Shopify Unite 2019: A Look at What’s Coming

Every year, the team at Shopify come together to host a conference and announce their plans for upcoming new features and improvements to the software. At Shopify Unite 2019 they announced some pretty big — and pretty amazing — new things coming for store owners.

We’re going to break down some of the biggest and best announcements and let you know what to expect. So let’s dive in!

Shopify Unite 2019: What’s Coming Up?

At 2019’s Shopify Unite event, the leaders at Shopify came to the stage and shared their predictions for the future of eCommerce. The takeaway? There are so many amazing possibilities opening up for online shopkeepers everywhere. Which one of these updates if your favorite?

An Exciting New Online Store Design Experience

Shopify is FINALLY bringing some much-sought-after improvements to the experience of building pages. This includes:

• Sections being available on all pages, just like the home page.
• Master pages that will let you define and bulk edit content that will show up on all pages using that master page.
• Themes will now have starting points that will allow theme developers to pre-configure sections of content so you can get started faster.
• You can swap themes without losing your content.
• You can save drafts of content changes without publishing them so you can make sure things are perfect before you launch.
• They overalled and improved the overall user experience.

Watch the Presentation

Presented by Cynthia Savard Saucier, Director of UX Channels at Shopify

Improvements to the Shopify POS

Bring-and-mortar stores everywhere rely on in-person interactions to build relationships with their customers. The Shopify POS is coming with some new improvements to help you do more.

Your staff and your customer can check out faster since Shopify brought the loyalty and promotion details directly into the cart without you having to click away.

Watch the Presentation

Presented by Arpan Podduturi, Director of Product at Shopify

A More Powerful Back Office

Managing the behind-the-scenes details of your online store may not be the most glamorous parts of your job as a store owner, but it’s necessary. Shopify is making some changes that will make managing your back office even easier. Get more work done and spend less time figuring out how to make things work.

• The new fulfillment API’s will make it easier for developers to give users more control and visibility into how their orders are filled.
• You’ll also be able to set delivery profiles that will make it easy for you to set up per location and per product shipping rules.
• Before an item has been fulfilled, you can use the new order editing features to modify the order to allow you to provide a better customer experience.

Watch the Presentation

Presented by Lynsey Thornton, Vice President of UX and Core Product at Shopify

Shopify Plus Helps You Manage More

Now Shopify is helping you managing more in one place. You’ll be able to manage products and orders for multiple stores, keep track of all your staff accounts, automate workflows, and a lot more.

Now you can build an online store (or several) that’s designed for your overall strategy. You can manage your staff across all of your stores and channels. With a single login, you can easily switch between your unique stores and keep track of everything.

Watch the Presentation

Presented by Katie Cerar, Product Lead at Shopify Plus

Utilize the Shopify Fulfillment Network

Shopping online is convenient and simple but it offers one major drawback — you have to wait on your product to arrive. As an online storekeeper, you are constantly struggling to ship faster and compete with services like Amazon Prime.

Shopify’s new fulfillment network is here to help change that. Shopify Fulfillment Network is a geographically-dispersed network of centers equipped with smart inventory-allocation technology that’s powered by machine learning. This smart A.I. predicts which fulfillment centers and inventory quantities are available at each location.

Watch the Presentation

Presented by Craig Miller, Chief Product Officer at Shopify

More Powerful Features for Developers

Shopify developers are a crucial part of the success of the overall platform. They are the bridge between what you and your customers want and what features are already available on the Shopify software. Shopify is also releasing new features for developers that will make that even easier.

There are new capabilities being launched through their Media API, Delivery Profiles API, and Order Editing API that are being made available in GraphQL. This will make it easier and faster to find and fix bugs.

Shopify’s App Bridge was also upgraded to use Feature Detection — which means that apps can now utilize hardware like cameras and barcode scanners.

Watch the Presentation

Presented by Vanessa Lee, Director of Product at Shopify

Shopify Continues to be the Top eCommerce Platform

Harley Finkelstein, Chief Operating Officer at Shopify, promised in his keynote presentation at Shopify Unite 2019 that the opportunities for online entrepreneurs have never been bigger.

Many of the new additions will impact the capabilities of your theme for your store. If you’re considering making some changes to take advantage of the new features, give us a call.

Book a meeting and let’s talk about your future.