Table of contents

01 100+ new features

02 Brand new B2B website framework

03 NFT commercialization

04 Convenient offline payment function

05 Develop custom functions

06 Shopify's business philosophy

foreword

Shopify was previously known because it provided a way for DTC sellers to quickly build a website. In the past two years, many sellers chose Shopify, many of which were due to the constraints and limitations of the Amazon platform, which prevented sellers from "directing to customers".

Entering 2022, after two years of online shopping boom due to the epidemic, the online shopping model has undergone tremendous changes.

1. 100+ new features

So, in response to this shift, Shopify has introduced more than 100 new features that provide convenient tools for sellers aspiring to develop social commerce, use Google for nearby shopping, use cryptocurrencies, B2B sales models, and more.

Customers can be everywhere these days, and every market segment is attractive to sellers, but they struggle to find a way to get in. Shopify's solution is to provide a full-fledged buffet to solve this problem, with corresponding solutions for each potential market segment. As CEO and founder Tobi Lütke puts it: "Business is a game with infinite options."

Tobi Luetke

Shopify Editions are an important part of Shopify's mid-2022 product launch. To be clear, prior to this, Shopify has struggled to build social commerce products, such as partnering with Google, cryptocurrencies, and more. In addition, many of these 100+ features have never been announced to the public before. The reason why Shopify has released so many functions in a centralized manner is to send a signal to the outside world: the Shopify platform is constantly expanding. The centralized release also makes this news more weighty!

The following introduces the heavyweight new functions of Shopify in detail (in addition to Google and Twitter, please refer to my previous articles for Google and Twitter functions: Shopify+Google new functions! Confirm the trend of localized operation of cross-border e-commerce?; Shopify+Twitter is strong Join forces, are you ready?)

2. Brand new B2B website framework

Shopify's main users have always been sellers in the DTC space. Now, Shopify has officially extended an olive branch to B2B sellers. B2B on Shopify, sellers can not only engage in wholesale business companies on it, but also sell products directly to consumers, which can increase sellers' sales.

Business customers typically buy differently than consumers, often require different types of payment methods, and also have different types of tax needs (for example, in the UK, business buyers pay different sales tax than consumers pay) . The new B2B framework meets the needs of B2B sellers, and even enables automatic differentiation of some functions, helping sellers solve their problems.

3. NFT commercialization

In recent months, the activity and valuation of NFTs (referring to non-fungible tokens, which are used to represent digital assets cryptocurrency tokens) have dropped sharply. The biggest problem at present is: this is because people realize that NFTs are A hype and bubble, or a temporary phenomenon caused by the sharp decline in the overall cryptocurrency market. If it is the latter, the key is whether NFTs can escape the impact of the overall decline in cryptocurrencies. Regardless, Shopify provides a platform channel for all customers who might decide to venture into the NFT market.

Shopify did not choose to cooperate with OpenSea, the head platform of NFT, but chose to provide support for NFT transactions. Shopify said that Shopify's tokenized commerce will use NFTs, but it's unclear whether Shopify will manage and create an NFT trading platform. Shopify officials pointed out that this feature is currently only open to true fans and VIPs of the website, who can spend by linking the NFT encrypted wallet to the Shopify online store. Shopify officials said that merchants will be able to activate the functionality of Shopify Token commerce in online, mobile and brick-and-mortar shopping. This feature will be available for online stores, retailers or brands.

4. Convenient offline payment function

Shopify began to enter the physical business market, because for Shopify, compared to only serving online merchants, cross-border means entering a larger potential market, and many sellers do both online and offline. To get into offline business, Shopify introduced the ability to make payments on the iPhone through Shopify-powered transactions.

The feature rolled out way back in May, though Shopify didn't make much of the hype. The basic idea behind Shopify is that while many brick-and-mortar stores now rely on POS machines, Shopify is leveraging Apple's payments capabilities to make it easy for merchants to use iPhones for face-to-face payments without the need for additional USB shields or other devices. If electronic payments like Square opened the door to Internet payments for the first time for small sellers who rely on credit cards, Apple Pay will be a more convenient way.

5. Develop custom functions

Shopify has been working on a ton of new features to meet the growing demand for independent sites from sellers—sellers looking to customize more features in the Shopify platform for their operation and appearance. Developing custom features is Shopify's answer to this: Slightly larger sellers can build more personalization features, such as offering discounts for people who add more than a certain purchase to their cart.

The development of custom functions complements the functions of Hydrogen and Oxygen (the framework for Shopify website building) to a certain extent, and allows sellers to develop more technical functions to fill their own independent websites. The development of customized functions provides sellers with more choices to meet the more and higher functional needs of sellers as they grow and develop.

6. Shopify's corporate philosophy

In the long run, although Shopify is a pioneer, has foresight in the field of independent website building, and is the leader in the independent website market, Shopify still does not slack off, still insists on exploring the future business development direction, and launched more new functions with the product. Shopify's purpose is to make it as easy as possible for those who are essentially sellers rather than those who are proficient in website technology to build a website independently, in order to win the trust and support of sellers.

Glen Coates

"We're going wherever the business world goes," said Glen Coates, Shopify's vice president of product. "We want Shopify to be the easiest and most accessible website building tool."