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Hi, I'm Arianne, founder of Aeolidia. We create effective Shopify sites and email marketing for thoughtful, independent brands. Our newsletter shares advanced, need-to-know ecommerce strategies. Not on the list yet? Join here. |
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Hi Reader,
Shopify dropped their Fall '26 Editions last week, which includes over 200 updates to the platform. That's a lot!
With so many Shopify updates rolling out at the beginning of Q4, you may be wondering what this means for your shop and what's important to know before Black Friday / Cyber Monday (BFCM).
Many of the updates are technical backend updates that are exciting for developers, including security fixes and expanded features to support AI agents. Earlier this year, our Director of Ecommerce Strategy, Helen Hulskamp, wrote a blog explaining What Shopify’s Agentic Storefronts Mean for Your Brand — many of the recent Shopify updates are related to this shift in online shopping.
My team took notes, and it looks like many of these changes are setting the stage for ecommerce shifts in 2027. Here's what we think you might find most useful for your store, including what to take action on in the next few weeks and what to know for next year:
What to know and do before BFCM
- Shopify Protect is getting some of the most important updates to be aware of as we lead up to the holiday season. New features include AI-generated chargeback responses to help you win more disputes, the ability to block high risk orders before payment, and it will soon be available beyond Shop Pay. Once these new tools are available for your store, we recommend turning them on.
- Shop Promise has grown, with 20x more US stores now eligible. Products with the badge rank higher in Shop app search and in the Shopify Catalog which AI agents use, so check to see if your shop is now eligible.
- Shopify’s Rollouts feature has been improved, which is helpful if you're planning something big for BFCM. There are three types of rollouts (Launch, Event and Experiment) which can bundle theme, checkout, catalog, and discount changes together. With an Event Rollout, you can schedule your Black Friday sale changes to all go live and revert back to your normal store settings automatically at set times.
- Product variants are moving onto the product page in your admin, with faster editing and better bulk controls. The change starts rolling out to all merchants in December, so if your team edits products during the holidays, take a few minutes to get familiar with the new layout when it shows up.
- Analytics updates include annotations, which are helpful for noting the dates of your email campaigns, press mentions, sales and other things you'll want to remember when looking at your reports months later.
- You can now customize the product titles, images, and categories each sales channel receives, like Google or AI platforms, right from your admin. Shopify also shows which listing details you’re missing.
Agentic commerce updates
- Shopify created a skill called shop.md that you can give to any AI agent to turn it into your personal shopper. Merchants can copy the prompt here and give it a test run in ChatGPT, Claude, or another agent to see how it works for your products.
- Your products can now be sold in more AI channels, including Google Search’s AI Mode and the Gemini app, with checkout powered by Shopify.
- Shop Pay now works as a wallet inside more AI agents including Meta's Muse, Claude Duet, Grok Bot, and Instinct.
- Knowledge base is a new page in your admin (under Sales channels > Agentic) where you can review and approve the store policies and FAQs that get shared about your shop with AI platforms. This replaces the standalone Knowledge Base app, which will no longer be available after January 15, 2027. This will be an important spot to keep an eye on and make sure that correct information about your store is being provided to AI shopping agents.
Other notable updates
- Pages now load faster, and the Shopify admin is getting a visual design update.
- Sidekick can help with more than ever before, including making bulk edits and handling complex multi-step workflows.
- Custom fields in checkout are coming soon, which will allow for things like text inputs for gift messages or delivery instructions. This is a common request from the shops we work with and will replace a need to install apps, but this feature won't be released until after BFCM and will have some limitations, including certain custom fields types only available for Shopify Plus.
- Shipping options by market is beginning to roll out and will replace shipping profiles by July 1, 2027. This change to the shipping setup makes it more flexible to work across different markets and to have different shipping profiles for Shopify B2B vs. Retail rates on a blended store. This article has a good overview of the shipping updates.
- Older apps with outdated technology are getting cleaned up, and some abandoned apps may stop working after March 1. Look over your installed apps now, and check their listing in the app store to check for recent updates or negative customer reviews. If an app looks abandoned, find a replacement by early 2027 before it breaks.
- The Shop app and shop.com got updates that make it easier for shoppers and integrate the experience more with your site, including syncing with your online store.
Many of these changes are in anticipation of more people using AI agents as personal shoppers in 2027 and beyond. Luckily, strong SEO fundamentals are also relevant to having your products found as more people use AI to search and shop. You'll want to continue to ensure that the information about your products, FAQs, and store policies is written in clear language that the search engines, AI agents, and LLMs can understand.
If you have any questions or concerns about any of the latest Shopify updates, or if you want to learn more about how our SEO services can help your shop get found by AI shoppers, please email me back and we can make a plan for you together.
My team knows about all this so you don't have to! We work with about a dozen shops on an ongoing basis to keep things up to date and take advantage of new features. If your site is working okay, but you just don't have time to keep up on all this (it would be weird if you did; you have plenty of other things to do), we're your team:
to see about hiring the Aeolidia team on retainer
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Here's a reader question about stats, from Jena, as answered by Helen Hulskamp, Director of Ecommerce Strategy on our team:
Q: We're getting great feedback on our site and I'm proud of it. I haven't had a chance to look at stats yet but I'd like to! Are there any specific ones you'd suggest I check "before" and "after?" |
A: For the last year, assessing your conversion rate (CVR) has required a lot of gymnastics to filter out bot traffic - Shopify's bot filter only catches a fraction of it. Toggling on Shopify's bot filter and also filtering out the countries sending you bots (which differ by site, but China and Singapore show up often) can get you closer to a human number.
We like to look at revenue per user or revenue per session because it integrates traffic, average order value (AOV), and CVR into one. This stat is also hard to determine due to bot traffic. Cloudflare data shows that automated bot and AI agent traffic surpassed human web traffic for the first time this year, accounting for about 57% of web requests.
Your site's overall CVR and AOV, etc don't tell you anything actionable - you need to segment to gain insights. For instance, compare CVR for mobile vs. desktop, across different traffic channels, and at different steps of the funnel. Seeing a change in any of those segments will tell you what is working well and what needs improvement.
Question: Answered
Our team includes experts in branding, design, development, email & SMS/text marketing, search engine optimization, copywriting, conversion optimization, ecommerce strategy, business growth, and more. Have a question for us? Email back, and I'll consult one of our experts and share one weekly response over email.
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Interesting Clickables
Missed something? ⚓️ Read past issues of Aeolidia's newsletter here
- Our friend Jess Gleim dug into one brand’s customer data and found that customers who purchased one particular product went on to average 16 orders each. Do you have a keystone product that you could use to attract more of your best customers?
- Shopify Analytics can now show activity from your apps, like marketing emails sent or loyalty rewards redeemed. Keep in mind that it only covers certain apps.
- Storied Colors is a repository of pigments and their back stories. The description of the world's pinkest pink is pretty hilarious.
- I got the Storied Colors link from NYT's Good List newsletter, which shares good news, and is often a little spot of delight in my day.
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From the blog
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What We Saw at Shoppe Object and NY NOW 2026: Trends and Takeaways for Product Brands
Exploring the NYC trade shows: what we saw and what's changed, plus tips for exhibitors.
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Finding Growth and Support in Mastermind Groups
Why you might want to seek the support of business owner mastermind groups, and how to get started.
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12 Black Friday Tips For Online Shops in 2026
How to get your ecommerce website ready for Black Friday / Cyber Monday holiday gifting.
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Wishing [COMPANY GOES HERE] all the best,
Arianne Foulks | CEO & Founder
Aeolidia, Shopify Plus Partners
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Refer a Friend
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