The Definitive Guide to Shopify 2.0

If you already use Shopify, or you’re thinking about switching to it, then there’s great news: Shopify has officially introduced Online Store 2.0 (Often called Shopify 2.0). This brings a 360-degree customer experience along with new features to improve the shopping experience. Shopify described it as the most significant update they’ve made in their platform to date. It will certainly make life easier for developers and merchants, giving them new customization and greater control over their storefronts.

Introduction

In 2004, a Canadian developer created Shopify - a platform where designers, businesses, and entrepreneurs can build their eCommerce store. As time passed by with fast-paced growth both online and offline, the need for this platform increased. Shopify managed to stay ahead of the competition despite this demand, which has caused them to consistently innovate.

This year, Shopify unveiled Store 2.0 - a whole new experience that changes the dynamics of eCommerce. The main goals of the update were to simplify the user experience by empowering merchants, providing flexibility, and optimizing site loading times for stores. Let's explore how Shopify accomplishes these aspects with its new definition of success! Further on, we’ll discuss how to get the most out of Store 2.0.

Key Benefits of Store 2.0

• The system's new user interface and capabilities make it easier to use and save time.
• Custom sections allow further customization across the site (not just the homepage), allowing retailers to create unique experiences for their consumers and sell more.
• Branded content is easier to scale throughout your shop.
• Improved meta field capability allows for faster and easier uploading and editing of product content.
• Pages are faster to load than before, which means fewer people will abandon a page while it loads.

In summary, Online Store 2.0 provides merchants with a distinctive Store that sells with increased flexibility and control, allowing their businesses to achieve greater success and grow faster.

What is Store 2.0?

Shopify's second major release, Store 2.0, is a long-anticipated overhaul of its eCommerce system. With upgraded features such as improved user experience and internal tech upgrades, Shopify aims to revolutionize eCommerce and make the platform even more user-friendly.

The new Store 2.0 by Shopify is an all-new web platform that boasts a vast array of eCommerce features, native mobile apps, and payment options built to meet your goals and grow in the rapidly evolving world of eCommerce. Store 2.0 is everything a small business owner needs to grow their web presence and take it to the next level to finally start making money from their passion.

What are the Key Features of Shopify Store 2.0?

The new version, Store 2.0, allows sellers to grow their business through easy-to-use and easy-to-customize eCommerce software. The new platform has several key upgrades in style, speed, flexibility, navigation, and functionalities. 

Let’s go over 7 new integrated features and flexible tools that make Store 2.0 the best version yet:

1. Quicker Load Times with the 'Dawn' Theme

With the release of Store 2.0, the load time is faster, period. Plus, the ‘Dawn’ theme, designed for speed and sales conversion, is included. It contains more than 50 stunning sub-themes that can be expanded on by using individual color mixers to fit your company's branding or personal design philosophy. The Dawn theme at the heart of Store 2.0 has set benchmarks for developers everywhere, offering a huge customization area to allow merchants to create new lines that "WOW" their customers. Dawn is also a cross-browser & cross-device theme. No additional coding knowledge is required, making it easier for developers and power users to customize the theme. 

Dawn is Shopify's reference theme, built for performance, flexibility, and ease of use.  Dawn supports a section-based structure.  In addition, It uses the latest JS templates, HTML5 features, responsive design. The Installation is 100% simple and very easy to manage. You can position your menu in a split second, add custom posts and brand designs, preview your theme, and install.

Features of Dawn theme

• An Open Source Theme
• Offers Fast Performance
• Easy to Use
• Flexible

2. New themes with sections on all pages for more bespoke Stores

Shopify Store 2.0 offers the ability to tailor your theme to your business needs and ideas – whatever colors and styles you want to create. The new design is completely customizable. Tools such as MySketchUp and Canva also make content creation for Shopify easier than ever before. Shopify's sections are customizable blocks that give Store users tools to display data and content. The new Shopify Store 2.0 has more streamlined shopping cart functionality, including advanced searching, and adding products to your cart. The interface has been redesigned for simplicity, ease-of-use, and intuitive layouts.

Features of New Themes with Sections

• Make collection subsections
• Add custom designs
• Change the location of your add-to-cart button, pricing, or product names for a better user experience.
• Include promotional ads to help push a sale

3. Improved UI on Theme Editor

The Theme Editor has a new, sleek design. Making changes to your theme has never been easier, and you will be able to see how everything looks in real-time as well. A new visual editor allows you to change colors more intuitively without changing the files manually. It centralizes all operations and allows for a more logical use of your online Store. This will save you a lot of time and make it easy to update and adjust your Store.

Shopify has also made it easier to select different filter levels and improved the instructions so that there are fewer cases of "I don't know how to do this."

Additionally, revamped Shopify Widgets On Store 2.0 makes it easy to style every widget module. You can download any of Shopify's 200+ built-in widgets or create your own using the available UI Elements, which you can also import from your favorite UI design theme. Refer to Shopify’s manual for a list of all the available widgets.

4. Modular App Blocks with Enhanced Configuration

App blocks represent a significant shift in the way applications are featured inside themes. The Modular app block in Shopify Store 2.0 makes it even easier than the earlier version of Shopify to install, manage, integrate, and deploy apps into online Stores. In the Shopify Store 2.0, apps are delivered onto a page in blocks located in a sidebar and provide instant connectivity to any sales resource right from the Storefront.

App developers may now create UI components that can be added, deleted, and modified directly in the theme editor without touching the theme's code. You can completely and easily uninstall redundant apps, as ghost code is instantly eliminated.

Store 2.0 provides a variety of modular app blocks for consistent looks and functionality across apps. Store 2.0 also automatically configures the app block on the Storefront, allowing you to turn any core page into an individualized, customized Store. 

This makes it possible for team retailers to manage their inventory data and deliver powerful, rapid-order matching. The new Shopify version helps make Store and brand management easy and efficient, so you'll enjoy a low-cost operation and few hiccups along the way while increasing sales and profit. App blocks are not intended to be additional components of an app. In addition, it doesn't expose custom code through an API, instead of performing actions transparently directly on the Storefront.

5. Improved Developer Tools for Efficiency

Store 2.0 introduces a wide range of improvements that positively impact and improve the performance of users, developers, and merchants. Developers can access the Shopify API that is more purpose-built for developers. Site owners can generate, host, and control eCommerce Stores with more efficiency and power of customization. Below are the Shopify Developer tools included in Store 2.0:

• Shopify GitHub integration
• Updated Shopify CLI tool
• Theme Check developer tool for debugging
• Ability to add liquid code directly into the Theme Editor
• Sandbox environment for local theme development tool

Shopify GitHub Integration

Shopify GitHub integration developer tool in Store 2.0: The Shopify GitHub integration developer tool in Store 2.0 will replace the current check-out system with full integration between Shopify POS and your favorite workstation or a third party check-out service. This will allow users to download and use third-party provider apps for adding, withdrawing, and making changes with ease. It also makes it easier for developers to collaborate with code, tracking issues, and coding together on Shopify.  Users will have new opportunities to offer products online through their favorite web-based Stores, enabling consumers to pay securely and apply funds with less effort.

Updated Shopify CLI Tool

The Shopify Console developed by the Shopify engineering team has many benefits. From faster updates to migration, the update makes all aspects of a Store quicker and easier. Previously, there was no way to update an existing Store without creating a new Store first. With this change, you can now modify your Store without making major changes to your site.

The Updated Shopify CLI tool in Shopify Store 2.0 allows Store builders to re-integrate Store functionality into their apps, making them more customizable for specific types of Stores. The improved CLI in 2.0 makes it easy for developers to work together. The functionality and features of the tool have been extended with common command options, importing payments, enhanced documentation, and more. The making of feature images for Shopify's Shopify API has been processed; the tool will allow developers to seamlessly add Store branding into deployed apps.

Theme Check Developer Tool For Debugging

The Theme Check developer tool in Store 2.0 is a built-in element of Shopify's customization tools. It allows developers to test design ideas in real-time while being edited live on the site. This tool integrates with text editors like Visual Studio Code. It detects a variety of issues in theme code, such as Liquid syntax mistakes, missing templates, performance difficulties, and more. The features of the tool include:

• Drag and drop functionality: easily move elements around the theme without manually editing code.
• Improved styling: The new theme check feature makes Store styling easier. 
• Auto-linking component: This stores and automatically links styles with the Store's theme. 
• A synced feature: It allows Store's theme to be synced to all apps – so any customizations devs make from App to App will be accounted for. 
• Finally, Theme Check will automatically create new CSS when needed, which will save developers time while keeping the Store's theme fresh and up-to-date.

Sandbox Environment for the Local Theme Development Tool

The Sandbox environment for the local theme development tool in Store 2.0 allows local theme development without installing a theme. If a theme does require configuration data files to be installed, these can be generated automatically under the theme directory. Furthermore, themes in the Sandbox environment also support optional configuration data files via the YAML file syntax or in the theme directory. These third-party files can be referenced and processed directly in the theme file under theme configuration.

6. Check-out Apps Rolled out to Shopify Merchants

Store 2.0 also rolled of front-end check-out apps. Shopify's customers can use the merchant's apps built with the new Shopify check-out to receive gifts and make purchases across sales channels. Check-out apps enhance the customer shopping experience and put more control over the sales process in the hands of merchants. Some of the most popular check-out apps integrated into Store 2.0 are:

• Sticky Add To Cart BOOSTER PRO
• Fast Check-out In One Click
• Language Translate ‑ Transcy 
• Terms and Conditions Checkbox
• Slide Cart ‑Sticky Cart Drawer
• Monster ‑ Cart Upsell Drawer
• Buy Me ‑ Buy Button
• Order Cancellable
• One-Click Upsell & Cross-Sell
• Wrapin ‑ Gift Wrap & Options

7. Improved Meta Fields for Enhanced Store flexibility

Meta fields are extra pieces of data that can be assigned to specific parts of Shopify products, allowing product touches to be customized based on multiple variables. Shopify formerly only permitted the page title and a single rich text editor for page content on any page, product, or collection. 

Meta fields can also be designed as comments underneath a certain product. In Online Store v2.0, merchants can easily make changes to meta fields by importing changes back into the Store, removing any previous content, and relaunching to see the updated content. 

In Store 2.0, items like images can be uploaded with no APIs, coding, or hassle to maintain or make changes. Edit existing images or add new ones directly into Shopify using the compelling image editor, and they'll automatically appear in your Store.

There are various techniques you can modify meta fields in Store 2.0:

• Meta fields are more adjustable than other types of fields. This allows one to input commerce data safely.
• Standard meta fields, which make it easier for custom themes to begin working on Stores across market verticals right away.
• Presentation tips: You may provide presentation hints to meta fields to render Store data.

Conclusion

Shopify is constantly innovating ways to improve the shopping experience for its users by providing new tools, APIs, and online markets. The newly launched Online Store 2.0 is a big update to their eCommerce software platform.

This momentous new change occurred without downtime or disruption across all existing merchants (plus, according to Shopify, this means a 1000% reduction in downtime variability). The updated tools and features included improvements, including an upgraded developer experience, a Command-Line CLI chat tool, and many fantastic upgrades.

To improve merchants' and shoppers' conversion rates, Shopify's decision to transition from the older eCommerce system in use before Store 2.0 to a brand-new architecture designed entirely around speed and scalability was a refreshing paradigm shift.

Curious about how your business could perform on Shopify's platform? Book a call with one of our eCommerce veterans, and we'll give you a free assessment.

FAQ

What is Shopify Store 2.0?

Shopify Store 2.0 is an enhanced retail experience for Shopify merchants who want to give their customers a more customized shopping experience online. Store 2.0 introduces several new cool features. It comes with significant modifications and upgrades aimed to make it more flexible, efficient, and scalable.

Can I upgrade my existing eCommerce site to Shopify Store 2.0?

Yes, you can upgrade your existing Shopify Store to 2.0. There are numerous ways to make the transition:

• From the Shopify Theme Store, download the Online Store 2.0 theme: by installing a new theme from the Shopify Theme Store.
• Download the most recent version of your theme: If your theme has an updated version that supports Online Store 2.0, you can manually install the newest theme version to your Store.
• Manually migrate your current theme: Migrate your current theme templates to the new architecture to add Online Store 2.0 capabilities to your theme.

Is Store 2.0 the same as Shopify Plus?

There is a massive difference between Shopify Plus and Store 2.0. Shopify Plus is an extended version of 1.0 to accommodate more features, specifically designed with high volume, enterprise-level brands in mind. In contrast, Store 2.0 is a major upgrade in the second version of the Shopify brand. It is an excellent option for those sellers who need features that Shopify Plus does not provide. Key features of Store 2.0 include:

• Quicker Load Times
• New themes with sections on all pages for more bespoke Stores
• Improved UI on Theme Editor for ease of use
• Modular app blocks with enhanced configuration
• Improved developer tools, so developers can work more efficiently
• Check-out apps rolled out to Shopify merchants
• Improved meta fields for enhanced Store flexibility

Is Shopify Store 2.0 worth the upgrade?

Upgrading to Shopify Store 2.0 benefits range from flexibility, functionality, easy customization, and a streamlined Shopify order management platform. This turns your online Store into a robust eCommerce system that can fulfill orders, manage inventory, and fill orders.

The bottom line is that Store 2.0 will give you the tools, know-how, and infrastructure to grow your business on the cutting edge of technology.

If you want to take your online business to the next level and be introduced to a range of amazing features, you’ll probably love Shopify Store 2.0.

Is Shopify Store 2.0 stable?

The newly launched Shopify Store 2.0 is stable for both online consumers and merchants. Shopify's guarantee of 99.8 percent uptime is critical for online store dependability. Customers from all over the world will be able to visit your Store at any time.

SSL certificates are available at any store, increasing security and confidence. Over a million merchants utilize Shopify to run their online stores, from tiny companies to large corporations.

What themes are compatible with Shopify Store 2.0?

Dawn is Shopify's current official Online Store 2.0 theme that has been open-sourced for developers to start exploring and expanding on. This theme is built for speed and flexibility. The other themes compatible with the latest Store 2.0 update are Vanilla, Carbon, Indigo, and Indigo Light. 

Is 2.0 faster than Shopify vintage?

There is no disputing the speed difference between the recently released Store 2.0 to the  Shopify vintage. Store 2.0 is a major upgrade, and new customers that opt for it will experience a high speed in launch time and customization compared to Shopify vintage.

Will upgrading to 2.0 help me attract more clients?

If you haven't already, upgrading to Store 2.0 will give your Store a new look and help create a better first impression for your visitors. Not only is it typically cheaper to use Store 2.0 than make any customizations yourself, but it should bring in more traffic.

Does Store 2.0 require any updates to my site?

Everything is pretty self-explanatory, except that you may need to make a small adjustment in your prices for a Store 2.0 update. This maintenance update brings Store 2.0 to date with the latest versions for this new API.

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Photos courtesy of Shopify

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