Shopify just dropped Summer Editions 2025, and as always, it’s full of new features and updates. Here are my personal top 10 picks out of 150+ that I think you shouldn’t miss. Please note, I’m not a developer, so I focused on business and operational updates.
1. Horizon-powered Themes
The new theme system Horizon is an absolute game-changer and allows you to either build a theme from scratch using Sidekick AI or choose from the ten predesigned free themes.
The new theme system allows merchants to generate custom blocks via AI prompts (e.g., “Create a block offering relevant cross-sells”), making theme maintenance easier. Theme blocks can now be named, copied, and pasted across different pages.
Another feature I really like is the availability of a discount code field in the cart, so customers can enter discount codes even before proceeding to checkout.
2. Enhanced Sidekick AI
Sidekick has been a part of Shopify for some time, but honestly, I don’t think its usage or adoption by merchants was very high.
However, that should change with its latest update. Sidekick is now much more integrated with your store data and can help you answer questions like “Why are my sales down?” or “Which product should I put on sale?”—and it can actually perform the manual tasks for you.
It can also generate beautiful, realistic images for free, which are comparable with the ChatGPT 4o outputs (I guess Sidekick is actually using GPT 4o for image generation). See my example above, which shows very similar outputs in terms of quality and composition.
3. Redesigned Markets with B2B support
There have been quite a few updates to Shopify Markets (which really does seem to be called “Markets” now—it was previously sometimes referred to as “International,” which was honestly a bit confusing).
The idea behind Markets was great from the start, but the difficult setup made it hard to use and understand. That’s why I’m really happy with the new overview, which shows you exactly what you need—what currency, storefront, language, and payment options the customer sees.
Besides the overview, merchants can now create submarkets within existing markets (i.e., adding an extra level of depth). Customer accounts now retain the same market as the storefront, and markets are also available for B2B storefronts.
Note that the new Markets features are still in developer preview, with a full rollout expected by July 1, 2025.
4. Native pick lists
The Shopify Order Printer app now supports pick list printing and customization. The pick list can be organized by product or order, and includes SKU, quantity, and even product images to make fulfillment more efficient.
Pick lists are a significant segment among third-party apps on the Shopify App Store, so I’m curious to see if the free, Shopify-developed app will be able to compete with them and potentially save merchants some money.
5. Store credit refunds
When refunding a customer, you can choose whether to refund to the original payment method or to store credit (even if the order wasn’t paid with store credit).
This is great for maintaining your margins and improving cash flow. Unfortunately, you can’t refund more than the customer originally paid. Typically, you might want to offer an extra 5–10% when refunding to store credit to encourage customers to choose this option, but this isn’t available yet.
6. Apple Pay as a standard payment option
If you follow some of my recommendations, you probably know I was never a big fan of the “express checkout” buttons, as they can confuse customers rather than increase the conversion rate.
That’s why I’m really happy with the update that lists Apple Pay as a standard payment option, allowing customers to select it just like a credit card or any other payment method.
7. Shopify Payments in 16 new countries
Back in March, Shopify added support for Shopify Payments in 11 countries. They have since continued with further additions, bringing the total to 16.
The final list (for now) includes: Lithuania, Poland, Norway, Latvia, Hungary, Estonia, Malta, Croatia, Greece, Slovenia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Gibraltar, and Mexico.
Unfortunately, there is still no news about expansion into more countries in South America (such as Argentina, Brazil and Chile), Southeast Asia (including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam), Turkey, or India. There is still huge potential for growth by adding these markets.
8. Additional local payment methods
Having a local payment methods is a key for sucessfull expansion into new markets. Not everyone is having a credit card or PayPal. And Shopify has still some gaps in regions like Europe, South America, and South East Asia.
But it's great to see to the local payments on Shopify are growing. The latest additiion includes Przelewy24 and BLIK (very popular in Poland) together with TWINT, Swish and MobilePay.
Klarna is now also available in more countries, including Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Poland, and Slovenia.
9. Native VAT validation for EU & UK
VAT validation is pretty common in European e-commerce, especially in the B2B segment. If a company is purchasing from another EU country, they are eligible for a tax deduction if they present a valid VAT ID.
Previously, this was only partially solved using third-party apps, which, to be honest, weren’t always reliable. Now, VAT can be validated directly within the Shopify store admin, and tax is automatically deducted for EU and UK customer accounts.
I just hope VAT validation at checkout is in the pipeline!
10. Store performance reports
Performance in terms of page load times is crucial in e-commerce, which is why Shopify has introduced a new set of performance reports. You can now review the following data, which are part of the so-called Core Web Vitals:
- CLS: Cumulative Layout Shifts (over time, per page type, or page URL)
- INP: Interaction to Next Paint (over time, per page type, or page URL)
- LCP: Largest Contentful Paint (over time, per page type, or page URL)
What’s also great is that a quick performance snapshot is visible on the Online Store > Themes page, which you probably visit often as a merchant. This way, you’ll always know whether your store is performing fast or slow, and if its performance has changed recently.
Conclusion: Another Shopify Editions packed with a ton of new features
Personally, I think these Editions were above average and delivered a lot of new updates, some of which could dramatically change how we use the Shopify platform (think Sidekick or Horizon).
I purposely didn’t go into the technical/developer updates, but those look even more exciting (Next-Gen Dev Platform, MCP support, etc.) and have been covered by many on LinkedIn and X.
I still don’t understand how the Shopify team is able to release so many features, prepare a cool site, and even launch a dedicated game.
