As one of the most popular e-commerce providers, Shopify already has a lot to offer online entrepreneurs. Now, version 2.0 features an even better platform to help business owners fully leverage and customize Shopify for their needs. These changes allow for clearer branding, a more seamless customer experience, and easier shop management. Here’s why your e-commerce business should upgrade to Shopify 2.0.
Better Customizability
Shopify’s attractive, customer-friendly themes came with a major downfall: they were extremely difficult to customize for anyone who wasn’t a specialized Shopify theme developer. Moreover, only the homepage could have custom sections, and developers had to bring in third-party apps to implement additional functionalities.
That’s changed now with Shopify 2.0, where each page can have a unique configuration of custom sections. Each page type corresponds to a JSON template file including the desired sections, so developers can not only customize each page but also map different templates to different product groups.
This allows online shop owners to curate product collections and drive customers to targeted pages — and therefore boost their conversion rates.
Advanced Content Management and Auto-Population
As demonstrated by e-commerce giants such as Amazon, online shops perform best when content can be dynamically loaded for each audience segment, date/time, and other unique contexts. Shopify now allows this flexible content loading through a FIles API. Developers can configure apps and theme elements to pull in select media and text rather than hardcoding them. Content can be loaded for specific use cases e.g. only on certain category pages, allowing for a more immersive, conversion-friendly e-commerce experience.
For example, developers now have a wide range of metafields to add to the theme, so shop managers can plug in size charts, ingredient lists, and other custom content. Previously, these details would have to be entered into a standard block or hardcoded into the theme. Shopify 2.0 makes it much simpler to add and manage rich content to the site, creating a more valuable shopping experience.
A Developer-Friendly Integration
To support all these new advanced theme development capabilities, Shopify 2.0 also now supports GitHub integration and ThemeCheck. Developers can fork theme code, control versions, and copy code snippets from theme to theme. There is also a sandbox environment for local theme development.
These new integrations better align with professional developers’ workflows and help prevent errant changes to the live Shopify site. Github can now be the central workspace for pushing and pulling theme code so developers can safely make changes and collaborate with other developers.
Faster Hosting and Loading
Speed is more important than ever. A slow e-commerce store is a poor-converting store. Unfortunately, the bloated code in many Shopify themes dragged down the page load times and turned away potential customers. Shopify 2.0 now offers several speed-boosting updates, including:
Shopify 2.0’s new reference theme, Dawn, is reportedly 35 percent faster than the standard Debut theme from classic Shopify. That’s the theme that most merchants use. Developers are encouraged to learn from and modify Dawn upon upgrading to Shopify 2.0, or create their own theme using the platform’s new integration and extendability features.
Wrapping Up
E-commerce store owners who use Shopify have benefitted greatly from the platform’s streamlined aesthetic and simple page builders. Now, though, advanced customizability and lightning-fast page-loading are the keys to crafting an online store that draws in customers and presents them with a highly detailed, value-driven experience. In an age where fast-loading, user-friendly websites are crucial to converting customers and promoting a strong brand reputation, upgrading to Shopify 2.0 is an absolute must-have for your e-commerce business. Need assistance upgrading to Shopify 2.0? At NuEthic, our experienced developers can leverage the platform’s advanced customizability features and dynamic content loading to help you create the ideal shopping experience for your customers. Reach out to learn more.