Shopify Editions Fall '26: Everything New, Explained

What is Shopify Editions Fall '26?

Twice a year Shopify bundles everything it has shipped into an "Edition". Fall '26 is called Exponential, with the tagline "everything new for non-linear growth", and it covers 150+ updates across eleven areas: Agentic, Sidekick, Online, Merchandising, Retail, Payments, Operations, Shop, Marketing, Fulfillment and Developer.

The story this time is network effects. Shopify is leaning hard on three numbers: 1B+ products in Shopify Catalog that can be discovered across AI channels, 400M+ shoppers with Shop Pay accounts, and 12K+ high-risk payments blocked every minute by Shopify Payments. Nearly every update either plugs your store into a bigger network (AI agents, the Shop app, Shop Pay) or uses that network to make your store smarter (fraud detection, customer recognition in store, personalised search).

We have gone through the full Edition so you don't have to. Below is each area in plain English, what's live now versus "rolling out soon", and our take on what matters most for a UK Shopify store.

Headline changes at a glance

Agentic commerce: your store inside the AI chat

This is the headline section of the Edition. Shopify wants your products to be discoverable and buyable wherever shoppers are asking AI for recommendations.

shop.md: a shopping skill for any agent. Shopify has published shop.md, a skill file you can hand to ChatGPT, Claude or any other agent. Once loaded, the agent can search Shopify Catalog, give personalised recommendations and check out with Shop Pay. Anyone can customise the skill to suit their own style.

Shop Pay in more agents. Shoppers can now discover, approve and pay with Shop Pay inside Meta's Muse, Claude Duet, Grok Bot and Instinct, for brands on or off Shopify. Purchases are backed by Mastercard and Visa, with Amex coming soon.

Sell in Google Search, AI Mode and the Gemini app. Checkout is powered by Shopify, the shopper buys in the chat, and the order lands in your admin like any other.

Shopify Catalog improvements. AI agents now see your compare-at prices automatically, so markdowns show as markdowns with no extra setup. There's also a new eligibility check in the admin that tells you exactly what to change if your store doesn't yet qualify for Catalog.

Your business details in AI channels. A new knowledge base page in the admin lets you review and approve the facts shared with agents, including your policies and FAQs, with suggestions on how to improve them. If you have ever worried about ChatGPT making up your returns policy, this is the fix.

Run your store from the AI you already use. Shopify connectors now exist for Grok (including Grok Bot "AI teammates"), Google Gemini, Meta's Muse and Microsoft Copilot, so you can manage products, orders and inventory from the chat. You can pin Shopify to the ChatGPT sidebar for a live home page of sales, sessions and conversion rate. Agents can also create digital products from a file, source products from other sellers via Shopify Collective, design stores with Canvas, and preview a store via Shopify CLI before you even sign up.

Our take: the knowledge base and Catalog eligibility check are the two things every merchant should action this week. If an AI agent is going to describe your brand to a shopper, you want to be the one who wrote the script.

Sidekick: from chatbot to colleague

Sidekick has grown up. Daily Sidekick sessions are up 4.2x year on year, and this Edition turns it into something closer to a junior team member than a help widget.

• More technical tasks. Sidekick now tackles complex workflows, stages multiple changes at once, computes, writes code and searches the internet. It also remembers context between conversations.
• Recommendations tested in SimGym. Sidekick proposes improvements to your store, tests them using the SimGym app, and you pick which to apply. It's A/B testing without the setup.
• Plan, approve once, apply many. Ask it to rewrite the descriptions across an entire collection, review the plan, approve, and watch it make every change.
• Floating chat everywhere. Sidekick sits on every page of the redesigned admin and understands the page you're on.
• Deeper business context. Recommendations now include apps in your stack and web research on your market and industry.
• Draft orders, pricing and payouts. Create or edit draft orders with highlighted changes, ask pricing questions powered by Shopify Smart Pricing, and ask why a payout came in low or what's driving chargebacks.
• Print-on-demand and checkout. Upload or generate a design, preview it on a product and publish it. Build checkout and customer account customisations with Sidekick inside the checkout editor and Checkout Blocks.
• Markdown files for your theme. Developers can add markdown files that teach Sidekick how a theme is built and store design preferences, so they're applied consistently across conversations.

Our take: the theme markdown files are a quiet but important one for agencies. We can now ship a custom theme with a set of instructions that stop Sidekick (or a client) from undoing the design system. The SimGym-tested recommendations are the feature to watch for CRO.

Online store: Canvas, rollouts and a smarter storefront agent

Canvas: your whole store in one view. Canvas is the new way to edit online stores. You see the entire site at once, zoom into any detail, and work with Sidekick to turn ideas into a fully custom design. Shopify says merchants go from no theme to a launched store 20% faster with it. Canvas is built on the new theme architecture (see the Developer section), so it's where theme development is heading.

Rollouts. You can now schedule a launch, event or experiment that bundles your theme, checkout configuration, catalogues and discounts into one coordinated rollout, then roll it back automatically when the promotion ends. Rollouts reach headless builds, POS, Google Shopping and the Shop app, and support A/B tests. For Black Friday this is the feature we'd set up first.

A smarter storefront agent. The Shopify Inbox chat agent now gives personalised recommendations, starts checkout from the conversation and hands off to staff cleanly. Customers signed in with Shop convert up to 1.5x higher in Inbox chats.

Other online store updates

• Redesigned online store page for managing themes, domains and launch
• Shop sign-in can be added to any store, even one not on Shopify, and to lead capture forms via Shopify Forms or Klaviyo
• Coming soon: redirect customers to a custom form after first sign-in to collect extra details
• SimGym simulations now take a shopping goal and show you visually where to apply the recommendations
• Predictive search suggestions improved; add-to-carts from search up 8%
• Right-to-left languages: launch in Arabic, Hebrew or Urdu
• Translate & Adapt keeps every edit current across translated versions automatically
• B2B: Algolia search shows only catalogue products at negotiated prices; CSV exports now include vendor details per row

Merchandising: cleaner product data, everywhere

Product data mapping by channel. Customise how your product data appears on each sales channel from the admin, and Shopify keeps every channel current as your catalogue changes. If you've ever had Google Shopping disapprovals because a title was too long, this is the answer.

Multi-source collections. Collections can now combine products, apps and variants using rules, for example "include by colour, exclude made-to-order, connect to bestsellers". Sidekick can create them, and they can be reused to drive operations as well as merchandising.

Variants managed from the product page. Product and variant details are edited on the same page with bulk controls and a clearer layout. No more clicking into every variant.

Also new

• Shopify Smart Pricing gives market-based pricing guidance for newly active products
• Up to 20 barcodes per variant with format validation, scannable in POS
• Sell access to URLs (templates, bookings) by adding a link and a price to a product
• An improved Shopify Digital Products app
• Coming soon: preview how products, pricing and checkout appear in a cart for a specific market
• Shopify Collective analytics show how your catalogue performs across your retailer network

Retail and POS: knowing your customer at the counter

Expanded in-store customer recognition. POS now identifies customers through the network of hundreds of millions of people who have checked out at any Shopify Payments store. A known in-store customer has over 60% higher lifetime value than an unknown one, so this matters. Digital receipts are sent to their Shop account.

Scheduled stock counts in POS. Set up counts in the admin by item, location and timeframe, see who counted what, and review before adjusting inventory. This is native now, no app needed.

Recent carts saved across devices. Start a cart on one device and any associate can pick it up, so you can serve several customers at once and survive shift changes.

Everything else for retail

• Faster checkout: fewer taps for cash and split payments, quicker receipts, better card processing
• POS search across products, orders, customers, collections and drafts, with filters
• Smart grid starts with tiles tailored to how you sell and suggests new ones
• Local delivery as a shipping option at POS checkout
• Staff can pull up a known customer's abandoned online cart and complete it in store
• Cart stays on screen on mobile POS
• Manage POS devices from the admin and revoke access if one goes missing; connectivity status on the POS home screen
• Customisable printed receipt template with auto tax summaries for the UK, EU and Canada
• Scan any barcode type including GTINs and supplier codes
• Track every sale to the associate; POS activity log by staff name; bulk staff management via CSV; seasonal staff controls
• Accept Alipay, WeChat Pay, Satispay, Scalapay and GrabPay in store; Cartes Bancaires debit in France
• AI agents can discover your retail locations and send shoppers to the nearest one

Payments and checkout: Shopify Protect goes on the offensive

Shopify Protect. The big one. The new Shopify Protect app blocks high-risk orders before payment is even authorised, writes AI-generated chargeback responses specific to the customer's bank and reason code, automatically attaches carrier proof of delivery, and lets you write custom fraud rules you can backtest against past orders. Shopify reports 60% more "product not received" disputes won. Chargeback protection is also being extended beyond Shop Pay orders, with reimbursement on fraud chargebacks. Most of this is rolling out soon.

All-in pricing with Managed Markets. Offer international prices that include guaranteed duties and taxes, with flat shipping rates at checkout. Brands saw +50% higher international conversion. For UK brands selling into the EU post-Brexit, this removes the single biggest conversion killer.

Checkout changes (rolling out soon)

• Custom fields in the checkout and accounts editor: text inputs, date pickers, checkboxes and choice lists for delivery instructions, gift messages and more
• Tiled payment method layout replaces radio buttons
• Animated celebration transition on the thank-you page
• Tighter stacked form layout with clearer field errors
• Apple Pay in Chrome, Edge and Firefox via QR code scan

Shopify Payments updates

• Redesigned, date-based payouts page with expandable detail for every amount
• Itemised activity report for any date range or currency
• More local payment methods: Alipay, WeChat Pay, Satispay, Scalapay, GrabPay, plus MB WAY and OXXO online
• Run Shopify Payments alongside your existing provider in the same store, and connect different providers per legal entity
• Machine learning to get more US payments approved first time
• Multi-currency payouts in Australia, France, Singapore and Hong Kong (Advanced and Plus)
• Shop Pay Installments early access in Australia; HSA/FSA via Truemed coming to the US
• Shopify Tax managed for you: calculation, collection and remittance across US states for new merchants
• Per-market product and collection fees collected at checkout (early access)

Operations: a brand new admin

The admin gets a complete refresh. Cleaner navigation, fresh layouts, a Sidekick prompt bar front and centre, and personalised recommendations organised for action when you log in. It's rolling out to all pages now. If your admin home already says "Work with Sidekick", you're on it.

Analytics gets serious

• Geospatial bubble maps you can zoom and pan to see where sales concentrate
• App events (loyalty points redeemed, emails sent) can be pulled into custom reports
• Group and filter by category metafields (colour, material) and metaobjects (loyalty tier, designer)
• Add your own annotations to reports to tie changes to campaigns
• Sessions now filter bots, unify journeys across the site and respect consent, so expect your session counts to shift
• Purchase order data viewable and exportable in analytics

Shopify Flow

• New triggers when a product's price, tag, metafield or other field changes
• Flow respects admin roles and permissions
• Build and manage automations from your preferred AI agent via the AI Toolkit
• Version history: preview, compare and restore any previous workflow as a draft

Admin quality of life

• Coming soon: a single filterable activity log attributing every change to a staff member, app or service
• Passkeys for faster, more secure sign-in
• Faster admin search across sections, pages and apps
• Folders for files
• Auto-generated return, contact, shipping and terms policies that stay in sync
• Edit metafields in context on any page
• Store status page with a checklist to stay in good standing
• Coming soon: monitor each app extension's status and contact the developer
• 13 more admin languages, including Ukrainian, Catalan and Tamil
• Rebuilt native Shopify mobile app for iOS and Android
• Shopify Credit syncs to QuickBooks; Shopify Balance supports domestic wires and cheaper international supplier payments

Shop app: one cart, every brand

Universal checkout. Shoppers can add products from multiple brands to one cart in Shop and check out in a single tap. For small brands, this means being discovered alongside bigger names without the shopper ever having to leave.

The new shop.com. Shop is now a proper website as well as an app, with curated content, interest feeds and detailed order tracking. Your products get another discovery surface for free.

Your branding syncs to Shop (early access). The branding and merchandising from your online store automatically become your landing page in Shop. No rebuilding.

Carts sync both ways. A customer's cart follows them from Shop to your online store and back, across devices and visits.

Also new in Shop

• Filter searches by size, price, colour and brand with subcategory suggestions
• Signed-in shoppers get results ranked by their browsing and purchase history
• The Shop agent is available in more markets
• Connect Instagram to sync reels and carousels into shoppable content
• Unused discount codes from your forms and emails appear in the shopper's Shop account

Marketing: Autopilot, cleaner attribution and WhatsApp

Campaign Autopilot. AI-run campaigns now extend to Microsoft Advertising and Snapchat, with X Ads coming soon, and Autopilot now manages SEO too.

Unified marketing reports. Separate traffic sources and fewer misattributions, so you can finally see which channel is actually driving sales.

Shop Campaigns in 35+ new markets. Including the UK, Australia and the EU. Run one campaign across markets and only pay when an ad drives a sale. Shop Campaigns has driven over 18M sales so far, and the metrics are now available in ShopifyQL.

WhatsApp marketing. Collect WhatsApp consent at checkout, then send automated recovery messages for browse, cart and checkout abandonment from Shopify Messaging. For UK audiences where WhatsApp is the default messaging app, this is a big deal.

Also new

• Pre-built Black Friday email campaign in Shopify Messaging: preview, customise, approve, schedule
• TikTok Buy Direct ads with Shopify-powered checkout (select businesses)
• The ChatGPT Ads app: sponsored placements inside ChatGPT conversations, tracked in your admin

Fulfillment: good news for UK shipping

Shop Promise badge. Products with the Shop Promise badge (trusted delivery and returns) rank higher in Shop app search and Shopify Catalog. Eligibility has grown 20x, so check whether you qualify.

DHL Express in the UK. Merchants in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain can now buy DHL Express labels directly in the admin. DHL eCommerce is also available in the Netherlands and Poland.

Royal Mail pickup points. UK businesses can ship to a convenient pickup location with Royal Mail, so customers never miss a delivery.

Shipping in markets. Set up and manage the right shipping options per region or company location from the Markets page, rather than wrestling with global shipping profiles.

Also new

• Package dimensions per variant with default packaging selection
• FedEx delivery photos appear on the order as chargeback evidence
• Native stock counts in the admin and POS with barcode scanning and detailed logs
• Scan a barcode from any admin page and get routed to the right product or order
• Metafields on inventory transfers
• Return and cancellation rules by market, including return window overrides for products and collections
• Apply additional discounts to an existing order with automatic recalculation
• Add subscriptions to draft orders and send an invoice
• Waive order balances with a proper write-off
• Editing a shipping address recalculates line item taxes
• Canada: UPS international labels and Canada Post return labels in the admin

Developer: the biggest theme change since Online Store 2.0

New theme architecture (developer preview). Pages are composed in Liquid with blocks, typed contracts and partial updates. Markdown files guide AI agents, and Tailwind styling is built in. Canvas and the new store editor are built on this, so it's the direction of travel for every custom theme. Read the developer preview docs.

Faster storefronts. Shopify now delivers only the CSS each page actually uses, so online store pages load faster with no theme changes required.

Agentic commerce for builders

• One MCP adds shopping to any agent or app: Shop sign-in, Catalog search and Shop Pay checkout, all at shop.dev
• WebMCP tools let agents discover products, build carts and guide checkout using structured tools registered by online stores
• Catalog API: filter by 3D models or video, get sale prices and safety warnings, personalised results for Shop sign-ins, and (in beta) products from businesses not on Shopify
• Earn the commission businesses set in Shop Campaigns, plus 0.3% from Shopify, on sales driven via the Catalog API (early access)
• Universal Commerce Protocol: /buy permalinks with products, discounts and attribution; /ask endpoint answers questions grounded in a store's published facts; retail locations surfaced to agents
• Updated Checkout Kit v4 for web, native mobile and agentic experiences

Platform primitives

• Apps can send events into Shopify analytics and write annotations via the GraphQL Admin API
• 14 new Polaris web component APIs with semantic versioning on the CDN
• POS UI extensions: Printing API, persistent background extensions, shared Storage API
• Purchase orders and active rollouts queryable via the Admin API
• Shopify Functions can read delivery option metafields now, and per-checkout metaobjects soon
• Official Python and PHP packages for building apps
• Granular consent scopes for Shop sign-in; one-tap Shop sign-in for storefront apps

Tooling and partner programme

• Refreshed Dev Dashboard with billing, payouts, store index and (soon) app listing and ads in one place
• Shopify CLI optimised for AI agents: create, list and delete dev stores from any agent
• Hydrogen now ships customer accounts, predictive search, agent skills and one-click Vercel deploys; Vercel Shop is a Next.js template on the new Hydrogen SDK
• mock.shop agentic reference library for building a store with any agent
• New partner earning model: subscription revenue plus online GMV share on every referred business, all plans, for four years
• Shopify App Pricing: unlimited private plans, localised estimated prices, combined annual plus usage billing coming
• Theme Store listings can carry an app add-on

Security (deadlines to note)

• Apps can no longer create or update script tags; migrate to theme app extensions or web pixels
• Migrate to expiring offline access tokens before January 2027 to stay listed
• IP allowlists per app; unique app names required; App Store reviews verified against shop trust and activity
• AI Toolkit security check finds vulnerabilities with a single prompt; production log queries from the CLI coming soon

What this means for UK merchants: our take

This is the first Edition where the question isn't "what's new in my store?" but "where else is my store now?". Your products can be bought inside ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Grok and the Shop app without the shopper ever visiting your site. That's a big opportunity and a small risk: if your product data and policies are messy, that's what the agents will repeat.

Do these five things first

1. Check Shopify Catalog eligibility in the admin and fix whatever it flags. No Catalog, no AI channels.
2. Review your knowledge base page. Approve the facts, policies and FAQs agents will share about you.
3. Set up a Black Friday rollout. Bundle your theme, discounts and checkout changes into one scheduled, reversible launch.
4. Switch on WhatsApp consent at checkout and the abandonment flows in Shopify Messaging.
5. Install Shopify Protect when it reaches your store and review which risk rules you want.

For store owners on a custom theme, talk to your developer about the new theme architecture before committing to any big rebuild. Canvas and the new store editor are built on it, and themes that adopt blocks, typed contracts and the markdown agent files will get the best Sidekick experience. We're already testing it against our own theme starter.

For anyone selling into the EU, Managed Markets all-in pricing with flat-rate shipping is the single highest-impact change here. Duties and taxes shown at checkout, not on the doorstep, is worth testing on your top three EU markets.

If you'd like a hand working out which of these updates apply to your store, get in touch and we'll walk through it with you.

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