All the Shopify updates and changes for October 2024
- Olly Green
- Read time: 7 minutes
There were a series of updates and improvements made across the Shopify platform in October.
You can now use enhanced branding customisations, enjoy the ease of Tap of Pay in more countries, and take advantage of a fresh Location Settings index page.
All this and more as we rumble towards the busy festive period - check out all the new ways you can manage and improve your store below.
Accept unverified returns with POS
New Location Settings index page
Unique products and collections for Hydrogen storefronts
Prevent high-risk orders reaching suppliers
Customer winback automations extended
Trigger workflows for metaobject entries
Shipping Insurance included on Managed Markets labels
Apps tab for checkout and accounts editor
Bulk purchase shipping labels
There’s a new way to buy labels for up to 100 ready-to-fulfill orders at once, as you can now group orders by item type and item quantity in the ‘Create shipping labels’ page.
Select ‘Buy labels for X orders’ and start buying labels for up to 100 orders at one of your fulfilment locations.
Branding customisation added
There was a focus on branding customisation over the past month, with two updates centering on providing merchants with the capability to fine tune both internal and customer-facing screens.
Brand colours for POS idle screens
You can now apply brand colours to POS terminal idle screens in the Shopify admin. You can do this via:
Point of Sale > Settings > Devices > Customer displays > Idle screen
You can then add or edit your brand colours before selecting ‘Apply primary colour 1 and contrasting colour’ to apply your colours to the idle screen. Make sure you click ‘Save’ after this.
New customer account login page branding
Meanwhile, the login page for new customer accounts will now inherit the same branding as the checkout and accounts experience, the colours of which can be set up in the checkout and accounts editor.Display tweak for app blocks
In mid-October, there was update to app blocks that add content above or below the discount code field in checkout.
These blocks now appear in the order summary displayed at the top of the page in one-page mobile checkout. They previously would only display in the order summary at the bottom of the page.
Tap to Pay expanded
Tap to Pay across iPhone and Android has been expanded to the UK and several other countries in the past month.
Tap to Pay allows in-person sellers to accept contactless payments with a compatible smartphone and requires no additional card readers or hardware.
These payments are processed by Shopify Payments and are subject to standard credit card processing fees.
Tap to Pay on iPhone comes to the UK
Tap to Pay on iPhone with Shopify POS is now available in the UK, Australia, Canada Italy, the Netherlands, having previously only been supported in the US.
Tap to Pay on Android added
Tap to Pay on Android is now available for Shopify POS users in the UK, Australia, the US, and several other countries around the world.
Accept unverified returns with POS
The latest version of the Shopify POS app includes support for accepting unverified returns.
This means that retail staff can offer a return to a gift card even if the customer can’t present a receipt or valid order number.
New Location Settings index page
A significant update to the Location Settings index page offer support to shops with up to 1,000 locations. This allows for simpler searching, filtering, and pagination.
Available to all merchants using Shopify Admin, the update enables merchants to manage their locations more efficiently and includes an updated Default Location card. There’s also improved location name and address editing, and a streamlined design.
There’s a fresh address validation feature to ensure accuracy when entering or updating location addresses. It’s now easier to view and manage location configurations, and the process of sorting and filtering locations is simplified.
Unique products and collections for Hydrogen storefronts
You can now publish different products and collections to each of your Hydrogen storefronts.
Where you would previously see ‘Hydrogen’ as the name of a channel in the Shopify admin, you’ll now see the name of each of your Hydrogen storefronts as possible publishing destinations.
Each Hydrogen storefront is now treated as a unique channel, and this extends to the Orders page and elsewhere in the admin.
Prevent high-risk orders reaching suppliers
There’s now a two-minute delay before orders are sent to suppliers, giving retailers the opportunity to run custom fraud risk automations
This means that risky orders can be cancelled or put on hold after fraud checks are complete, helping prevent the fulfilment of fraudulent orders.
Customer winback automations extended
The ‘customer winback’ marketing automation template now uses the ‘Customer joined segment’ trigger in Shopify Flow.
This means that customers will now enter the workflow when they join a segment – instead of after an order has been fulfilled. This allows you to set up a segment of customers who have purchased years ago rather than weeks or months ago.
To make use of this, you’ll need to set up the new template and turn the old one off. Segment criteria and email content is provided as a starting point, but this should be reviewed and updated according to your business before using.
Trigger workflows for metaobject entries
The ‘Metaobject entry created’ trigger can now be used to start a workflow in Shopify Flow when a new entry is created for a specific metaobject definition.
The trigger returns the metaobject entry with all relevant fields and enables things like the automation of form responses - workflows can be triggered when a customer submits information.
Shipping Insurance included on Managed Markets labels
If you’re on the Shopify, Advanced, or Plus plan, you’ll now get free shipping insurance on all Managed Markets shipping labels purchased in the Shopify admin.
This free insurance is for up to $200, while optional additional insurance can be purchased on all plans up to $5,000.
Apps tab for checkout and accounts editor
There’s now an Apps tab in the checkout and accounts editor, allowing for all app blocks to be managed in one place.
New functionality can be customised and previewed on the Checkout, Thank you, and Order status pages, by using only the relevant app blocks in any section of the page.
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.
