Shopify Winter Edition 2026: The No-BS Breakdown

Don't get disappointed )) #

Not everything is live yet! Shopify's Winter Edition 2026 has been announced with a range of new features and improvements. However, it's important to note that not all features are live yet.

Some updates are still in development or scheduled for future release.

Sidekick - blah blah blah #

Shopify continues pushing its AI sidekick; it is basically ChatGPT integrated into the Shopify dashboard. Yeah, it can be helpful sometimes, but of course, nothing groundbreaking. We would say sometimes it is more time-consuming than helpful.

Everyone has AI in their dashboard these days, so Shopify had to do it as well.

Ah, yeah, also...

Using Sidekick, Shopify owners can make custom blocks in their themes. It seems helpful, maybe for new merchants, but when your store is becoming a little complex, then developers should be involved anyway, because the code generated and the functionality is clumsy at best.

Shopify Agentic Storefronts - pff #

Manage how your brand appears to the millions of users shopping in AI chats. Your products are discoverable right in ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity, with other channels coming soon.

Kind of your store in AI chats, again, some bubble, but we will see how it goes. And it's not available yet, so we don't focus on it much.

Shopify Native A/B, and AI Testing #

They are promising some native A/B testing and also theme changes scheduling, but again, nothing is live yet, so we will see how it works when it is live. The app is called Rollouts by Shopify.

It was a shame that Shopify did not have an A/B test tool, and it gave false hopes to A/B testing apps. When Shopify rolls out its own solution, those services will be in trouble.

Shopify SimGym app Simulate shopper behavior with AI agents that use data from billions of purchases, and get actionable recommendations before going live.

Yet another AI tool, which is available in the Shopify app store as Shopify SimGym.

They say... SimGym uses AI shoppers to simulate customer behavior on your storefront. This allows you to test new ideas, redesigns, or campaigns without risk.

It provides insights on metrics like add-to-cart rates, cart value, and navigation patterns before you make changes live. Currently in AI Research Preview.

Some other small new things:

• More Variants: You can now have up to 2048 variants for a single product.
• Theme & Storefront: The Horizon theme got a bunch of upgrades. AI can help you build a custom store and suggest a domain name. Finding themes is also easier.
• Product Management: You can now "unlist" products, duplicate collections, and set compare-at prices right from the admin.
• Customer Accounts: Logins are smoother with options for the Shop app, social accounts, and passcodes. Plus, customers can finally edit their own email addresses.
• Targeted Discounts: You can create automatic discounts for specific customer groups, like your VIPs.

Okay, ask your intern or junior marketing specialist to test it. Maybe it can give some insights, but again, nothing groundbreaking.

Let's move forward...

Tinker - WTF #

Some Tinker, again an AI thing, they say:

An app where entrepreneurs can play with the latest AI tools in a single place.

Okay... seems like a collection of AI tools in one app, nothing special. Really, Shopify?

Yeah, not available yet again )))

Retail - new PC ))) #

They have a new powerful computer and we can pre-order it now. The keyword here is pre, not available yet ))) The entire edition seems to be more about pre-orders and announcements, not actual features live yet.

Shopify Product Network - What? #

They say:

Fill merchandise gaps by choosing to instantly surface products from other Shopify brands in your search, collections, emails, and post-purchase pages, and earn a commission on every sale. US only.

Okay, if someone searches for something and can't find it in your store, you can show products from other Shopify stores and earn a commission on that.

Like wtf, why would I want to do that? I want to sell my products, not someone else's.

Shopify is pushing its "Shop Campaigns everywhere" feature, which lets your products show up on other stores' pages. We get that Shopify dreams of being the next Amazon, but why would any store agree to that? No, thank you. There are also some SMS marketing updates. On a positive note, Shopify Forms can now auto-translate into 19 languages, which is a good job. They've also added some segmentation updates and a dynamic email feature to show bestsellers, something Klaviyo has been doing for a long time. Finally, you can now track customers on their account pages, but let's be real, 90% of Shopify customers use guest checkout, so...

Checkout - We Are Tired... #

They say:

Convert customers with personalized checkout experiences and more payment options.

First, Shopify removed all customization options from checkout, then added some minor customizations via a very hard way to implement and presented it as a big feature.

Nothing new was introduced, can be ignored completely. Let's move on...

Operations, Shop app, B2B #

Some blah blah about operations, how you can update inventory from your Apple Watch, you can filter bots, yet they can't even fight against them till now, but we can filter them, wow...

Some updates in Flow, then again about the Shop app, this is their Amazon wannabe, where they want to aggregate all Shopify stores and make their own marketplace. No, fuck off Shopify, we don't need your marketplace.

For B2B, again they are pushing their Shopify Collective, again some centered place to group all merchants. Shopify pushes this idea very hard.

Finance & Shipping #

On the finance side, there are several updates, though many are limited to the US. These include a Capital flex account for continuous funding, auto-transfers in Balance to split payouts, and staff cards with spending controls. Shopify Capital is also expanding to the Netherlands, Spain, and Ireland. Other US-only features are same-day ACH transfers, higher cashback rewards with Shopify Credit, and dynamic credit limits that adjust with your sales. They're also offering credits on USDC payments in the US, Mexico, and Hong Kong.

For shipping, you can now create FedEx return labels with pay-on-scan rates in the US and set a default package per variant for more accurate shipping rates. Shopify has added more carriers like Royal Mail (UK), Australia Post, and DHL Express (Canada) directly in the admin. For cross-border shipping, DHL Express and Canada Post DDP/DDU labels are now available. Finally, a new "in-progress" status has been added to better track order fulfillment.

Development #

They repeat here the same thing for Agentic Storefronts, and Shopify Dev MCP, which by the way works very shitty, some admin API updates, which are very hard to understand, as their documentation is very unclear and outdated.

Tangle Yet another visual AI experimentation platform for developers with a visual editor. I don't know who will use it, but whatever...

Minis Build Shop Minis to create immersive shopping experiences, such as virtual try-on and live shopping, and distribute them directly to Shop app users. Again, not sure what this is, but sounds useless...

And then they put some list of development updates. There is an impression they just took some text from the Shopify documentation and pasted it here, just to have something.

Roasting Conclusion #

Overall, Shopify's Winter Edition 2026 looks like they did not do anything and they just tried to repackage some existing features and announce some future stuff, also non-existing features presented as live features.

The only cool thing is the Edition page animations. Maybe they have kept all their focus on that and did not have time to do work on the things they have announced. ahahah

The only thing which here is worth waiting for is the A/B testing feature, because now we have to use third-party tools. Usually, Shopify native ones are better, so let's wait for it.

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