Shopify has been releasing a lot of news lately. As a developer, I follow it closely, and I would like to highlight a few updates that have real impact for merchants.
B2B now available for all paid Shopify plans
Shopify is making B2B functionality available beyond Shopify Plus. Merchants on other plans now get access to core features like company accounts and customer-specific catalogs (with a limit of up to three catalogs outside Plus).
This makes it easier to serve both B2C and B2B customers within a single store, without separate platforms or complex workarounds. For hybrid merchants in particular, this lowers the barrier to entry and speeds up the rollout of a B2B channel alongside existing D2C activities.
(Source: https://help.shopify.com/nl/manual/b2b/getting-started/plan-features)
Hosting apps directly on Shopify
Shopify is evolving its app ecosystem towards more platform-native hosting and rendering. With new app architectures like UI extensions and App Home extensions, parts of an app can run directly within Shopify, without needing a separately hosted web app for every interface component.
For developers, this means a shift in complexity. Some of the traditional infrastructure, such as hosting the UI layer, routing, and deployment for certain admin interfaces, is taken over by Shopify. This reduces operational overhead and creates tighter integration with the Shopify Admin environment, including consistent performance and design.
Merchants benefit from more stable and faster-loading app experiences, as a larger part of the interface is rendered directly within Shopify's infrastructure and is less dependent on external hosting and latency.
It's worth noting that this doesn't mean entire apps become serverless within Shopify. Backend logic, data storage, and external integrations will in many cases still be hosted externally. This is primarily about moving UI and extensions to the Shopify platform itself, not about fully eliminating your own infrastructure.
(Source: https://shopify.dev/docs/api/app-home-ui-extension/latest)
Agentic sales is live
Shopify is going all-in on AI and recently introduced Agentic Commerce. This allows AI assistants like ChatGPT to play an active role in the purchasing process. Consumers can discover products, compare options, and receive recommendations directly within an AI conversation, and from there, click through to the Shopify checkout to complete their purchase.
This development turns AI into a new sales channel alongside search engines, marketplaces, and social media. For merchants, it's becoming increasingly important to have clean, well-structured product data, content, and catalogs, so that AI systems can correctly understand, recommend, and present products to potential customers.
While this development is still relatively new, we expect it to play a growing role in product discovery and online purchases. We're monitoring these developments closely and actively exploring the opportunities for our clients.
(Source: https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-agentic-commerce-works)
TikTok Shop is coming to the Netherlands
Big news! TikTok Shop launches in the Netherlands on 15 June, marking a significant milestone for social commerce. Through a direct integration with Shopify, merchants can connect their product catalog to TikTok and sell via shoppable content, videos, and livestreams.
This shifts TikTok from a marketing channel to a full-fledged sales channel, bringing discovery and checkout closer together. For Shopify merchants, this creates an additional distribution channel where content and conversion are directly connected.
(Source: https://www.shopify.com/nl/blog/tiktok-shop?term=&adid=803689501174)
Woud you like to explore what these updates mean for your store? Feel free to get in touch.
Shopify Developer at Strix