Shopify launches ‘more intuitive search’ and other upgrades

Shopify, the giant platform that powers many webstores globally, has launched its Winter 24 upgrade edition with what its says are “100+ innovations to drive retail growth”.

Importantly, it has unveiled “a new AI-powered storefront search feature”, Semantic Search. With the way customers search “rapidly changing, this new storefront feature goes beyond keyword matching to better understand the buyer’s intent by giving them the ability to formulate search queries in a more intuitive way that provides richer and more relevant search results that can help drive conversions”.

So, if a buyer inputs “what would I wear skiing in freezing temperatures”, the algorithm “will recognise that they are looking for something warm, surfacing results based on that intent even if there is no exact keyword match”.

The company said its previously released Magic AI tools “have already made a significant impact on UK merchants”.

Also new this time is Subscriptions, a free app that “gives merchants the ability to set up and manage their subscriptions directly through Shopify”. And it makes accessing favourite brands “easier for consumers too, with the flexibility to modify their subscription orders directly from their user account, such as skipping an order or updating their payment details”.

Meanwhile, there are two new features “designed to make wholesale customers feel like individuals”. Headless Storefronts allows merchants to create “customised buyer experiences”. They can build “headless B2B storefronts that offer unique experiences for wholesale customers, while still using their preferred tech stack”. 

They can also use Shopify’s APIs and developer tools to enable B2B checkouts and access personalised products and prices within their headless stores.

And it’s launching Sales Representative Permissions for B2B merchants, which “enables them to assign sales teams to customers and streamline operations through one unified platform”. Sales reps can use the platform to place orders and view important customer information for their assigned customers, all within Shopify.