Shopify Spring Editions '26: New features you need to know about

Agentic commerce updates

This is the headline of Spring '26 Editions. Shopify is going all-in on AI as a sales channel, and this update makes that very clear. Forget just optimising your storefront for Google. Your products can now be discovered and bought directly inside AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot, with Meta ads integration on the way.

Where organic product discovery goes over the next few years is still an open question, but more and more people are starting their searches in AI platforms in 2026. They're also searching like the humans they are, instead of short-form keywords. Getting your product data structured and syndicated now puts you ahead of most.

Your products in AI channels

Your products can now be discovered and purchased directly inside AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot, with Meta ads coming soon. Shopify handles the data syndication automatically, and product data structured through their Catalog tool reportedly converts twice as well in AI chat environments compared to unstructured data.

A new plan for non-Shopify businesses

There's a new Agentic plan for eCommerce businesses not on Shopify yet, who just want to get their products in front of AI shoppers, without migrating their whole stack. If you're thinking about where organic and paid discovery is heading over the next few years, this is worth paying attention to now.

What's new to Sidekick

The biggest change to Sidekick is third-party app support. Rather than only knowing about Shopify's native features, it can now answer your questions and take action inside the tools your store already runs on.

Works with your existing apps

Sidekick now integrates with third-party apps including Klaviyo and Smile. That means it can answer questions and take actions across the tools most stores already rely on, rather than just within Shopify itself.

Runs in the background

Sidekick keeps working even when you switch tasks, start a new chat, or close the window. You can also access it from Apple Watch, and use it on any screen in the Shopify mobile app.

Smarter admin tasks

Sidekick can now generate purchase orders, create customers from a plain language description, and run test events for Shopify Flow automations to check your logic works before it goes live.

Online store tools by Shopify

Updates to online stores

There's a lot packed into the online store updates this Edition. Some of it is genuinely new capability, some of it is Shopify finally giving merchants control they probably expected to have years ago. If you manage a Shopify store day-to-day, several of these will make a real difference.

A/B testing for themes and checkout

Shopify Rollouts is a new feature that lets you schedule or A/B test theme changes, checkout configurations, and customer account setups. Testing checkout changes has historically required third-party tools or developer workarounds, so having this natively in the platform is a solid step forward.

Storefront search that handles typos

Search now returns relevant results even when shoppers type badly. Typos and unusual phrasing no longer result in zero results. This one sounds minor but it directly affects conversion, particularly on mobile.

Variant-level publishing

You can now control which variants are published per sales channel and per market, without workarounds or app hacks. If you've ever had to hide a variant because the controls weren't granular enough, this solves that.

B2B on more plans

B2B features including company profiles, volume pricing, and multiple catalogs are now available across more Shopify plans at no extra cost. Previously this was locked behind Shopify Plus.

Refreshed customer accounts

Account pages have a design update with cleaner navigation, branded sign-in, and product recommendations for first-time shoppers. Sessions now last 365 days, so returning customers stay logged in without friction.

Shopify marketing updates

Marketing (now called Growth in the menu) is an area in the Shopify admin where merchants have historically needed to stitch together a lot of separate tools to get a complete picture. Your campaign data lives in one place, your messaging in another, your ad spend somewhere else entirely.

Campaign Autopilot

A new AI-powered tool that lets you run campaigns across multiple channels from a single setup. It learns and optimises over time, and you set guardrails to keep things within budget and brand.

Shop Campaigns on more channels

Shop Campaigns now runs across ChatGPT, Microsoft Monetize, and Pinterest alongside existing channels, all from one campaign with custom bidding for different customer segments like new or lapsed buyers.

WhatsApp marketing

You can now create and manage WhatsApp marketing campaigns directly inside Shopify Messaging, including consent management within each customer profile.

Smarter email delivery

Shopify Messaging now intelligently decides which emails to send and which to hold back, prioritising for conversion rather than just hitting send on everything.

New features for operations

Operations updates tend to be the unglamorous side of a Shopify release, but they're often the ones that save the most time. This edition has some genuinely useful improvements to analytics, fulfilment, and inventory that are worth looking at closely if your back-end processes have been a pain point.

Analytics overhaul

Shopify Analytics has had a significant upgrade across the board. Daily automated insights now surface important trends without you having to dig. New visualisation types include scatter plots and sunburst charts. Annotations explain why metrics changed at a specific point in time, and you can now set targets for key metrics.

Batch fulfilment

Orders can be grouped into batches and processed through a workflow. A meaningful improvement for higher-volume stores currently managing fulfilment through manual processes or third-party tools.

Smarter inventory tools

Sidekick can now generate purchase orders, which automatically create transfers. Barcodes at shipment level speeds up stock intake, and back-in-stock updates reach your online store faster during high-traffic periods.

Shopify POS updates

Retail merchants have a lot to get excited about in this update. The POS improvements are focused squarely on speed and reducing the small friction points that slow down busy shop floors.

Fastest POS yet

The rebuilt POS checkout saves over a minute per transaction when creating customers, adding products, and processing payments. The cart stays on screen throughout, which helps boost conversion rates.

New POS hardware

The Verifone Victa Mobile is a new handheld that scans barcodes, takes payments, and runs Shopify POS. It doubles as a terminal when docked. Available for pre-order in the US and Canada.

QR code discounts in store

Generate QR codes and share them with your customers, whether that's printed signage, a loyalty card, or a message sent ahead of their visit, and then scan them at the till to apply the discount instantly. No codes for staff to remember, no risk of customers typing something in wrong, and no awkward moments at the counter while someone tries to find a promo email on their phone.

Better cash management

New cash management tools inside the admin include the ability to set cash rules and reason codes, require mid-session counts, and reconcile with full audit trails across registers.

Shopify Payments updates

Checkout is where everything either comes together or falls apart. These updates are focused on reducing friction at the point of purchase, whether that's giving customers more flexibility in how they pay and receive their order, or giving merchants better protection against fraud.

Shop Pay on any platform

A good example of who this is for: imagine you're running your website on WooCommerce and currently have no intention of migrating to Shopify. Your site, product pages, and checkout flow all stay exactly as they are. All you do is add Shop Pay as a payment method, the same way you might add Stripe or PayPal.

Naturally, a full migration to Shopify holds many benefits, but this is an ideal stepping stone to a full migration, in the same way as holding your products in Shopify Lite and embedding them on your external website.

Ship and pick up in one checkout

If you have both an online store and a physical location, this one is worth paying attention to. Previously, if a customer wanted some items shipped and others collected in store, they'd need to place two separate orders.

Now, a customer can add multiple items to their basket, choose shipping for some and in-store pickup for others, and pay for the entire order. A couple of scenarios where this is particularly useful: collecting lighter items in-store while getting heavier ones shipped, or buying for both themselves and a friend, where they pick up their own items in-store and have a long-distance friend or family member's order shipped directly to them.

Redesigned checkout

The checkout has been tightened up to reduce scrolling on mobile, make delivery options easier to scan, and give the pay button more visual prominence. Less scrolling means fewer moments where a customer loses their place or gets distracted, clearer delivery options means fewer people abandoning because they couldn't find what they were looking for, and a more prominent pay button means the next step is always obvious.

VAT ID validation

For EU and UK merchants selling to business customers, collecting and validating a VAT number at checkout has historically been a manual or third-party process. Shopify Tax now handles this natively, validating buyer VAT IDs at the point of purchase so the right tax treatment is applied automatically.

Better fraud prevention

Card testing attacks, where fraudsters run small transactions to check whether stolen card details are active, are a persistent problem for online stores. Shopify Payments has updated its machine learning models to catch these earlier by scoring transactions for both decline risk and fraud risk simultaneously.

Conclusion

If you're already on Shopify some of these updates will roll out automatically, but others will need configuration to get the most out of them. Whether it's setting up Rollouts for A/B testing, getting your product data structured for AI channels, or exploring what Campaign Autopilot can do for your marketing, there's a lot here worth acting on.

If you're not yet on Shopify and some of these updates have caught your attention, now is a good time to explore what a migration could look like for your business. If you're on the platform already, and would like to explore our Shopify support packages, our retainer plans start from just 4 hours per month.

Get in touch with us and let's talk through what updates are relevant for your business.