The Shopify Partners Conference just wrapped up in Toronto, Canada. Taking place on June 18 – 20, 2019, the Shop Style Design team led by Alexander McCulloch (Co-Founder) and Mark Hill (Head of Support) were proud to attend this year’s event. At Unite, Shopify leaders took to the stage and shared their vision on the future of commerce. They also provided partners with the opportunity to take a look at product roadmaps – and the future looks bright and is so very full of possibilities. We are so excited to share our takeaways with you from this third Shopify partner event that we have attended.
Most notably, we are intrigued by Shopify’s coming abilities to simplify business management further and to offer your customers unique experiences.
Shopify will simplify your business management process
Historically, there have been a variety of shortfalls that have plagued that back-end of Shopify business operations. We have always been impressed with how Shopify has accepted feedback from its partners and has made the appropriate adjustments to enable a better merchant experience. This year, Shopify made some pivotal changes.
- Streamline your order editing process. Without a doubt, eCommerce can be very messy, and inflexible applications and web experiences can cause poor customer experience. Shopify knows this, so before too long, merchants will be able to edit open orders per the request of a buyer. Shopify’s new order editing features of the GraphQL AdminAPI will permit applications to either add, remove, or replace products before the line item has been fulfilled. This means that merchants will have more post-purchase flexibility and can ensure customers can get exactly what they want.
- Design within a new online store experience. The new Shopify online store design experience is going to make it much simpler for merchants not only to create but also to customize their storefronts. And, this can all be done without the need to write code. A new feature will allow merchants to spend less time on store editing, and more on providing those imperative and valuable skills and services that are needed to take a merchant’s business to the next level of sophistication.
- Fine-tune and adjust your shipping profiles. In the past, Shopify has used a blanket shipping policy for all items in the shop. Whether it’s a USB key or a refrigerator, all shipping is calculated against a single package size, which is highly inefficient. With the upcoming changes, store owners will be able to set product-specific shipping, including package size.
- Ship faster with Shopify Fulfillment Network. When buyers order something from an online store, they usually must wait for multiple days, and sometimes weeks to get their products delivered. And that’s not the worst thing, as in many cases, customers will abandon their cart when they discover how much the shipping will cost. This experience is not good for the customer and often leads to lost sales. Sadly, the experience is not much better for merchants either. With the Shopify Fulfillment Network, merchants will have access to a network of fulfillment centers that are geographically dispersed and are equipped with smart inventory-allocation technology. All of this is powered by machine learning that can predict the nearest fulfillment center to the customer as well as the right inventory quantities for each location to ensure prompt and affordable delivery. The Shopify Fulfillment Network will be enabled in the United States to start, and will include:
- One back office: Up to date orders, inventory, and customer data synced across all warehouse locations and channels
- Inventory integrity: Regular or ad-hoc cycle counts can be scheduled to maintain accurate inventory levels.
- 5% certainty and accuracy: Orders will be picked, packed, and out to your customers on time and without error.
- Your eyes at the warehouse: Your team will have a dedicated account manager who has Shopify expertise and a logistics background, ensuring you have what you need to succeed.
Shopify will help you offer unique experiences to your customers
The customer experience is critical for merchants of all sizes. We are pleased that Shopify continues to take merchant and partner feedback to enhance the shopping experience for all customers. These exciting changes will provide business owners and customers with new opportunities to both purchase and checkout with ease.
- Immerse your customers in video and 3D. Today’s consumers love video content because it is easy to digest, and it is both entertaining and engaging. As such, marketers turn to video as a key element of their marketing strategy as it can provide a substantial return on investment (ROI). And later this year (2019), Shopify will be updating the product section of Shopify Admin with video and 3D enhancements. This means that the site will be able to support video and 3D model assets for product descriptions natively.
- Enable subscriptions in your Shopify checkout. Shopify partners will soon have access to a checkout app extension; the first-ever of its kind. This means an improved subscription purchase flow, and buyers will no longer be routed outside of Shopify to complete their transactions. Developers will have the ability to incorporate their subscription applications directly into the checkout experience, surface the app’s details into the Shopify checkout, and provide merchants with the ability to process transactions for subscription-based goods and services all within one seamless checkout action.
- Reduce the friction at checkout with automatic discounts. Already in place, Shopify has made it possible for customers to take advantage of their loyalty plans plus retailer promotions, directly in the cart, without having to leave the checkout experience. This means that customers will feel more appreciated and will be less likely to abandon their transaction.
- Help customers discover new items with product recommendations. Customers love it when their favorite retailers seem to pay attention and provide them with personalized experiences. And, one of the best ways to do this is by providing product recommendations. This builds loyalty with the customer and means more revenue for the retailer. As such, you can now add a section to your product pages that will then display automatically-generated recommendations that make sense for that customer. This also helps customers to discover new products. These recommendations are based on an algorithm that predicts the most relevant products for the customer based on the product that the customer is interacting with.
Shop Style Design is ready to help you put these changes into action
Shop Style Design is ready to help you take all of these Shopify product enhancements and put them into action. Our experts specialize in eCommerce site set up and design and are experts on the Shopify platform. Contact us to set up a free consultation so that we can help you help your website become profitable and meet, if not exceed, your goals.
