Shopify Unite 2021

Online Store 2.0

Themes and editor improvements
- Completely modular and built out of sections
- All of the themes codes in in sections
- Theme editor – template picker – multiple templates per page
Store content – populates the design – metafields
- Metafields – define and edit directly in admin + bind data sources to sections directly in the editor – no more hardcoding metafields
- Can add validations and descriptions
- Metafields will also power a new content management platform – entirely new custom types using metafields – create content once and publish to different channels
- Pages and even collections have templates now
Developer tooling
- Theme app extension, apps can have their own sections and blocks, apps can contribute liquid in their own app blocks
- Easier for apps to inject scripts
- Blocks, assets and snippets – can ship in one single repo, script tags will be deprecated in the future

Dawn, new open source theme available https://github.com/Shopify/dawn
Dawn was built:
- For modern browsers, focused on semantic markup and progressive javascript
- Creative visual design – improving features that affect funnel – collections
- Lean and maintainable – cart api lines of code reduced
- Performance – fast theme by default

Storefront Renderer – 5x speed improvement
GraphQL – shopify admin and shop App both built on graph ql and supports 60K active partner projects

Can retrieve via storefront API
Can query local pickup via storefront API
Selling plans – can enable subscriptions and Admin APIs released. Can retrieve selling plans, price adjustments + other relevant metadata
New cart capabilities – rebuilt for speed, can pass cart ID, support for discounts
Storefront schema redesign later this year – removing cruft

450M people checked out on Shopify in 2020
5B processed on BFCM
Checkout page load times 2X as fast
In past could make changes to editor, can now extend checkout through apps – from simple changes to complex logic: checkout UI, overhaul of scripts + new payment platform
Checkout extensions – example adding warning message for prop 65 in CA using metafields and looking at customer address
Component library for checkout extensions
Checkout promotions example app – build a free gift with purchase checkout extension
Works on Shop Pay and for all merchants
Post Purchase extension – show offers post checkout – opening this up for devs in Q4

Shopify merchants sell all over the world – for all payment developers – can create payment gateways as Shopify apps
Payment apps will be easy to customize and quick to install
Once approved merchants can onboard directly, will rely on OAuth for onboarding

Built on JavaScript and React, Hydrogen provides a quick-start toolkit and set of components, so you can focus on building the fun parts that make your store unique
Add “Hydrogen channel”, then connect Git Hub
Similar to React projects, uses react router
React server components – going all in on this
Shipped with Tailwind CSS