This week Shopify announced 100+ new features in their bi-annual Shopify Editions Winter 2024 event. There were 2 big themes this release. One was Shopify’s mission to seamlessly integrate AI into more of its platform to speed up tasks for merchants. AI can be a scary topic however in the following features it is clear that they provide real value and time saving opportunities to merchants. Another theme is that Shopify reimagined parts of its data model, such as expanding the variant limit from 100 to 2000.
A quick look
Below is a quick table for you to know what were the most exciting announcements were from Shopify Editions Winter 2024. They are broken down by category, status and Shopify plan to know if it’s relevant for you and if you can use it now. After this we’ll give you a deeper dive about some of the biggest topics listed.
| Feature | Category | Status | Shopify Plan |
| Automatic address validation at checkout | Checkout | Available now | All |
| New discount types | Discount | Available now | All |
| 3D product models within the Shopify app | Product media | Available now | All |
| Edit shipping costs and discounts on orders | Admin | Available now | All |
| Variant limit increased from 100 to 2000 | Product | Developer preview | – |
| AI-enabled image editing features | Product media | Early 2024 | All |
| Rich attributes for each product category | Product | Unknown | All |
| Product exchanges built-into Shopify | Customer account | Early 2024 – with new customer accounts | All |
| Semantic search | Theme | Available now | Shopify Plus |
| Combined Listings | Product | Unknown | Shopify Plus |
| Shopify Subscriptions app | Theme | Available now | All |
| Customers can save credit card information to account | Customer account | Available now | Shopify Plus |
| Customized receipts to match your brand | POS | Unknown | All |
| Capture reasons for returns in-store | POS | Available now | All |
| Populate new stores with your existing store data | Bulk data | Unknown | All |
| Write JavaScript code in Shopify Flow | Flow | Available now | All |
Variant limit increased from 100 to 2000
This is a huge pain point that has finally been relieved. Tons of merchants, especially in the apparel space, have had to rely on clunky solutions or 3rd party apps to show all of their customization options per product. Unfortunately it’s not available right now in the Shopify admin but it should be available to the general public at a later point.
Rich attributes based on categories
This is an extension of the product options with a little sprinkle of AI in order to speed up the variant creation process. When you select a category it will show Shopify suggested metafields or “category metafields for you” which you can adjust. When you upload a product photo it suggests the colors to use. Once you’re done creating all the different metafields, Shopify will create variants from it.
Build-in exchanges
In 2023 Shopify released self-serve returns so you don’t need to deal with return support tickets. Now they have expanded that to also include native exchanges. You can keep a sale and keep customers happy. Easily create, track, and manage exchanges for any order from the admin. This is only available if you have the new customer accounts enabled.
AI-powered search (semantic search)
Shopify already made the search process better with the Search and Discovery app and predictive search (making suggestions about your query before you type everything – like how Google gives you suggestions). Now they’ve integrated AI to better predict customers’ intentions when searching.
For example if someone searches for “christmas party shoes” they will associate green and red to christmas and pumps to party shoes.
This only works if you use the native Shopify search. It won’t work if you use an app like Boost AI Search & Filter for example.
Combined Listings app
We’ve worked with multiple brands (such as Bea Colette) that want to combine products on the frontend to look like variants with their own media and unique URL. This requires coding to implement and attention to detail to properly connect the products together.
Shopify has taken away that need with the Combined Listings app. Products that come in multiple colors or styles can now all be merchandised from a single parent listing, each variation with its own description, media gallery, and URL
The final word
As usual, Shopify Editions Winter 2024 left merchants and developers alike in awe and scrambling to find ways to integrate them into their stores and product solutions. These announcements felt like the future of eCommerce was being pushed forward. At the same time many year-long customer complaints of the platform were finally relieved.
If any of these features pique your interest for your Shopify store, reach out to Plentiful Commerce! We can assist with your roadmap strategy and implement it so you stay ahead of the curve.
