What's new on Shopify: October Round-Up

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday fast approaching, Shopify have been knocking it out of the park with new features and tools to help merchants to be more effective and increase sales.

Here's our monthly round-up of what's new and improved with on the platform and what has been happening in the Shopify community:

 

Less friction with Google Autocomplete for Shopify:

 

Something that got us very excited about reducing checkout friction for our merchants was the news that Shopify will be introducing Google Autocomplete for address forms on all Shopify stores. This simple addition to your customer journey will speed up the checkout experience and make it easy for your customers to enter their postal address, just type the first few characters and Google will instantly do the rest. Early testing has indicated an increase in conversion rates and a 20% time saving and error reduction on mobile. Boom.

See how it works here.

 

Section visibility:

 

Sections for Shopify are awesome, agreed? Now Shopify have incorporated a toggle to allow you hide individual sections in your theme editor. Allowing you to plan future updates and modify your store on the fly. Try it in the sidebar of your theme editor today.

 

Singapore joins the Shopify Payments club:

 

When you're looking to accept payments online and in-store, Shopify Payments is hands-down the fastest and most hassle-free way to get up and running with no need for a third-party payment provider. Fully integrated with your store so you can manage your finances directly in your admin, Shopify have gradually rolled out Shopify Payments to merchants in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Puerto Rico, New Zealand and now Singapore being able to process credit and debit payments with Shopify.

Learn more about Shopify Payments here.

 

Shareable Discount Links:

 

Seeing as Black Friday and Cyber Monday are all about the discounts, Shopify have introduced a simple new function in the form of shareable discount links, just in time for the holiday season to help you drive traffic and sales.

You can create Shareable Discount Links in your admin which directs customers to your homepage and applies your chosen discount to their cart automatically. To learn more about Shareable Discount Links and to create your own visit this link.

 

The BFCM Toolbox:

 

In preparation for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Shopify have created and launched the BFCM toolbox to help Shopify merchants get set, get seen and get selling with helpful guides, business tools, checklists and live webinars to ensure that you get the most out of this important part of the year.

Check out the BFCM Toolbox here.

 

Shopify Workroom:

 

This month Shopify ran Shopify Workroom, a week-long event in both Los Angeles and New York City. Here they met hundreds of Shopify merchants with talks from successful and inspiring merchants and one-on-one chats with Gurus who helped to get improve their business and get them ready for the holiday season.

Get inspired by the stories of 8 great small Shopify businesses from Shopify Workroom.

 

Sales Channels galore:

 

Some really exciting all round news on various new Shopify sales channels was announced this month.

Shopify have teamed up with Lyst. Now Shopify merchants can apply to sell their products through the online destination, while managing all your orders directly through the Shopify admin panel, just like you would with a regular order. Pretty neat. If you haven't heard of Lyst, it is a definitive online fashion destination where customers can discover and shop the world's most stylish brands, with more than 9,000 designers and over 2,000 stores in one place. Learn more and apply to Lyst here.

Next up – eBay. Yep, Shopify have partnered with the well-known marketplace to tap into their huge presence of 171 million active buyers worldwide. Now you can effortlessly sync your Shopify store with eBay (if you are based in the U.S and sell in US dollars) selling effectively while handling fulfilment and inventory all within your store admin. Learn more about how easy it is to integrate eBay with your Shopify store.

The one you've all been waiting for. Selling with Instagram is now in Beta testing and will soon be available to all Shopify merchants. Soon, you will be able to access over 500 million daily active users on the platform, increasing your potential reach dramatically. Shopify store owners will be able to make any Instagram post stoppable and inspire shoppers by connecting with customers who love to discover and explore new products on the platform.

To be prepared your store for the launch and and stay update visit this page.

 

DHL Express integration for Shopify Shipping:

 

If you are a U.S based Shopify merchant then using Shopify Shipping just got a hell of a lot easier. Shopify have teamed up with DHL Express, the world's leading international express shipping provider so that now you have them as an option in Shopping Shipping with guaranteed express service, negotiated shipping rates and a service to more than 220 countries/territories. Learn more about the new DHL Express integration and find out about Shopify Shipping here.

 

Analytics and Reports Updates:

 

Shopify have gone to town on improving both analytics and reports for Shopify merchants. First off, for any merchants on the $29 Basic Shopify plan you will now see improved reporting, With access to eight new reports (including Visitors by Referrer, Visitors Over Time, Visitors by Marketing Campaign and Top Online Store Searches). Giving you a more comprehensive understanding of your performance to help you drive traffic and sales.

Retail Analytics have seen a market improvement with the announcement of new metrics for physical in-store retailers that are easy to access. Now Shopify Analytics will include new reports from Shopify POS (Sales by staff, Sales by retail location) and you can quickly access insights through the improved store dashboard including total sales, AOV, top products by units sold and more. This update from Shopify will give you the ability to identify top performing retail staff, see top-selling products at each of your retail locations, compare sales by location and much more. See how Shopify Retail Analytics has improved with this latest update.

Lastly, Shopify has introduced a series of new Marketing Activity and Sales Attribution Reports into store analytics. This update gives Shopify merchants a full understanding of how marketing efforts are performing to help you identify what is and isn't working well and optimise your campaigns accordingly. With Sales Attribution Reports you are now able to comprehend your customers' buying habits easily with a focus on conversion details, conversion by first and last interaction, attribution model comparison. This update from Shopify allows you to launch, measure and learn with the overall result being improved sales and understanding of how your customers think. Learn more about what you can do with the new marketing and sales attribution reports by visiting here.

So there you have it. October has been a pretty decent month to be a Shopify store merchant. We can't wait to see what new features are released next month.

If you are planning on migrating to Shopify or launching a new e-commerce store then get in touch to discuss how we can create an engaging e-commerce experience with Shopify.