Shopify just wrapped up their Unite conference, which is their annual platform for big announcements on new features and updates.
As Shopify partners, we’re always keen to stay at the forefront of what Shopify is up to and how those changes will affect you as a merchant.
Here are the top takeaways and what each means for you.
New Marketing Section – All Your Campaigns in One Place
This new feature, which will be rolling out this summer, will bring all of your marketing campaigns (email, social media, referrals, paid ads) into one place in the Shopify admin.
From the beginning, this will also come with insight-driven reports, tracking and recommendations to guide you to the right audiences.
Why should I care?
Anything that makes it easier for you to create and track your campaigns is a positive, as that can often be an overwhelming process.
Also, if you are hiring out your marketing efforts, then this will let you bring it all under your roof, so you have an easier time checking in and understanding what’s working and what’s falling over.
Buy One, Get One (BOGO) and More Flexible Discount Types
Discounts has to be one of the most requested changes from Shopify merchants and marketers. Now you can finally create those ever-popular BOGO offers from the native Shopify admin.
Merchants can also now offer a percentage discount, dollar value discount, or even free shipping based on the minimum quantity of items a customer purchases, or on whether their cart is above a minimum dollar value.
Why should I care?
Are you paying for extra apps just to run more advanced discounts? Well feel free to uninstall that, save some money, and get creative with how you drop value-bombs on your customers.
Shopify POS gets some upgrades
While Shopify is first and foremost an ecommerce platform, they are continually improving their point of sale solution for brick and mortar retailers.
New Shopify tap & chip reader
This year, they announced adding tap and chip readers that will now support payments from mobile services like Apple Pay and Google Pay, as well as more secure transactions with credit cards. It will also have a customer-facing dock so that shoppers feel more in control of the checkout process.
Manage inventory across multiple locations
They also will be rolling out a new feature on their mobile app called “Locations” this summer, which will allow merchants to manage inventory across multiple channels and locations.
So whether you stock at multiple locations, dropship or even keep products in your garage, you’ll be able to easily track and update your inventory across all locations.
Shopify POS now accepts tipping + returns & exchanges
This summer, Returns and Exchanges for Shopify POS will let you take online returns in-person. They won’t have to hassle with return labels or pay expensive shipping fees to return an item they purchased off your website.
Why should I care?
If you’re using Shopify POS, then you’ll be excited to see that improvements like these are being released – it brings better multi-channel features to offer your customers, but it’s also encouraging to see that Shopify recognizes the needs of physical retailers like yourself.
Wrapping up
All in all, it was an encouraging conference for omni-channel retailers, with a lot of new online/offline features to be excited about.
Looking to improve the customer experience for your Shopify store, get in touch today and let’s talk about how we can help!
