Welcome to this month’s edition of What’s New. We’ve been busy preparing for the busiest time of the year with new updates to help simplify the process. From platform updates to merchant improvements to holiday preparation, we’ve got you covered with everything you need to know to help guide your clients towards success.
So take a moment, kick up your feet, and get comfortable—we’re about to get started.
In this article
Platform updates
Merchant improvements
- Accelerated checkout with Venmo
- Automatic discounts: Buy X get Y
- Return labels
- Product cost
- New languages for wholesale channel
International updates
Holiday preparations
Platform updates
We’re always working to improve the Shopify platform to benefit our merchants, partners, and third-party developers. Here are our latest platform updates.
Shopify Mobile 8.0
The latest version of the Shopify mobile app includes new features and capabilities that your clients can take advantage of to better serve their customers.
1. Shopify Mobile is now available in 7 languages
Shopify Mobile can now be used in each of our supported languages:
- English
- Japanese
- 🆕French
- 🆕Spanish
- 🆕Brazilian Portuguese
- 🆕German
- 🆕Italian
The default language will pull from your client’s device settings. This means clients will automatically begin seeing the app in their preferred language. If clients wish to change this, they can edit the rank of their preferred languages in their device settings. On iOS, there's also a toggle in the device settings for the app to revert back to English.
2. Shipping on Draft Orders
When draft orders were introduced to Shopify Mobile, it was not possible to add shipping rates. With this release, we've introduced the ability to add existing or custom shipping rates—giving merchants full order creation capabilities on mobile.
3. Marketing section
Shopify Mobile now includes a new tab that is home to Shopify's marketing section. This section can be used to create and monitor marketing campaigns with Facebook and Google.
The Marketing tab includes all of the features available in the marketing section of the Shopify Admin.
4. Siri shortcuts (iOS only)
New Siri shortcuts adapt to routines across your apps. Then Siri may suggest an easy way to perform common tasks on the Lock screen or in Search. For example, if you order coffee every day with the same app, Siri might suggest your favorite beverage.
The latest app version includes new Siri shortcuts on iOS that allow merchants to check in on their business hands-free. Merchants can now ask Siri:
- Total Sales (today, yesterday, this week, this month)
- Orders to fulfill (merchants can specify between one location or all locations if their store is multi-location)
For instance, a merchant could ask: "Hey Siri, what are my total sales this month?"
This new feature will help merchants create their own shortcuts to access information within their store’s admin.
3D Secure for credit cards
Shopify Payments merchants outside of the United States (and not on Plus) will now have 3D Secure to verify credit card purchases. This buyer-facing protocol is a 2-step authentication that confirms the cardholder's identity and protects both the buyer and the merchant from fraud.
Having 3D Secure can help keep merchants be compliant with upcoming regional regulations. Orders that are verified with 3D Secure benefit from a liability shift. So if there is fraudulent activity, the onus is on the credit card issuer, not the merchant.
You might also like: Developer Digest: November 1, 2018.
Merchant improvements
Understanding improvements to the merchant experience will help unlock your full partner potential. Take a look at our new updates for merchants this month.
Accelerated checkout with Venmo
We have added Venmo as a checkout option for Shopify Merchants using PayPal Checkout.
Venmo, owned by PayPal, is a mobile digital wallet that offers its users a social way to make a purchase, split payments, or pay friends on Venmo—bypassing the need for cash. Venmo users can choose to share what they’re buying with their network, which can then view, comment on, and like the purchases in their feed. Venmo has quickly gained traction as one of the most popular peer-to-peer (P2P) payment methods, especially with millennials, and it’s also being used by over two million US retailers as a direct payment option.
When clients accept Venmo directly into their online store, users can complete their purchase in just a few clicks. Giving customers a familiar way to pay can lessen abandoned carts and increase sales for your client’s business.
If your clients are based in the US, and already support PayPal Checkout, Venmo will automatically appear as a payment option for buyers who have chosen to use Venmo as a payment option.
For more information on our integration with Venmo, visit our Help Center.
Automatic discounts: Buy X get Y
Merchants can now offer customers discounts that apply automatically at checkout. At this time, automatic discounts only apply to buy X get Y promotions.
What is a buy X get Y promotion? They’re a popular way for your clients to incentivize new customers to buy products and reward loyal customers. They can use them to increase sales and profits and to sell slow-moving inventory.
For example, suppose that your client’s promotion offers customers a free hat when they purchase any t-shirt. With buy X get Y promotions, they can offer customers one free hat for the whole order, or they can offer them one free hat for each t-shirt included in their order.
For an automatic discount to apply correctly, your clients’ customers need to add all eligible items to their carts before they move to checkout. This includes the items that they need to buy to qualify for the discount, as well as the items that they will get as part of the promotion.
For more information, visit Automatic discounts in the Shopify Help Centre.
Return labels
US merchants can now create USPS return labels for domestic orders and send them to their customers from within any order page on Shopify. Merchants receive the discounted rates available through Shopify Shipping for return labels.
Merchants who have connected their UPS accounts to Shopify can also create UPS return labels using their own negotiated rates.
Once created, merchants can email a label directly to customers. The template of the email is fully customizable, so merchants can make it their own. They also won’t be charged for a label until it’s actually used. Once the package is delivered, the final cost of the shipment will be added to the merchant’s monthly bill.
To learn more about return labels, visit the Shopify Help Center.
You might also like: What’s New at Shopify: October 12, 2018.
Product cost
Merchants can now add the Cost per item to products in their Shopify Admin. If your clients are on the Shopify Plan or higher, they can use three new profit margin reports and five new profit finance summaries to better understand their profit.
Developers can leverage the InventoryItem API to manage product cost data in third-party apps.
Learn more about adding a Cost per item, understanding the new Profit Reports, and supporting product cost using Shopify's InventoryItem API.
New languages for the wholesale channel
As Shopify rolls out multiple currencies for shops, merchants want the ability to sell in multiple languages on the wholesale storefront.
The wholesale channel admin and storefront is now available in French, German, Japanese, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, and English. With the click of a button, your clients can translate their wholesale storefront to one of seven languages to better serve their customers.
International updates
As Shopify continues to expand internationally, we want you to keep you in the know of changes and opportunities across the globe. Check out our latest update in Spain.
Shopify Payments Spain
Shopify Payments is now available for merchants in Spain. This means that if your clients operate their business within Spain, they no longer need to integrate a third-party app to make a purchase. This new feature comes with best-in-class credit card payments processing, competitive rates, and the convenience of managing payments through the Shopify Admin.
What you need to know:
- Rates can be found at shopify.es/pricing
- Default payout time is 3 days
- VAT rate of 23 percent will be applied to fees
- No local payment methods for this launch, credit card only
Holiday preparation
We want to make sure you have the all the resources and tools you need at your fingertips this holiday season. Take a look at our newest resource page.
BFCM Toolbox
With Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) right around the corner, this can be a very exciting yet stressful time for your clients. This is why we created the BFCM Toolbox—a page dedicated to helping merchants navigate to success on the biggest selling event of the year. The BFCM Toolbox provides a step-by-step guide for creating discounts, campaign marketing, and making the most out of app integrations.
Peruse the BFCM Toolbox and start preparing for your clients’ success.
That’s a wrap!
If you’ve made it this far, we commend you. We’ve seen a lot of changes this month and understandably, there’s a lot to take in. New features and updates open up many exciting opportunities for merchants—and in effect, for partners, too.
We hope you enjoyed this month’s edition, we’ll see you next time.
What changes are you most excited about? Tell us in the comments below.
