Shopify Winter Editions 2024: our top picks

Shopify’s latest seasonal updates have dropped. Worth the wait? We certainly think so. Here’s our round-up of the best feature updates from Shopify’s Winter Editions 2024. Let’s go.

Shopify’s new AI-powered Product Attributes feature will rescue us all from hours of admin. By mapping predefined variants to specific categories, managing and creating products in even the most complex catalogues just became super simple.

For example, name a new product "Wool sweater" and Shopify will automatically suggest the category of "Clothing" > “Shirts & Tops”. And once you’ve got the category down, all you need to do is fill in the recommended attributes. You can even upload photos of the same product in two different colours. Shopify will identify both and list them separately under the "Colour" attribute. Because it’s smart like that.

Shopify is also introducing a new Shopify Combined Listings App. You’ll only be able to use it if you’re on Shopify Plus – but, it makes the shopping experience even more seamless. Instead of hopping between separate PDPs to browse different colours, materials and dimensions of the same product, your users can see it all in one place.

But that’s not all. You can now give each variant its own unique URL, title, description and media gallery. A big tick in the SEO strategy box.

We love Shopify’s mighty, 3-in-1 Search and Discovery App. Not only does it give you built-in product search functionality, it enables you to filter and sort collections of any size. Plus – you get a powerful recommendation engine, too.

But Shopify is now making its search feature even more versatile. By combining the classic keyword matching with semantic search, your customers can now search for products using natural language, like: "Red dress for a wedding" or "Something warm to wear in the winter". Told you it was clever.

Shopify is always finding new ways to customise the checkout experience. This latest update has meant us developers can now tinker with the Thank you and Order status pages. But the Checkout Extensibility feature is continuously gaining new APIs, updated cart validation functions and more customisable UI elements, which means even more personalised checkout experiences aren’t far off.

For us, performance is always a biggie. We’re continuously testing and analysing everything from site speed to user journeys, so we were stoked to see that Shopify is making it even easier to keep an eye on performance.

With the new Performance Dashboard, you can now monitor the performance of your storefront with real users' data and get insights on how to improve things. A great tool to make sure that your customers are always getting the best experience possible.

Picture this: you hired a professional photographer, rented a location and shot all your products from every angle. Weeks later, you realise you need to tweak an image or remove the background.

Well, the days of digging out the photographer’s details or finding a new date for a reshoot are over. With Shopify’s new AI Image Editing, you’ll be able to make minor image edits on the fly. We can’t say for sure how great the results will be, but we’re keen to see how well it tackles simple tweaks.