Every year, Shopify host a partner conference to announce all the new tools available to merchants. We've cherrypicked a few of the key announcements from Unite 2018 that we think will help merchants do faster, smarter and more successful business.
As of this year, merchants will be able to run marketing campaigns from within the Shopify Plus interface. Digital marketing can span multiple platforms and apps, which takes time to run and report from each. With the new Shopify Plus enhancements, merchants will be able to easily report on each campaign within the one interface, showing return on investment instantly. And based on your results and products, Shopify's intelligent marketing will recommend campaigns and activities to target the correct audiences to help you boost your sales.
This segments nicely into developments from Shopify Flow. Shopify Flow has automated many elements of a merchants day to day within the Shopify platform. At Shopify Unite, the team announced new Shopify Flow connectors that will allow merchants to connect third-party applications and integrate Shopify Flow with many more business processes. This means much more automation for merchants, freeing up valuable time. Workflows can be triggered by installed external apps, but the automation will be managed by Shopify Flow.
This has been a long time in the coming, and this autumn, Shopify Plus merchants will be able to sell in 9 currencies, without a multi-store setup. This is big news for merchants, so big we've dedicated a separate blog to it, you can read about the new Shopify multicurrency announcement here.
Shopify POS will now offer exchanges and refunds regardless of whether a customer bought online or in-store, allowing merchants to seamlessly transition between online and offline. This is interlinked with a new multi-location inventory view called Shopify Locations. WIth Shopify Locations, merchants will now be able to see and manage all their inventory from a single view, allowing brands to take advantage of opportunities on the move and streamline their backend process.
Discounting and retention offers are key for merchants looking to expand their loyal fan base. One key revelation from Unite, as of this week, merchants will be able to experiment with "Buy one, get one free" and quantity discounts (e.g. buy 2 get the third free). This can now be achieved natively through Shopify scripts and will give growing merchants more freedom to experiment using a rewards and discounts strategy.
Manually reviewing potentially fraudulent transactions takes time away from growing your business. Enter Fraud Protect for Shopify Payments. Fraud Protect automatically protects your orders, leaving you with fewer high-risk orders to manually audit. If chargeback fraud occurs on a protected order, Shopify will issue a refund and handle the dispute for you. Just a note, for the time being, this will be rolled out in USA & Canada, with views to expand to Europe early next year.
It's worth noting that these announcements will be rolled out over the coming months, with many set to launch in autumn. For the list of full announcements and to keep up with launch dates, visit the Shopify Plus blog.