FirstTracks Marketing Deep Dive: Insights from Shopify Editions 2025

Heading north for some exciting insights on Shopify

The FirstTracks Marketing team recently attended the Shopify Editions Summer 2025 Conference in Toronto, Canada, eager to explore the latest developments and advancements in the Shopify ecosystem. Our team came away with a wealth of knowledge and excitement about the future of Shopify. Here’s a comprehensive summary of our experience and key takeaways from the Shopify Editions conference:

Overall Impressions

The conference provided a deep dive into Shopify’s capabilities, showcasing both its strengths and areas for potential growth. Our development team noted that while Shopify offers excellent performance and streamlined functionality, more complex features often require building dedicated Shopify Apps. However, the platform’s commitment to innovation, especially in AI, was evident throughout the event.

The Shopify Editions conference provided critical updates on the evolving landscape of e-commerce, underlining how businesses can leverage Shopify Editions to stay competitive.

Keynote Highlights: AI and Innovation Take Center Stage

The main stage keynote, featuring Vanessa Lee and Kevin Clark, unveiled several major updates. A standout announcement was Sidekick, Shopify’s new AI architecture. Sidekick boasts features like image generation, file understanding, and personalized recommendations, promising to revolutionize how merchants manage their stores. Other key announcements included:

• MCP: A shopping agent capable of building carts and checking out customers.
• Shopify Catalog and Storefront Web Component: Enhancements to Shopify’s core offerings.
• Markets: Tools for creating store instances to target specific countries, audiences, and product types.
• Horizons Theme: A brand-new theme foundation with starter presets and extensive customization options, featuring new presentation options, a mega menu, and the ability to apply discounts directly from the cart. It also included the “Generate block” feature.
• Shopify POS Enhancements: Significant updates to Shopify POS, including new APIs, Targets, Components, loyalty integration, and in store shipping.

Developer Insights from Shopify Editions

Our developers were particularly interested in the technical sessions. They noted the new Next-Gen Dev Platform, Shopify Catalog API, and Storefront Web Component. These enhancements are part of the broader strategy seen at Shopify Editions, which aims to empower merchants in a fast-changing digital marketplace. Shopify Editions also emphasized the necessity of keeping up with these POS enhancements to maximize store efficiency.

Here are 7 more key items of note from the event:

1. Admin Intents: A new way to trigger admin actions using code.
2. Shopify Store Copying: The ability to export and import store data using the Shopify CLI, managed by AI.
3. GraphQL Migration: A focus on migrating to GraphQL.
4. Complex Functions: Discussions around using Rust for functions, size and instruction count limits, discount functions, WebAssembly API, GraphQL reference docs, and a “.dev assistant.”
5. Shopify Flow: Using Flow to create triggers and actions, track loyalty points, and verify subscribers.
6. Horizon, Under the Hood: A session on creating theme blocks, conditional settings, and using LiquidDoc. The “Skeleton Theme” was discussed which allows developers to add necessary blocks and create private theme blocks. Conditional settings and recommended blocks were also mentioned.
7. Declarative Custom Data + New App Dev: A masterclass on collaborative development, app testing, and data storage.

Focus Areas and Potential Applications

The insights gained during the technical sessions at Shopify Editions are invaluable for developers looking to optimize their applications. Our team also noted six potential areas of focus and application for our clients:

1. Catalog Only: Exploring solutions focused solely on catalog functionalities.
2. Get a Quote: Investigating “get a quote” features.
3. Product Builder: Looking into product builder capabilities.
4. Customization: Deep dives into customization options.
5. Subscriptions/Membership Content Access: Addressing subscription and membership content access.
6. Migrating Subscriptions: Strategies for migrating subscriptions from other platforms.

Co-Selling and Partner Opportunities

Sessions on co-selling with Shopify highlighted the significant benefits of partner involvement, noting that deals close 23% better and are 2X larger when a partner is part of the process. Shopify emphasized their interest in well-defined solutions and partners with strong sales capabilities. We explored potential accelerators with existing integrations we have already built with GiveX, Acctivate, and Klaviyo.

Business Growth and Strategies

The Biz Mode Keynote revealed impressive growth statistics for Shopify and a strong emphasis on AI integration and partner empowerment. Shopify is investing heavily in partner support, offering more opportunities for selling, services, and demand generation. We also brainstormed strategies for growing our Shopify practice, including client migrations, POS integration, and specializing in specific industries.

Built for Shopify Program

Updates to the Built for Shopify program were discussed, including reduced design requirements and a search boost for BFS-certified apps in the Shopify App Store. It’s seen as a “seal of quality” by Shopify. Focus areas highlighted at Shopify Editions suggest significant growth opportunities for businesses embracing these new tools.

AI and Future Directions

A roundtable on LLMs for building storefronts provided insights into Shopify’s future plans. While current AI models do not gather information from custom themes and Sidekick lacks integration with apps (planned for the future), the focus on AI remains strong. There is an ongoing discussion about balancing AI-generated and human-written code.

Conclusion

The Shopify Editions 2025 Conference provided our team with invaluable insights into the platform’s latest advancements and future direction. We’re excited to leverage these learnings to better serve our clients and expand our Shopify expertise, particularly in AI-driven solutions and new development tools.

Co-selling strategies discussed during the Shopify Editions Conference further illustrate the importance of collaboration in achieving business growth. The growth strategies emphasized at Shopify Editions encourage a proactive approach to in-store and online selling. Updates to the Built for Shopify program discussed at Shopify Editions will enhance the visibility of quality apps, benefiting developers and merchants alike. The insights on AI’s role in storefront building revealed at Shopify Editions will play a crucial role in shaping future development.

The overall experience at Shopify Editions will help our team better address the challenges faced by clients in implementing new technologies. If you are looking to partner with a creative and innovative team on your Shopify store or are looking to move to Shopify give us a call at 603-924-1978 or fill out our short contact form.