Shopify has announced that it will give merchants in its Summer '23 Edition (its twice-annual showcase of its latest products and innovations): AI-infused, built-for-commerce magic.
Shopify is unveiling more than 100 updates across the platform, allowing merchants to be more productive, creative, and powerful than ever before, ushering in a new era of commerce full of new possibilities.
Advancements in AI are accelerating the pace of change all around. Already, AI is changing how customers shop, and businesses operate. Shopify sees massive upsides to AI in the hands of business owners, from entrepreneurs to enterprises, and the ecommerce platform is filling this unmet need with infinite potential.
"I can't think of any corner of the internet that will benefit more from AI than the pursuit of people building and growing their businesses," said Tobi Lütke, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Shopify.
"I've been part of the technology industry since the mid-nineties. I have never seen anything like AI. This will be an unbelievable boon to entrepreneurship."
To grasp the "why behind its most significant AI product yet, Lütke continued that it was imperative to understand Shopify's foundational belief that entrepreneurs are heroes. And every hero needs a sidekick.
Sidekick is a first-of-its-kind, AI-enabled commerce assistant giving business owners more power on Shopify. It is purpose-built to answer all questions as owners start and scale their businesses.
No matter their expertise, business owners can talk with their Sidekick to jumpstart the creative process, improve the quality of their store, increase productivity, streamline workflows, and make smarter business decisions.
Merchants can task Sidekick with a range of things, including setting up a discount for a holiday sale, helping redesign the store to feel more like summer, asking what the best-selling products of the business are, or even walking through a tutorial on how to prepare an email campaign.
Sidekick, which will be available in early access soon, is the centrepiece of Shopify Magic, a suite of AI-enabled features integrated across the platform specifically designed for commerce.
Shopify Magic combines the latest AI technology with the platform's data to help millions of businesses work faster, more innovative, and more creatively.
By integrating AI into its backend, Shopify is helping keep businesses on the cutting edge and helping them thrive in today's competitive market.
As merchants grow their businesses, they also grow the number of platforms they use to sell products, with 42 percent of online sellers operating through four or more marketplaces.
Managing these additional sales channels adds complexity, and merchants often need separate business processes or apps for each marketplace to handle orders, fulfilment, inventory, and product listings.
That's why Shopify is launching Shopify Marketplace Connect, a single app for merchants to sell on all the most significant marketplaces, like Amazon, Walmart and eBay, while connecting, managing, and fulfilling every order directly from within Shopify.
Shopify Marketplace Connect is an all-in-one solution that allows merchants to reach new customers and streamline their business operations.
This app is now available to all Shopify merchants.
Additionally, Shopify Checkout is the best in the world, and recent data from a Big Three global consulting firm confirms this. That study revealed that Shopify Checkout has a 15 percent higher average conversion rate than other leading ecommerce platforms.
Shopify Checkout has processed over half a trillion sales dollars and supported 561 million online shoppers in 2022 alone. With this unmatched volume of data, Shopify has gained powerful insights that it can use to improve its Checkout at a fantastic pace.
Shopify is doubling down on checkout extensibility with 17 new APIs and updates that enable partners and developers to create unique checkout experiences with apps and manage them right from within the checkout editor.
If, for example, business owners wanted to offer customised delivery options, Checkout can now be modified to include things like pickup points, delivery dates, and suggested addresses. This is just one category example of the many that these new APIs enable.
This Edition, Shopify is letting its merchants' imaginations run wild with all kinds of new possibilities for their business. In this new era of commerce, AI helps people create businesses faster than ever; shopping is available everywhere, anywhere, and always, and the complex parts of running a business have become far more accessible because of the platform's products.
These announcements and 100+ others in Shopify's Summer '23 Edition bring opportunities that new and seasoned entrepreneurs have previously only dreamt of.
