Shopify has recently added new unified commerce themed features that are sure to please online merchants, especially B2B businesses. Shopify’s new Summer 2024 edition introduces a series of features designed to improve operational efficiency, deliver an exceptional customer experience and increase reach for B2B and B2C merchants. Here’s a look at some of the new features that caught the eye of our experts.
New Shopify features for B2B companies
1. Manual payment methods for B2B
B2B merchants can now offer their customers manual payment methods at the checkout stage, such as bank transfers, cheques and international transfers. This feature makes it easier to adapt to the payment preferences of B2B customers.
2. Support for B2B Headless storefronts and the Hydrogen model
Shopify now makes it possible to create unique experiences using your preferred technology ecosystem, with B2B checkouts, personalized products and pricing via Shopify’s APIs and development tools. This feature makes it easy to personalize shopping experiences for your B2B customers.
“We just announced you’ll soon be able to visually build headless storefronts with Hydrogen and Utopia. This is going to make headless commerce development faster and more collaborative between devs and merchants. Anyone on the team can collaborate in real-time with a shared view of an actual running store.” – Harley Finkelstein, Shopify President
To find out whether your company can benefit from a Headless approach, read this article.
3. Trade Theme
Shopify Plus merchants can easily set up a B2B store with a theme designed for bulk and repeat purchases. This theme is preconfigured with advanced features for Shopify Plus merchants.
New Shopify features to enhance the unified commerce experience
“Unified commerce means offering maximum convenience for customers. With this in mind, Shopify is launching its unified shopping cart: Split Shipping in checkout.
Having control over the delivery of each item in an order means meeting the potential constraints of a shopping journey. For example, the need for urgent delivery of an item such as a gift that sits alongside an item with a longer delivery time, such as a sofa, in the same basket. Instead of waiting for all items to be available before shipping the entire order, Split Shipping will separate the order into two logistical processing flows, and associate the delivery method chosen by the customer for each of them. With the unified shopping basket, it is no longer necessary to place separate orders for different delivery methods or delivery times.
As a result, the customer can have the gift express-delivered and the sofa delivered at a later date in the same order. It’s like the Amazon experience, with a single shopping cart and payment, despite multiple salespeople making different deliveries of the same order from different storage locations.
Bonus: with ®Promise notification, customers can be reassured that the delivery times communicated are guaranteed. Offering the right services to reduce friction is guaranteed to increase conversion rates and customer loyalty!” – Thavy Khamtan, Senior Director, Unified Commerce Leader – Consulting Services at KPMG
4. Shopify Marketplace Connect
Shopify Marketplace Connect lets you manage product listings on the major online marketplaces (Amazon, Walmart, eBay, etc.) from a single location. Marketplace Connect now recommends product category and type to facilitate product listing on Amazon. It is now possible to integrate Target’s marketplace. A unified commerce approach ideal for companies selling products both on marketplaces and on their eCommerce site.
5. Shopify Flow
Shopify Flow allows you to automate processes such as sending welcome emails or deleting sold-out items. This feature is particularly useful for companies managing a wide variety of products or a large number of customers.
6. Advanced customization
- Exchange with API: Shopify will soon offer the ability to manage the entire exchange lifecycle through return API updates. The exchange API will also enable exchange items to be added to a return, as well as discounts to be applied to these items. It will also be possible to apply return shipping and restocking fees. These APIs will simplify the exchange process for partners, and improve sales and tax reporting for merchants by eliminating the problem of custom solutions.
- Discount Functions on POS: It is now possible for developers to customize Shopify’s back-end to create more flexible and advanced omnichannel discount options through the use of APIs.
- Brand API updates: The checkout extension now allows advanced styling using the Brand API, with 2 additional color schemes, new positions and new content separators for header and footer.
- Storefront shopping cart API – Pre-fill checkout information: The shopping cart API now enables pre-fill functions using information pre-collected by the buyer, such as delivery address, preferred delivery method and pick-up location.
- Customer Account API metafields: It will soon be possible to store and access customer information using the Customer Account API, and create experiences for merchants that allow connected customers to update their information.
7. Shop Pay Commerce Component
Shopify merchants can offer interest-free installment payment options on orders placed by merchants. This feature increases the flexibility of payment options for customers and can increase conversion rates.
They have also launched the Buy Online, Collect In Store (BOPIS) functionality. This innovative feature will bridge the gap between your online and offline purchases, offering unrivaled convenience and a unified commerce approach.
8. Duty-inclusive pricing
For merchants using Managed Markets, this feature integrates customs duties and import taxes into the product price, eliminating delivery surprises. This feature improves price transparency for B2B and B2C customers.
It is also possible to access more shipping options with advantageous rates and duties collected in advance, and more transporters choices. This feature is available in the U.S. only as of June 2024.
Do you want to sell internationally? Discover the 8 points to watch out for before exporting to new eCommerce markets.
New Shopify features to boost your marketing performance
9. Marketing growth
Shopify now enables Shopify Plus merchants, and in early access for other plans in the U.S. and Canada, to boost their marketing growth by promoting Shop campaigns on external channels like Meta and Google, without ever exceeding their maximum acquisition cost (MAC). Also, with Shopify Audiences, merchants can get up to twice as many orders for every penny spent on retargeting on the major advertising platforms.
10. Shopify Magic
Shopify Magic is a set of AI-powered features to simplify content marketing, among other things. It allows you to create email campaigns, manage customer interactions through live exchanges, and generate product descriptions quickly and efficiently, easing the workload of B2B and B2C merchants.
The new Shopify features presented in the Summer 2024 edition bring significant improvements for B2B merchants wishing to make the shift to unified commerce. These advanced tools, combined with Shopify’s automation capabilities, enable merchants to deliver better customer experiences and stay competitive in the marketplace. By adopting these new features, B2B and B2C companies can not only improve their operational efficiency, but also respond more agilely to the evolving needs of their customers.
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Source :
(1) Source: LinkedIn, Harley Finkelstein
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