All the Shopify updates and changes for September 2024
- Olly Green
- Read time: 9 minutes
Shopify implemented a series of exciting new changes and improvements in September.
There are new page layouts for added efficiency and an enhanced user experience, as well as fresh support to allow for automations.
As autumn descends, we’ve pulled together all the latest capabilities you can leverage to enhance your store.
Send Admin API request improved
New staff permissions for gift cards
'Don't collect tax option' for B2B
Shopify POS support for Bundles
Segment triggers for automations
More languages for Semantic Search
'Pickup in store' capabilities extended
More efficient workflow run list troubleshooting
Duty inclusive pricing for Managed Markets
Autocomplete and contextual details for Flow scripts
Category metafield support for storefront filters
Send Admin API request improved
The Send Admin API request action has been improved and will now return data that is available to use in subsequent workflow steps.
This enables a range of new automations, as it includes most of the powerful mutations that allow merchants to create and update orders, subscriptions, products, customers, inventory, and more.
New staff permissions for gift cards
The staff permissions for gift cards have been updated, with more granular permissions providing merchants with more control over who can access specific actions.Instead of a single permission that grants staff access to actions like creating, editing, exporting, and deactivating gift cards, there are now four more granular permissions:
- View
- Create and edit
- Export
- Deactivate
Existing staff members who already had the singular gift cards permissions will have all the new permissions by default, but merchants will have the option to select or unselect a subset of these permissions.
Company page layouts updated
The ‘Company detail’ and ‘Company location detail’ page layouts have been restructured to be more intuitive and user-friendly.
Key information is easier to find and understand, while customisations are distinctly separated from standard information for quicker identification.
'Don't collect tax option' for B2B
In B2B commerce, there's now a 'Don't collect tax' option which is applicable at the company location level.
This makes is easier to manage tax exemptions in jurisdictions without predefined exemptions, and eliminates the need for workarounds like setting business customers to checkout-to-draft.
Shopify POS support for Bundles
You can now publish and sell Bundles created with Shopify Bundles – a free first-party app - on Shopify POS.
Bundles are a set of two or more products, typically offered at a discount, and can enhance your average order value. They’re a great way to increase product visibility and clear out old inventory too.
There are three types of Bundles:
- Fixed (Shopify Bundles)
- Multipack (Shopify Bundles)
- Mix-and-match (Third-party bundle app)
To sell Bundles on Shopify POS, simply select Point Of Sale in the ‘publishing - sales channels’. They can also be sold through your Online Store and Shop channel.
Segment triggers for automations
You can now automate operational workflows and key marketing moments when a customer joins or leaves a segment.
These segment triggers can set up using customer data in Shopify, with automated actions then set up based on the segment’s membership.
In addition to custom automations in Shopify Flow, there are two new marketing automation templates:
Welcome new VIPs – send an email to customers who join your VIP segment. You can thank them for their business and promote special offers.
Send birthday emails – email customers with special deals on their birthday. This will add a birthday metafield to your customers (you can collect birthdays with Shopify Forms).
The templates will set up the required segments in the background if you start from the Marketing > Automations section, but you can adjust them if required. If you are building workflows in Flow, the right segments and metafields will need to be set up in the Customers section.
More languages for Semantic Search
Semantic Search, a Shopify Plus feature rolled out during Winter Editions ‘24, now supports multiple languages.
The tool, which is enabled in the Shopify Search & Discovery app, allows customers to use more conversational language when searching for products.
'Pickup in store' capabilities extended
‘Pickup in store’ capabilities now support the ‘ship to store’ fulfilment via the new Store transfers feature.
There have also been improvements made to how pickup locations are displayed at checkout – now only locations within the buyer’s country are shown.
Meanwhile, the Store Transfers feature allows merchants to offer pickup in store for more products, at more locations. Customers can purchase products online and have them shipped to one of your stores for pickup. ‘Pickup in store’ was previously only available if all products in an order were in stock at the pickup location.
Store Transfers can be utilised for any ‘Pickup in store’ location, and you can configure the transfer of items from multiple locations, whether that’s other retail stores or fulfilment centres. Product exclusions are also supported.
Merchants can also facilitate inventory transferring for pick up directly in an order using the Shopify admin.
More efficient workflow run list troubleshooting
After the improvements made to the Shopify Flow search and admin in June and July, the list of workflow runs has now been streamlined.
The update intends to make understanding run statuses and identifying errors easier. There are now two columns, labelled ‘Workflow status’ and ‘Results’. The status column will include the states:
- In-progress
- Completed
- Timed out
- Rate limited
- Cancelled
The results column will detail the actions that were successfully completed and those that had errors. You can click an action to navigate to the relevant section on the run details page.
The run list page will now load faster and with less time-out errors, even for those workflows with a lot of steps.
Shipping refunds enhanced
There have been several enhancements made around shipping refunds.
Financial summary
The order details financial summary now accounts for shipping refunds, with the refund amount automatically subtracted from the shipping total. The refunded amount is proportionally distributed for orders with multiple shipping lines.
Refund process
There’s a new checkbox to simplify the shipping refund process. The checkbox defaults to refunding the full shipping amount but allows the amount to be edited for partial refunds.
Timeline events
Timeline events are now created on the order details page when there are refunds targeting only shipping amounts. These events were only previously created when both shipping and product line items were refunded.
Duty inclusive pricing for Managed Markets
Merchants who are selling cross-border with Managed Markets and have access to 1-page checkout will now be able to implement duty inclusive pricing.
Duty inclusive pricing means customers aren’t surprised by added duty fees during checkout. You can leave product prices the same and forgo margin, or adjust them to offset the duties charge. At checkout, customers will be informed that duties are included in the total.
Autocomplete and contextual details for Flow scripts
The ‘Run code’ action in Flow now includes modern code editing features such as details on hover and autocomplete.
The improved experience is aimed at enabling faster code writing and minimising the likelihood of errors.
Editors can dynamically type the ‘input’ parameter in the ‘main’ function of the script, which allows for the changing of a query and the suggestion of available values.
Instant access to type information can be obtained by hovering over code elements, making clear acceptable values and reducing errors.
Category metafield support for storefront filters
You can now offer category metafields as a storefront filter when using the Shopify Search & Discovery app, providing you’ve set up your product category using Shopify’s Standard Product Taxonomy.
The updates also means that filter swatches are automatically rendered in the storefront filter dropdown. Filter values, meanwhile, are automatically grouped under a single value. This means that ‘powder blue’ and ‘navy blue’ would map to the ‘Blue’ filter option automatically.
YouTube Shorts support
There’s now support for YouTube Shorts as an external file in the file picker.
You can upload YouTube Shorts to products and other resources by selecting ‘add from URL’ in the file picker.
Are you looking to migrate to Shopify, learn more about the platform, or need advice from a trusted Shopify Plus partner? Get in touch with our expert Performance Development team today.
