The year 2016 will definitely be a year that a lot of people remember: many major world events, the tumultuous U.S. presidential election, and of course Pokemon Go. The world of eCommerce is no different, and Shopify has really introduced some interesting things this year. There isn’t time to talk about every single update and new feature that Shopify has introduced this year so we’ll focus on a few: Apple Pay Integration, Virtual Bots, Facebook Messenger integration, and SSL everywhere.
Apple Pay Integration
Shopify recently announced that they had begun the process of integrating Apple Pay across all their stores this fall. This has huge benefits to store owners as this can improve mobile conversion rates. Apple Pay increases checkout speed and thus increases the possibility of sales. Apple pay has been showing up at brick and mortar stores for a while now, so it was only a matter of time before it spread across the eCommerce world.
Virtual Bots
It’s pretty safe to say this is a feature that is unique to Shopify. And as a nerd, it’s pretty exciting. The first virtual employee that you can hire on Shopify is Kit. Kit will create Facebook Ad campaigns, create Instagram Ad videos, send personalized thank you notes, and help with your SEO. She’ll communicate with you as if she were a real person too, and even text you if you choose to enable it. She even has her own resume!
ABOVE: Kit’s resume.
Facebook Messenger Integreation
Facebook has become much more than a place to keep up with old friends, it’s now a way you can use your store to market at your customers. Shopify has taken this to the next level and made it so you can easily contact and engage your customers.
This new feature allows you to message your customers via the Facebook messenger. You can send them information on their orders, tell them about new products, and send them notifications when a popular product comes back in stock. It’s a very unique feature and Shopify is really the only platform to implement it in this way.
SSL on all pages
SSL is traditionally just used on the checkout page to establish trust during the checkout and payment process. Many sites are now treading towards using SSL on all pages. They are joining Facebook, Mozilla and Google to sponsor an initiative called “Let’s Encrypt.” This initiative is pushing many websites on be fully encrypt their site with SSL.
With so many unique features and interesting developments in the world of Shopify just in the first half of this year, it’ll be very interesting to see what’s to come in the closing months of 2016.
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