The themes for this year's Shopify Unite conference were infrastructure, tooling, and technologies.
Basically, a LOT of app and developer talk.
Let's dive right in.
1. Good news for app developers
As of August 1, 2021, Shopify is offering zero percent revenue share on the first $1 million USD your app makes in the Shopify App Store.
And the better news: Every year, those numbers reset.
What if you earn more than $1 million USD?
You'll pay 15 percent revenue share, which is lower than the previous 20 percent.
Shopify is also introducing a one-time registration fee for all developers who register after August 1st.
2. Online Store 2.0
This is one of Shopify's biggest updates to date meant to open up massive opportunities for developers working on building themes and apps for merchants.
The update includes:
- Updated theme architecture to allow for easier and more flexible customization. This includes sections on every page.
- Theme app extensions and app blocks, making it easier for merchants to integrate apps into their themes without touching any code.
- Flexible store content, which allows developers to use dynamic sources instead of hardcoding metafields into themes or relying on APIs to change product pages.
- A suite of new developer tools, including Dawn (Shopify's first open-source, mobile-first reference theme built to be fast by default), GitHub integration, an expanded Shopify CLI, and theme check.
As part of Online Store 2.0, Shopify will be reopening its Theme Store on July 15 and removing all revenue share on the first $1 million USD you make on the Theme Store.
There will be a one-time submission fee of $99 USD per account to submit to the Shopify Theme Store, plus a 2.9 percent processing fee on all transactions.
Here's a full breakdown of what Online Store 2.0 means for developers.
3. Extend Shopify Checkout with apps
Until now, if you wanted to make changes to your Shopify Checkout, you were only able to make small changes or, if you're on Shopify Plus, you could make bigger changes by editing sections of code on the checkout page.
Shopify has announced that soon, everyone will be able to make changes to their checkout via apps!
They're also introducing checkout extensions, a post-purchase checkout extension, making changes to Shopify Scripts (a feature available for Plus merchants), and updates to the payments platform.
4. Improvements to app development
This update includes lots of improvements to developing on Shopify, including better documentation, the Developer Console, and Google Cloud Pub / Sub.
Plus, enhanced app discoverability using awareness ads on the Shopify App Store and improvements to managing billing and payouts.
5. Updates to the Storefront API
Shopify will be releasing new cart capabilities which, combined with the checkout updates, unlock features like estimated totals with taxes, discounts, and duties.
They're also making updates to international pricing, local pickup, selling plans, and more.
6. Introducing Hydrogen
This developer toolkit presents a more approachable path to building custom storefronts quickly.
If you're left scratching your head after all that developer talk, don't worry. Shopify has recapped the whole thing on video.
