Shopify News: These are the Shopify updates in November 2024

In November, Shopify once again presented exciting updates that can increase the efficiency of the store and make everyday business easier. We have summarized the most important Shopify news in this article, such as the more precise classification of products, new functions for Shopify Tax or the increase in the inventory adjustment process.

Revenue growth in the third quarter of 2024

Shopify presented its financial results for the third quarter of 2024, which ended on September 30. The company recorded impressive revenue growth of 26% and a free cash flow margin of 19%. This marked the sixth consecutive quarter of over 25% growth (excluding logistics) and reflects the stability and scalability of the business model.

Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, emphasized that the unified commerce platform appeals to merchants of all sizes and provides them with the tools and reliability to succeed during the busiest sales season of the year.

“The third quarter was outstanding and further established Shopify as the leader for anytime, anywhere commerce. Our unified commerce platform is becoming the first choice for merchants of all sizes. As the busiest shopping season of the year approaches for our merchants, they trust Shopify to provide the tools, unmatched speed and reliability to maximize their success,” said Harley Finkelstein.

CFO Jeff Hoffmeister added that the free cash flow margin has steadily increased in 2024, underscoring the company's discipline in balancing investment and operational efficiency.

Forecast for the fourth quarter of 2024:

• Sales growth: Expected to increase by approx. 20% compared to the previous year

• Gross profit: Similar strong growth as in the third quarter of 2024

• GAAP operating costs: 32% to 33% of sales

• Share-based payment: Around 120 million US dollars

• Free cash flow margin: comparable to Q4 2023

David Heinemeier Hansson becomes a member of the Board of Director's

Shopify has added David Heinemeier Hansson, founder and administrator of Ruby on Rails, to its board of directors. Heinemeier Hansson is a key figure in the world of software development and has long been associated with Shopify, as Ruby on Rails is an essential part of Shopify's technology stack. However, his appointment goes beyond technical expertise: it underscores Shopify's mission to promote entrepreneurship worldwide.

Shopify and Ruby on Rails share a common philosophy. Both platforms are focused on empowering individuals to achieve great things by providing tools that inspire craftsmanship and innovation. Through these values, Shopify aims to support entrepreneurs and enable them to realize their visions.

Shopify's standard product taxonomy with new updates

Shopify's standard product taxonomy is a comprehensive library that combines product data from over 26 industries. With over 10,000 product categories and more than 1,000 attributes, it enables precise classification of each product. For example, a chair is categorized within the hierarchy “Furniture -> Chairs -> Kitchen and Dining Chairs”.

Shopify has recently expanded this taxonomy to cover additional categories, attributes and values. Updates include specific enhancements in areas such as apparel and accessories, home and garden, sporting goods and more. This dynamic library continues to evolve based on user feedback and market analysis, helping merchants organize their products more accurately and efficiently.

Inventory adjustment process is increased

Shopify has developed the stock adjustment history as a helpful tool for merchants to accurately track all changes to stock. With this feature, merchants can view and analyze the history for individual products or specific variants. The history documents activities such as new orders, returns or manual adjustments and lists them in detail.

The history, which previously only covered 90 days, has now been extended to 180 days, allowing retailers to view adjustments made longer in the past. Each adjustment is listed in a clear table containing the following information:

• Activity: the reason for the stock change, such as an order or a manual adjustment.

• Quantity adjustment: The exact number of units added or subtracted.

• New stock: The current stock status after the change.

For products with variants, the history is displayed individually for each variant so that a targeted analysis is possible. An overall view of all variants is not currently available, but this does improve the level of detail.

Shopify Tax: Optimized offers for EU and UK

Shopify Tax is now available in the European Union and the United Kingdom, offering a range of new features that simplify VAT management. As VAT is particularly complex for cross-border sales, Shopify Tax provides intuitive tools to help merchants comply with tax regulations.

Key features of Shopify Tax

Precise calculations

Shopify Tax uses the exact address of your customers to calculate VAT rates accurately. This helps to stay compliant with cross-border sales.

Intelligent categorization

Shopify suggests the right tax category for your products and automatically applies the correct VAT rates according to local rules. Even in complex cases like differentiating between “cakes” and “cookies”, Shopify Tax provides clarity.

Shipping tax calculation

If different items in an order have different VAT rates, Shopify Tax now calculates the shipping tax pro rata - a big relief for EU and UK merchants.

Liability insights

Shopify Tax provides country-specific insights into your tax liabilities. It analyzes your sales and shows where you need to collect VAT based on legal requirements.

VAT invoices

For B2B transactions within the EU, Shopify Tax generates legally compliant VAT invoices with one click, so your customers can easily reclaim the tax paid.

Shopify Tax is automatically enabled for all Shopify stores selling to the EU and/or the UK. Merchants using registration-based taxes will receive the new features in the coming weeks.

Shopify Forms: Create and save form-specific fields

Shopify Forms is an intuitive app that provides merchants with an effective way to embed custom forms directly into their Shopify website. The app is designed to help merchants collect important customer data, such as email addresses or specific information, which can then be used for email marketing and targeted customer communications.

A key advancement of Shopify Forms is the flexibility to store data from form submissions either in customer profiles or in separate meta objects. This solves several challenges of previous meta field usage:

• Previously, only a customer's last submission could be saved, making it difficult to use for repeat form submissions.

• Each response required a separate meta field in the customer profile, which quickly became confusing.

• Changes to a form's data could have unintended effects on other services that also accessed these meta fields.

• With the new feature, merchants can now decide whether custom fields are assigned directly to a customer profile or whether the complete form submission is stored in a meta object. This provides more control and makes it easier to manage customer data without compromising the integrity of other systems.

Shopify Forms therefore not only simplifies data collection, but also enables more precise data management - a significant advantage for all merchants who rely on personalized marketing strategies.

Conclusion

Shopify's latest features, such as the trigger for creating meta object entries in Shopify Flow, the targeted publication of products in Hydrogen storefronts and the ability to buy shipping labels in bulk, open up numerous opportunities for merchants to optimise their business processes. From automatically triggering workflows for form submissions to efficiently processing shipping labels, Shopify helps you automate time-consuming processes and increase your efficiency.

Latori: your partner for Shopify Plus

As a Shopify partner and the first Shopify Plus agency in Germany, Latori has first-hand knowledge and is always up to date with changes to the store system. We have had the pleasure of helping numerous national and international brands switch to Shopify Plus.