them to other sections all across your store! For example, if you wanted to create a template for shoes you’re selling, you’d only need to create one and then connect it to all of the other relevant pages on your site.

More control over metafields, right from your admin

Shopify now allows you to define and edit metafields directly in the admin. They’ve also created a way to bind data sources directly in the editor, which means you’ll no longer have to worry about hard-coding metafields into your theme. Shopify has added more types for its product metafield section, like color and custom URL. You can also add validation and descriptions. Once you’re finished, all of this information will be included at the bottom of your product page for your team’s reference!

During the stream, Vanessa Lee, Product Director for the Online Store, also provided a quick sneak peek at what’s in store for metafields in the future. Shopify is planning to launch a new content management platform that will allow you to create entirely new custom types, using metafields as a basis. With this feature, you’ll be able to create content once and then publish it to all your channels, including your online store.

Themes that will load more than 30% faster

Shopify has focused on fostering a great development environment for themes that work right out of the box. Dawn, available soon, was an important announcement during this year’s Unite stream and will be their flagship of this new type of theme. According to Shopify, Dawn loads 35% faster than their current fastest theme and is designed to be compatible with stores even as Shopify continues to update their software.

Shopify has opened the door for developers to add their custom-designed themes on July 15. Merchants can expect to see more themes added to the theme store in August.

Give customer happiness a boost

Making sure your customers are getting the best experience while visiting your store is essential. Not only does it mean that you’re providing for your customers’ needs, but it also results in better conversion rates and more retention. Shopify made pivotal announcements during Unite that will streamline the way your customers receive marketing, pay for products, and more while on your site.

Serve your customers from more places with better pricing

Shopify made numerous upgrades to its Storefront API using their GraphQL engine, focusing on widening the range of Shopify’s capabilities to as many customers as possible. Some of these API changes now give you the ability to

Enable international pricing
Provide local pickup from preferred locations for customers
Add subscription selling plans
Create non-Liquid custom storefronts

Put less work into providing more options for payment

Payment methods play a large role in how comfortable customers feel going through with their purchase. The right method can increase customer happiness by tailoring that experience to them with localization and other resources.

Shopify’s all-new Payments Platform allows payment providers to build new integrations into Shopify, widening the range of payment options that are available for shoppers. From the development side, Shopify has also provided resources for app developers to create and introduce new app options that merchants can implement in their own stores.

More personalization for your marketing emails

Shopify Email is a built-in feature in Shopify that gives you the ability to create, send, and track your emails so you can send your customer marketing information about your latest and greatest. Like Shopify’s online store, this feature includes an editor and templates that you can choose from to customize content to your brand. Because Shopify Email is connected to your store by default, it will also pull all of your visuals and brand-specific assets like logos and discounts from your store.

According to Shopify’s official blog addressed to merchants covering the Unite stream, changes to Shopify Email that are coming in August will allow you to personalize emails with custom fields!

Scale up to an even bigger audience and sell wholesale

Shopify's official blog highlights that Handshake is a wholesale marketplace built by Shopify. With it, you can set up prices and publish exciting and unique product catalogs right from your Shopify admin. All of the products found in Handshake are approved by Shopify. And because it's built-in, you don't have to worry about fees or commissions. If you have existing wholesale relationships, Handshake will even help you transfer them over to Shopify!

You can also use Handshake for its personalized product recommendations, so your customers are always finding new products they'll love, no matter how trends or their own interests have changed.

Coming soon: Shopify apps for customizing checkout

Apps using checkout extensions will be easy to install and upgrade

Soon, easy-to-use apps will replace any need to manually customize your checkout.

Shopify has made it possible for developers to create apps that are built from checkout extensions. What this means for you is that when these apps hit the app store, you'll be able to install easily and not worry about upgrades or future changes, since the apps will automatically be compatible with Shopify software. Apps created with checkout extensions will give you the ability to better customize your checkout experience, with additions like

Simple to complex custom messages
Marketing and branded content
Getting more customer information
Product upselling and cross-selling
VIP and loyalty point redemptions

Checkout extensions are also completely compatible with Shop Pay, meaning any customizations you make will still show up without requiring more work or compromises from you.

No more coding for customization with Shopify Scripts

If you’re a Shopify Plus customer, you may have used Shopify Scripts to customize payment and shipping options at checkout in the past. In the future, Shopify Scripts will be deployed and installed through apps. Using these apps, you won’t have to worry about coding these additions for yourself. The apps will be fully compatible with any Shopify store and can be installed on multiple stores all at once.

Excited about what’s next for your store?

Check out the full replay of Shopify Unite 2021 for in-depth details
Read Shopify’s article on Shopify Unite 2021 for merchants
See videos to help you streamline Shopify order editing with Edit Order

Spotlight: Key announcements for merchants from Shopify Unite 2021