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Turning boring into bonkers: Inside the design process of Winter '25 Edition
Every six months, we ship a new Shopify Edition, a fresh version of Shopify that celebrates our latest launches and updates. This Edition is different. We’re not releasing new products. Instead, we’re improving the features merchants and developers already know and love. We made them faster, more performant, and unified with the rest of Shopify. These updates are in direct response to what merchants tell us they need to run their businesses. We called it boring. It’s anything but. The Winter ’25 Edition site leans into boring in a fresh and creative way—built by a team empowered to push the boundaries of Shopify’s platform. Here’s how they did it. Anything but boring Because Shopify made the bold choice to improve existing features, this posed a creative problem: there was nothing new or flashy to anchor the story. Instead of doing the expected, the team tackled boring head on. “Great software should be so elegant that it frictionlessly supports your experience of using it every single day,” says design director Maggie Fost. The team took inspiration from the roots of basic web design (think Craigslist) to present boring updates in the simplest way. But Shopify is anything but boring. To demonstrate this side of the brand, her team created an alternate universe. Toggling to non-boring on the site, updates are now presented in technicolor: weird, wonderful, and powered by AI. These opposites represent two truths about Shopify: software that’s invisible in its elegance—and the wild, limitless ambition of the people behind it. This potent combination means the possibilities are endless for those who build on Shopify. “We're being exactly who we are and pushing the technical chops as far as we can,” says product marketing director Emma Horner. “There's something that feels really right and exciting about that.” The tech that ties it together The creative team used Midjourney to create images to inspire each video before bringing on other tools to layer in script, sound, and motion. “We're getting better at making these videos by leveraging the limitations of the technology to make it funny,” says Maggie. The resulting 150+ videos are bizarre in the best way. “I love that this is imperfect technology,” says Maggie. “The outputs feel goofy in a way that I hope we laugh about a year from now.” Cutting-edge technology was employed at every step—including Shopify’s own. Each of the last four Editions were built as Hydrogen stores, a fact that’s been relatively invisible until now. This time around, site visitors can actually buy a product right on the Edition site, checking out with Shopify. Teamwork 🤝 dreamwork Every aspect of the Boring Edition was created in-house. From design through development—including motion design, content, and marketing—this project represents the value Shopify places on experimentation. “This work is a testament to having a nimble team that’s leaning all the way forward,” says Maggie. Each Edition’s ideation process sees concepts move quickly from visual ideas into real prototypes. This is only possible with developers embedded on the team. It’s the only way for the team to fully understand how the experience will land. This Edition was no different. In fact, the team did more prototyping than usual to understand how the far-out nature of the concept could work. This Easter egg was created in an early prototype: hovering over the letters in "boring" reveals those letters within the content, with a sound effect. “Boring is a theme that isn’t without risk,” Emma says. “It felt really important that we land it properly.” Despite this integration of multiple skillsets working together to bring each Edition to life, the team is small and tight-knit. That way, everyone is confidently building toward a shared vision, with key stakeholders looped in at strategic times. “I'm extremely intentional about fostering the right habitat and culture for this kind of creativity,” says Maggie. “It sometimes means the door to our virtual studio is closed so the team can take risks without interruption. Sometimes the work has to be bad before it’s good.” Creativity unleashed Boring wouldn’t have been possible had it been constrained by too many parameters. “The direction from day one was basically, ‘Fuck around and find out,’” says Emma. “There are no rules in this game other than build something incredible that’s valuable to merchants.” Of course the project still had goals. It needed to convey that Shopify is innovating fast to bring value to merchants. It demanded accessibility and flashes of delight. And, it had to feel truly of the moment. “I want whatever we make in December 2024 to be something we would not have been able to make in June of 2024,” says Maggie. “We are very lucky to have not just room to take risks but a mandate to take risks,” says Maggie. Ultimately the true creative potential of the team is realized with the fewest parameters possible. Meet Boring Despite having a lean team and ever-evolving inputs, the bar has been raised. “We are an enormously creative company that empowers people to take big swings,” says Maggie. Explore the Winter ’25 Edition to discover 150+ updates, some unexpected surprises, and a visual feast—all built on Shopify.
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How an AI Recommendation System Can Increase Sales
Is there anything more powerful than a word-of-mouth recommendation? When a trusted friend suggests a new book or skin care brand, you know they’ve got your best interest at heart—and understand you better than just about anyone. But what if you had a friend with nearly infinite information about the things you love? Their recommendations would be laser-focused, perfectly matching your needs and desires. That’s the promise of an AI recommendation system. Ecommerce stores can leverage artificial intelligence to analyze user data and deliver more relevant recommendations. For many businesses, an AI recommendation system may be the boost your sales and marketing teams need—and it’s all automated. Click here to start selling online now with Shopify What is an AI recommendation system? An AI recommendation system—also known as a recommendation engine—uses machine learning algorithms to suggest relevant products, services, or content to potential customers online. AI recommendation systems collect and analyze data points like demographics, a user’s past behavior (reviews, ratings, search history, past purchases) and product attributes, creating personalized recommendations. A wide range of industries—entertainment, finance, marketing, and ecommerce—use AI-powered recommendation engines. For example, an ecommerce merchant might rely on an AI recommendation system to display data-driven suggestions to site visitors. Gymshark’s recommendation engine, for instance, recommends products based on customers with similar interests. Source: Gymshark Shopify Magic Shopify Magic makes it easier to start, run, and grow your business. Our groundbreaking commerce-focused AI empowers entrepreneurs like you to be more creative, productive, and successful than ever before. AI designed for commerce How an AI recommendation system can increase your sales A good AI-powered recommendation system can personalize your online store experience, driving repeat purchases and higher satisfaction. Nearly half of US shoppers in 2023 wanted personalized product recommendations, and 56% of customers reported returning to a merchant after a customized shopping experience. By personalizing the shopping experience, AI recommendation systems can also increase customer retention and improve the overall customer experience. Key benefits include: Streamlined discovery. The system surfaces highly relevant choices, so customers don’t have to scroll endless to find items they want. Higher average order value. “Customers also bought” or “Frequently bought together” sections on your checkout page can encourage upsells and cross-sells, increasing average order value and boosting revenue. Enhanced customer loyalty. A faster, more personalized experience as a result of an AI recommendations system keeps shoppers coming back. Types of AI recommendation systems Content-based filtering Collaborative filtering Hybrid filtering You can generate personalized recommendations for potential customers using one of three main types of AI recommendation systems: Content-based filtering An AI recommendation system using content-based filtering algorithms makes recommendations based on the specific characteristics (features, categories, descriptions) of items a user already likes, rather than what other users do. By analyzing product metadata using data filtering, an AI recommendation system can recommend items with similar attributes to those a shopper has previously engaged with. This works particularly well for niche markets with a limited customer base. You may not have a lot of customer reviews or interactions on your site, but if you have sufficient product information, you can use a content-based filtering system to make recommendations instead. For example, the Shopcast app uses content-based filtering to make recommendations based on similar product features. Collaborative filtering Collaborative filtering predicts a user’s preferences based on the behavior of similar users. Collaborative filtering systems may consider browsing history, purchase history, or ratings. This type of recommendation engine suggests products it thinks you’ll like based on customer data from shoppers with similar tendencies. For example, a clothing brand might recommend a new clothing line to a particular user based on recent fashion purchases of users with similar tastes. As opposed to content-based filtering, collaborative filtering is useful for suggesting items not directly related to products the user has viewed but that similar customers have purchased. For example, Also Bought is an AI-powered recommendation system that recommends products that are commonly purchased alongside items in a customer’s cart. Hybrid filtering Hybrid recommendation systems combine collaborative and content-based filtering to recommend relevant content, products, and services to users. For example, hybrid systems could predict the type of cookware that might interest a customer based on what other users with similar preferences have chosen, and specific content-based connections in product features, materials, or sizes. By collecting data about similarities between users and content-based factors like product descriptions, a hybrid recommendation system combines multiple filtering methods to get a highly informed and personalized recommendation. Popular AI recommendation engines typically rely on a hybrid approach, applying both collaborative and content-based filtering. For example, the FT: Frequently Bought Togethertool creates automatic product recommendations based on user behavior and real-time order data.
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Shopify Flow: Intelligent Automation to Grow Your Business
In the world of e-commerce, the ability to customize and automate processes is key to scaling your business efficiently. Shopify Flow is a powerful tool that allows you to do just that: automate tasks and workflows within your Shopify store. In this article, we’ll dive into the benefits and features of Shopify Flow, as well as key considerations when using this powerful automation tool. What is Shopify Flow? Shopify Flow is an automation platform that lets you customize your store’s operations through powerful workflows. It helps you streamline repetitive tasks and make data-driven decisions based on specific events. If you want to enhance efficiency and free up time to focus on high-impact strategies, Shopify Flow is the perfect solution. How does Shopify Flow work? Shopify Flow is built around extensions, which include: ⚡ Triggers: Events that start a workflow (e.g., a new order is placed). ✅ Conditions: Rules that determine if an action should be executed (e.g., checking if an order total exceeds $200). 🔧 Actions: Tasks that Shopify Flow executes when conditions are met (e.g., adding a tag to a customer’s account for orders over $200). By selecting and configuring these elements, you can create custom workflows that optimize and streamline your business processes effortlessly. What Can You Create with Shopify Flow? With Shopify Flow, you can develop both triggers and actions for your users: Triggers activate a workflow based on an event. Actions execute specific tasks as part of the workflow. For users to leverage your custom triggers and actions, they must have your app installed and be on a Shopify plan that includes Shopify Flow. This ensures they can fully benefit from the automation capabilities your app provides. Making Changes to Triggers or Actions 🔄 When modifying triggers or actions, consider whether your changes might disrupt existing workflows. Significant changes (e.g., renaming or removing a field) should be handled by creating a new version and hiding the previous one. Minor changes (e.g., updating a description or modifying an optional field) can be made directly without breaking workflows. To prevent issues, you can update a task instead of modifying a trigger/action directly. Hiding the old version and launching a new one allows for seamless updates without disruptions. Real-World Impact: How Innovate Group Helped Nestlé Peru At Innovate Group, we recognized the potential of Shopify Flow and worked with Nestlé Peru to tailor it to their specific needs. 📊 Daily Order Counting Nestlé Peru needed a real-time order tracking system. We developed a custom trigger in Shopify Flow that automatically counts daily orders, helping them monitor their sales volume. ✅ Result: They could set a daily order limit, optimize operations, and improve the customer experience. 🚚 Delivery Date Selection Nestlé Peru wanted to give customers the option to choose their delivery date at checkout. We built a custom actionthat allowed them to do just that. ✅ Result: Customers enjoyed more flexibility and convenience, while Nestlé Peru improved logistics and inventory management. The Results: Why Shopify Flow Matters By implementing Shopify Flow with custom adaptations, Nestlé Peru achieved: ✅ Better operational efficiency through order limits.✅ Enhanced customer experience with delivery date selection.✅ More streamlined logistics and distribution. 🚀 Ready to automate your Shopify store? Shopify Flow empowers businesses to scale efficiently with intelligent automation. Whether you're optimizing workflows or improving customer experience, the possibilities are endless! 👉 How do you use automation in your business? Let us know in the comments!
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Simplify and streamline the purchasing process with the new "one-page checkout"
ArtículoCheck-Out: https://www.shopify.com/checkout Shopify has recently introduced a significant update to its checkout, aiming to provide a more efficient and seamless user experience. One of the key advancements, and highly anticipated, is the implementation of "one-page checkout," which streamlines the purchasing process by consolidating all personal, shipping, and billing information. This update aims to eliminate page loading times and reduce cart abandonment rates, benefiting both businesses and customers. "One-page checkout": Shopify's "One-page checkout" is designed to simplify the purchasing process for customers. By condensing all necessary information onto a single page, the need for users to navigate between different pages during the payment process is reduced. This enhancement addresses the challenges businesses face in maintaining high sales volumes in the face of smaller cart sizes and lower conversion rates. According to a study by UX Baymard, approximately 70% of brands experience cart abandonment, underscoring the need for a simplified payment process. Personalization and Flexibility with "Checkout Editor": Alongside the "One-page Checkout," Shopify has recently introduced "Checkout Editor," an innovative tool that allows merchants to customize their payment pages without requiring programming knowledge. With this feature, businesses can easily integrate loyalty programs, gift or reward options, and additional sales opportunities, tailoring the experience to their specific needs. This flexibility enables merchants to enhance their brand and optimize conversions by creating a cohesive and personalized process. For example, with the Launchpad app, you can have a draft checkout that automatically publishes for a hot sale with the necessary customizations. https://apps.shopify.com/launchpad Overcoming Challenges and Maximizing Sales Potential: Shopify's recent update comes at a crucial time when many businesses are struggling to maintain the high online sales observed during 2020 and 2021 due to the closure of physical stores. Reports indicate that 35% of Shopify Plus merchants experienced reductions in cart sizes in 2022, while half of the surveyed businesses reported a decrease in site traffic and lower conversion rates. In response, Shopify's advancements aim to help businesses overcome these challenges and tap into their sales potential. Key Factors Contributing to Shopify's Payment Process Excellence: Success can be attributed to several factors. Firstly, its vast identity network allows for seamless customer recognition, with over 100 million preselected shoppers enjoying the convenience of one-click payments using Shop Pay. Secondly, Shopify's platform scale enables reliable and smooth processing of high sales volumes, as demonstrated in its handling of peak events. Thirdly, consumer trust plays a crucial role as Shopify is highly recognized and trusted by millions of users annually. Lastly, Shopify's commitment to innovation ensures that businesses can stay at the forefront of payment technology, leveraging a wide range of customization options to meet their specific needs. These updates demonstrate Shopify's absolute commitment to enhancing the commerce experience for both businesses and customers. By streamlining processes and offering customization options, it empowers merchants to maximize conversions and tailor the flow according to their needs. With the highest conversion rates in the industry and an unwavering focus on trust, innovation, and scalability, Shopify positions itself as the undisputed standard for success in the world of eCommerce. Shop Pay: Shop Pay is an accelerated checkout process that allows customers to save their email address, credit card information, shipping details, and billing data. This can save time for your customers during the checkout process, especially if they have already used Shop Pay on any Shopify store. If your store offers a pick-up or local delivery option, customers can choose it during the Shop Pay checkout process. Customers need to input an email address during the checkout process to save their payment information. Customers who only enter a phone number in the contact field are not prompted to save their information. Customer shipping and billing information is securely stored on Shopify's PCI-compliant servers and only shared with the store if an order is placed. Why do customers love Shop Pay? For more information, visit www.shopify.com/shop-pay Convert Faster, Everywhere. Offer the fastest checkout process on the web, including on the Shop app, Facebook, Instagram, and Google, with no redirects and no overselling. With one-tap checkout, your buyers' information is automatically filled in. Drive Brand Loyalty. Offer buyers the best order tracking tool at their fingertips. Track all Shop Pay purchases through the Shop app, from payment to delivery. Additionally, buyers who use the Shop app have a 9% higher repurchase rate. Integrate from Any Platform or App. Seamlessly integrate your store with Shop Pay, no matter where you sell online. Checkout UI Extensions: Designed to add functionalities and customizations to the checkout page, extensions are here to meet specific business needs and provide a smoother payment experience. Originally, some of the functionalities that can be added are: Shipping Options: Allows displaying additional shipping options, such as express shipping, tracked shipping, pick-up, or a custom field like a calendar for customers to select the delivery date of their order. This gives customers more control over how and when they will receive their products. Product Customization: Enables customers to personalize products. For example, they can add engravings, choose colors, or select specific options before finalizing the purchase. Upselling and Add-on Sales: Offers additional product recommendations or upselling options. It can show related products, offer add-ons, or promote special deals to increase the purchase value. Loyalty Programs: Some checkout extensions allow merchants to implement loyalty programs directly at the checkout. This includes point accumulation, exclusive discounts for frequent customers, or special memberships. Marketing Integrations: Allows integrating marketing tools to capture customer data, offer newsletter subscriptions, or provide additional discount codes. Language and Currency Options: Provides language and currency options to cater to international customers. This enhances the shopping experience for customers from different regions and facilitates currency conversion. Now, 4 new UI Extension Points are being complemented: Discount Codes and Gift Cards: Brands will be able to allow shoppers to redeem their gift cards or discount codes directly in the checkout process and receive confirmation that they have been applied to the purchase. Session Token: Previously, UI Extensions could make network requests if they had the necessary permissions. However, there was no way to ensure the authenticity of those requests. With the introduction of the new Session Token API, Shopify provides a signed token that can be verified on an application server. A popular category of applications that will benefit from this API is loyalty apps. Reward and loyalty programs cannot allow any user to access the balance details of any buyer. Now, with the use of the signed token, these apps can verify the identity of the buyer. The same applies to any other app that needs or wants an additional level of security for their services. Fetching Data from the Storefront API: Use the Storefront API to power the logic of UI Extensions. This means you can fetch relevant results for product tags and collections, recommended products, or currency conversions. Shopify will handle access tokens, so all you need to do is provide the query. This direct API is available for all apps, including, for the first time, public apps that are not sales channels. Order Status Page: An area that was not customizable yet was the order status page. Now, extensions can be created to: Drive social group interaction, retargeting, or referral links. Better understand buyers with post-purchase surveys or reviews or order fulfillment. Deliver digital products with download extensions. These extensions follow the same flow as existing ones, they just offer additional APIs to access data after the payment process and can be displayed in a different place.
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