Shopify’s Winter Editions 2025 is here, and it’s clear they’ve focused on improving what already works. This isn’t about shiny new features, it’s about making the platform smoother, smarter, and more powerful for merchants. As Shopify experts, we’re impressed with the updates, and here’s our breakdown of the most important changes, grouped by functionality.
Online Store Enhancements
- Smarter Search and Navigation
Shopify’s new combined listings feature lets you decide whether parent or child products show in search results. This gives you more control over how your inventory appears to customers.
What We Think: We like this level of customization, it’s ideal for stores with many variations.
- The metaobjects everywhere feature is another win. Now, you can add things like featured reviews or store locations across your theme easily. It’s flexible and a time-saver.
- Better Product Filtering
The category metafields update allows filtering by attributes like material or color. Shopify Search & Discovery also now lets you choose the order of filter values.
Why We Like It: It’s a small change, but it makes storefront navigation much more intuitive for shoppers. - Subscription Tools
Shopify added oversell protection for subscription renewals, ensuring out-of-stock products aren’t promised to customers. Plus, Buy X Get Y discounts now work with subscriptions.
Our Take: These updates make managing subscriptions easier and help build trust with customers.
Checkout and Payments
- Faster and More Flexible Checkout
Shopify’s checkout loads faster, with buttons like Shop Pay now up to 58.8% quicker. Draft orders now work with bundles and functions, making it easier to handle custom or complex transactions.
Why It Matters: Speed matters in eCommerce. Faster checkouts reduce cart abandonment. - More Control Over Gift Cards and Shipping
Shopify now lets you conditionally restrict gift card payments and offer split shipping to third-party fulfillment providers. Extended cart expiration times give customers more flexibility when checking out.
Our Opinion: These updates reduce friction and make the shopping experience better for everyone.
Marketing and Customer Engagement
- Customer Account Extensions
Merchants can now personalize customer accounts by adding features like order management and returns. Branded login pages also let you keep your branding consistent.
What We Think: This is a fantastic way to improve customer loyalty and make accounts more user-friendly.
- Email Marketing Gets Smarter
Shopify Email now includes ROI tracking, holiday templates, and image editing tools. You can even send product-specific emails directly from the product details page.
Why It’s Great: It makes running campaigns quicker and more effective, especially for time-sensitive promotions.
- AI-Generated Replies
Shopify Inbox now suggests replies to common customer questions using AI.
Our Take: It’s a nice addition that could save time, especially for smaller teams.
Retail Features
- Point of Sale (POS) Improvements
Shopify POS now supports bundles and has a split-screen feature to display carts alongside search results. Offline payments are also available, so you can accept card payments even without a network connection.
Why We Like It: These changes make in-store selling faster and more efficient.
- Better Customer Data in POS
Staff can now view and edit customer metafields directly in POS, enabling better personalization during in-store interactions.
Our Opinion: It’s a small detail, but one that can elevate the customer experience.
Shipping and Fulfillment
- Unified Fulfillment Logic
Shopify has streamlined order routing to reduce errors and prevent overselling. They’ve also added bulk label creation tools and expanded integrations with European carriers like DHL Paket and Yodel.
Why It Matters: It’s all about making shipping operations smoother and less stressful for merchants.
- Store Pickup and Delivery
The Ship to Store feature is now available for all plans, letting customers pick up their orders in person.
Our Take: It’s a must-have for businesses blending online and offline sales.
Wholesale and B2B Tools
- B2B Customer Accounts
Shopify now allows for self-serve returns and customizable accounts for B2B customers. Plus, you can lock draft order prices, even if your catalog prices change.
Why It’s Great: These tools simplify wholesale operations and improve the buying experience for B2B clients.
- Better Analytics for Wholesale
Shopify has introduced tailored reporting for B2B orders, allowing you to separate wholesale data from DTC performance.
What We Think: It’s a helpful feature for merchants juggling multiple sales channels.
Operational Improvements
- Organizations for All Plans
Merchants can now group multiple stores into one organization, consolidating staff permissions and billing.
Why We Like It: This makes managing multiple stores way less of a headache.
- Sidekick Rolls Out
Shopify’s AI assistant, Sidekick, is rolling out globally. It helps merchants optimize workflows and resolve issues quickly.
Our Take: We think this is a big step forward for productivity.
Why These Updates Matter
For us they are crucial. We already have several clients where we can not remove customizations and start using the new features. For store owners it is critical to keep up to date with these updates. From faster checkouts to smarter shipping tools, these changes are designed to you save time, boost sales, and keep customers happy.
If you’re not sure how to make the most of these updates, we’re here to help. From implementing new features to optimizing your store for growth, our team can guide you every step of the way.
Let’s make your Shopify store the best it can be. Contact us today!