330. Shopify Platform Updates: Summer 2025

Shopify’s summer 2025 release went live last week and we’ve got some big changes to talk about. While we cover the biggest and most exciting changes, I recommend you read the Shopify Editions Summer 2025 release page for all the details.

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Shopify’s Theme Blocks and Horizon Themes: The Biggest Release (That You Probably Don’t Need)

Let’s start with the biggest release, a new theme architecture called Theme Blocks. This is what Shopify’s new collection of 10 themes, including the flagship “Horizon” theme is based on. Like the introduction of Shopify 2.0, this is a pretty big overhaul of how themes work. 

Before I dive into the nitty-gritty, let me give you the most important piece of advice in this entire episode: You do NOT have to upgrade to this new theme architecture. Unless you already had a theme upgrade on your list this year, don’t let this new architecture release distract you from everything else you’ve got on your to-do list. Shopify 2.0 is still a thing, is still supported, and when I spun up a new development store Dawn is still the default theme that was installed. 

So again, unless you already had a theme update on the books in 2025, you don’t have to make any changes. 

With that said, let’s dive into what makes theme blocks different. 

What Makes Theme Blocks Architecture Different From Shopify 2.0

Unlike the section-first architecture of Shopify 2.0, blocks are now what themes are built on. So the theme will give you a standard set of blocks—image, heading, button, custom liquid, etc. Those blocks can be used anywhere in your theme. The sections you see in your theme customizer are essentially just preset layouts of those available blocks. Once you add the section to your theme, you can now add any block available to that section too. 

Additionally, because those blocks are technically independent of the section you added it to the block itself can be dragged from one section to another. Similar to how an email builder works. 

An example of this is a customization I teach in Shopify Secrets that allows you to add shoppable products to your blog posts. In Shopify 2.0, you add the custom code to the article template in your theme. In Theme Blocks themes, the article content actually lives in a block which then gets rendered in the article section. So instead of editing the article template, you’re editing an individual block. 

Another example of this is if you wanted to have a side-by-side image and sign-up form. Something you can use for your pre-launch sign up list so all the important information is above the fold. Not all themes include the option to add a custom liquid block to your image with text section. In Shopify Secrets, I show you how to create a new version of your image with text section that does include a custom liquid block so you can embed a sign up for from your email marketing platform. 

Well, in a theme block theme, (I wish they just called in Shopify 3.0) because blocks are independent of sections, you can already add a custom liquid block to any section you want. 

I will say in the case of the free Shopify themes, the custom liquid block doesn’t span the entire width of the section making the embed form super small. In that case, inside Shopify Secrets I show you how to not create a whole new image with text section, but instead how to create a custom liquid block that will use the full width of it’s container. 

So, in Shopify 2.0 you create a custom section, in Theme Blocks you create a custom block.

I know, this is a little hard to visualize, make sure you check the show notes for a video that gives you a glimpse into the theme blocks architecture, and I also put a screen shot of the embedded form width issue I’m talking about. 

AI Block Generation in Shopify Theme Blocks

One of the coolest features is the new AI block generator. Yep, you can use AI inside your theme customizer to create your own custom theme blocks. I was able to create a countdown timer that disappeared when the countdown was over. This could be super helpful to promote a sale or something similar. Because blocks are the building blocks of these themes, that means once you create it once, it can be used anywhere it your store. 

As cool as this feature is, I will say I can see A LOT of us wasting way too much time with this tool… especially in the beginning. While I was pretty impressed with the countdown timer I was able to create with a pretty simple prompt, it definitely needed some work in the styling department. Yes, it does allow for follow-up prompts, but it’s not fool proof. You will fare better if you really understand what to ask for and I also noticed in some cases it created settings that didn’t actually work. 

Point is… I think this is a really cool tool to use in a pinch, but be careful that you don’t go overboard with it. Focus on using what’s in your theme whenever possible, pay someone to build what you need, or buy something pre-made. Don’t get lost in the sauce tinkering because it feels productive. You could end up wasting a lot of time and your time is worth something, ya know?

Another reason not to rely on this is that each AI generated block creates a unique code file. This is great because it gives you direct access to that code for edits… but that likely means it won’t carry over when you upgrade to a new version of your theme. I haven’t seen anything mentioned either way for these AI generated blocks specifically, but that’s how it works now. If it’s in the theme customizer, it carries over. If it’s a new or edited code file, it does not. So if you create a whole bunch of custom blocks, that’s a lot of copying and pasting when you upgrade. 

Do Shopify 2.0 Sections Work in Shopify Theme Block Themes like Horizon?

So, what does this new theme architecture mean for any custom sections you’ve purchased in the past? Well if you’ve bought pre-made sections from a developer like QwiQode—I’ll stick my affiliate link and discount in the show notes—these will work as is on the new theme architecture. 

When you buy a section like this, in order to make it compatible with all themes, they include ALL the code necessary in the one section file. It’s not reading anything from your theme defaults. This means, the section does not have to be coded to work with the individual theme blocks in order to function. Sure, you won’t be able to add blocks to those custom sections like you can the default sections that come with your theme, but they will still render and function the same way they do on Shopify 2.0 themes. 

For the custom sections I give you in Shopify Secrets… for example, adding shoppable products to your Shopify blog posts, or creating a scheduled banner that shows and hides on a timer… these are created a little differently. 

Instead of giving you fully built-out sections that include all the layout and styling in one file, I show you how to customize existing sections from your theme. This way all of the styling and layout already match the theme you’re using, and you don’t have to spend time trying to get them to match. Because of this, the way my custom sections are implemented will be different on a theme block’s theme than a Shopify 2.0 theme. 

Anyway, yes, the way you build them is a little different, but those updates are still super simple to implement, and the directions are available inside Shopify Secrets.

Custom Sections in Shopify Theme Blocks

You can also create custom sections inside of your theme customizer. Because sections are now just essentially a collection of blocks, you can build your own. 

In my initial testing, it seems you can only create full-width sections and the elements have to be in the same direction. For example, let’s say you wanted an image banner with text and two buttons. You can have the buttons aligned next to each other while the heading was centered over them. You would need to tell all the elements to stack on top of each other or next to each other. 

It’s not the most helpful section builder, but maybe this is just the first iteration. I’ll be interested to see how it eventually evolves. 

Shopify’s Theme Block Themes Require New Customer Accounts

One of the downsides of the Theme Blocks themes is that they do require the use of the new customer account system, not the classic. 

If you’ve spent time adding sections to your customer account pages through your theme customizer, you’ll have to rely on an app to add that customization now. 

Recently I migrated a client to Shopify who sells wholesale through her store. We specifically kept her on classic accounts so that I could add dynamic content to her Shopify accounts. We have some dynamic content that will appear to logged-in customers if they have the wholesale tag. This was done through sections in her theme customizer. 

Shopify has been changing the way merchants can customize these default pages, customer accounts, checkout, thank you, etc. You probably got an email recently saying old customizations for checkout will be going away in August. 

The new system requires you to use apps that have built specific app extensions. For example, if you want to add a post-purchase upsell, you essentially just add an app block to your thank you and order status pages. Or you can add a block from your rewards app to tell the customer how many points they earned with their purchase. 

Well, customer accounts work the same way. If you want to edit the customer account pages, you need an app that offers a pre-built extension. 

While most of the standard apps you use in your store only let you add information specific to that app, I found a Shopify app called Hubble that lets you add custom banners that will appear on the profile page when someone is logged into their account. They have a free tier to get you started, but have a few cool additional features for the paid tiers. 

For the wholesale example, I wouldn’t be able to fit all the information I could with a section in classic customer accounts, but it’s enough to put a banner with a button link telling them to click to another page to get more information. 

I know this is a super common use case, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned it. 

Should You Upgrade to a Shopify Theme Blocks Theme?

In most cases, the answer is no. The only people I would say need to think about learning the theme blocks themes are if you were planning a complete website redesign this year or you’re launching a new store on Shopify. 

And even then.. It’s not actually necessary if you prefer the 2.0 system or need to keep classic customer accounts. At the time of this recording, Shopify’s free 2.0 themes are still available and no paid themes have been released on the new architecture. I don’t know what the timeline for theme block releases for paid themes will be. Developers have had access to the developer preview for a couple of years… I think I first played around with it in 2023. I could have that wrong. I would imagine developers have them ready to go, but I don’t know the specifics of when they would be released so at this point you’d be limited to Shopify’s free themes. 

That could change a week from now, I really don’t know. 

In the meantime, you can install one of Shopify’s new themes on your store just to poke around and get a sense of how it works. But again, you don’t have to make any changes right now. 

Shopify’s Campaign Tracking Tool

The next big update and the one I’m most excited about is the release of Shopify’s Campaign Tracking Tool. You know I love to nerd out on some data, and this tool is going to make that so much easier for every Shopify merchant. 

This campaign tracking tool is a centralized hub that allows you to create and track your marketing campaigns across multiple channels. 

So, what does that mean?

Let’s say you’re a skincare brand running a Black Friday campaign. You’re running Facebook ads, sending emails, working with influencers, posting organically on social media, you’ve got a brick and mortar spa, and you’re doing a few pop-up in-person events at local markets in your area. 

Trying to get a 360 view of that campaign and how it performed can be difficult. You’d probably forget to create UTM parameters for all your unique links, things would get spelled differently so it wouldn’t group together in Google Analytics, and you’d probably need a spreadsheet to piece it all together. 

Well, with Shopify’s new campaign tool now you can bring it all together in one dashboard. 

How to Add Data to Shopify’s Campaign Tracking Tool

There are 3 different ways you can bring traffic data into a specific campaign. 

• You generate the links directly in the dashboard and generate QR codes
• You can auto-assign UTM parameters
• Manually add traffic tracked by Shopify

Generate Links & QR Codes Inside Shopify’s Campaign Tracking Tool

The first way to add data to your campaign tracking tool is to generate the links directly from the campaign dashboard. You set a destination for that link, let’s say your black friday collection, then you can your set your custom UTMs for that specific links. 

For example, you could create one link for each of your influencers, one link for your brick and mortar and one link for each of your pop-up markets. While you have both a full length and a shortlink that you can share, you can also generate a unique QR code for each link you create. 

QR Codes are great for any in-person events, but also work great for any printed materials like direct mail. 

Auto-Assign UTM Parameters to Shopify’s Campaign Tracking Tool

The second way to add data to your campaign in Shopify’s campaign tracking tool is to auto-assign specific UTM parameters to taht campaign. For example, let’s say in your email marketing platform you use the campaign BF2025 on all your emails. You can tell the campaign tracking tool in Shopify that any traffic that comes to your site using that UTM parameter should be attributed to this campaign. You can do the same thing with your meta ads. 

Manually Assign Traffic to Shopify’s Campaign Tracking Tool

Shopify also added a fail-safe allowing you to manually add traffic to this campaign tracking. This is great if you see a traffic source that you KNOW is related to this campaign but maybe you used the wrong UTM parameter, or forgot to include it at all. You’ll be able to scroll through a list of traffic sources and manually add it to this campaign tracking. 

Track the Same Traffic Source Across Multiple Campaigns

You can also track the same traffic source across multiple campaigns. So in addition to specific promotional periods like Black Friday or Mother’s Day, you can also group my marketing method. For example, let’s say you’re doing a bunch of pop-up markets throughout the year. You can create one campaign that tracks all the traffic that comes from links you shared at your in-person events. 

You could do the same for your influencers. Maybe you give them different links for different promotions and then a general one they can share the rest of the year. Well you can create another campaign in the tracking tool and see all your influencer efforts in one place. 

The only thing you’ll have to keep in mind is, let’s say you create a bunch of custom links in your Black Friday 2025 campaign. If you were to then create another campaign to say see all your in-person efforts in one place, you’d have to manually pull in whatever links you created for Black Friday specifically to the new campaign. 

What Data is Included in Shopify’s Campaign Reports Tool

Alright, so once you’ve got the data collected, what can you actually see? There are 9 data points that it will give you. 

• Revenue
• Number of orders
• Average order value
• Sessions

Then it breaks down: 

• Sales by channel
• Sales by UTM paramter
• Order by new vs. returning customers
• Revenue by order
• Items by order

You can also adjust the attribution model it uses, and it uses a 30-day attribution window. 

If you want to see it in action, head to Marketing > Campaigns in your Shopify admin. In my dev store, I can see traffic back to 2023, so you should be able to set up campaigns from your historical data. 

The one thing I’m unsure about at this point, because I haven’t had a chance to play with it in a live store with lots of data, is how accurate this tracking is going to be, specifically when it comes to email. I have noticed with every client I’ve worked with that Shopify does not accurately attribute revenue to email marketing. I have client’s who I know generate a ton of revenue from email, but Shopify shows next to nothing. And no, the discrepancy cannot be explained through different attribution models. 

I will be digging into this more and updating Shopify Secrets with this campaign tool, but just keep your eye on that as you start creating campaigns. 

Multi-Class Discounts: Order, Product & Shipping

Multi-class discounts mean you can finally create a single discount that works across products, orders, AND shipping. Like, you can offer 20% off products, $10 off the order, and free shipping all in one discount code.

The catch? It’s not built into Shopify natively and you have to use an app. On their updates page they specifically linked to 4 specific apps. 

• Discounty has a free plan, but you can’t assign discounts to specific customer segments, which limits its usefulness.

• Discount Kit is $50 a month for multi-class discounts, but you can target customers based on tags, which is way more powerful for segmentation.

• Abra offers private link promotions for free, but if you want public discounts for logged-in customers with specific tags, it starts at $99 a month. They do have built-in banner options to show customers their discount has been applied, which is nice.

• Stackable is $19.99 a month and can limit discounts to specific customers when using codes.

I just skimmed the surface with these so you’ll want to do your own due diligence to find the one that’s right for you. If you already have a custom discount app you love, check to see if they’ve released this functionality yet. If not, it’s probably coming down the pipeline. 

Shopify Collective: Add Dropshipping to Your Revenue Streams

Another exciting update, but one I recommend you take caution with is there is no longer a revenue requirement to use Shopify Collective, their platform for selling other brands’ products through your store,or you acting as a dropshipper. 

On one hand, this is great because it opens up the program to smaller brands who couldn’t qualify before. More variety, more opportunities for partnerships.

But here’s what you need to be careful about: this also means anyone who can open a Shopify store can become a supplier on Shopify Collective. 

Remember, when you sell products through Shopify Collective, the supplier handles fulfillment and customer service for those orders. If they don’t fulfill on time, if they send the wrong products, if they provide shitty customer service—that all reflects on YOUR store and YOUR brand, even though you have no control over it.

Before this change, there was at least some revenue threshold that suggested suppliers had some experience running an eCommerce business. Now? Not so much.

If you’re considering using Shopify Collective to expand your product catalog, I would stick with people you know first. When you’re ready to branch out, make sure you comb through their reviews looking for feedback on their shipping times, return policy, product quality, etc. I also recommend you place a test order or two so you can experience it all first-hand. 

Sidekick AI Gets Smarter (But Don’t Get Too Distracted)

Shopify’s AI assistant Sidekick got some pretty significant upgrades. It’s now available in 20 languages, works on the mobile app, can generate images, and has what they’re calling “advanced reasoning.”

The advanced reasoning part is actually useful—you can ask it to analyze your data and give you strategies for what to do next. It will direct you to Shopify blog articles, documentation, and even just give you recommendations in the chat.

If you’re trying to do something more technical in the platform, like set up a custom domain, you have a screenshare call with Sidekick, and it’ll walk you through the steps. 

When it comes to the image generation, this is another one I would say just be careful not to get sucked in trying to create the perfect image. Yes, there is a skill to creating prompts for this, and there is value for getting good at it. But make sure it’s worth your time. If you can’t get what you need quickly and you don’t really have the time to learn, don’t go crazy. Find an alternative and revisit the AI image generation another time. 

Shopify POS Updates

If you’ve got a brick-and-mortar location, there are some genuinely useful POS updates in this release.

Mixed fulfillment orders is probably the biggest one. You can now process carry-out and shipping in a single transaction. So if a customer wants to buy three items but you only have two in stock, you can sell them the two they can take today and ship the third one later, all in one order.

This is helpful for multi-location stores or if you’re doing pop-up markets and don’t have everything with you. Customer wants a different size that you don’t have at the market? Ship it to them from your main inventory and complete the sale in one translation. 

Store credit integration is another big one. You can now issue, accept, and refund store credit directly from POS. Remember, store credit is specific to new customer account.

The smarter search handles typos and alternative spellings better, which anyone who’s ever worked retail knows is desperately needed. Customers never spell things the way you think they will.

You can also capture SMS marketing consent right at checkout now, which is gold for building your marketing list from in-person customers.

Shopify Payments and International Expansion

A few quick hits on payment updates that might matter to you:

Apple Pay is now available as an accelerated checkout option through Shopify Payments without any additional setup. It even works for subscriptions now, which is super cooll.

Shop Pay Installments is available in Canada now, and Shopify Payments expanded to 16 more countries.

If you’re doing any international business, they’ve also added multi-currency payouts in Europe and Australia—you can get paid in up to 8 different currencies. Duties and taxes collection is now available in checkout for all plans, not just Plus.

Shopify Email and Analytics Improvements

Quick round-up of some smaller updates that could still be useful:

Email marketing got some nice quality-of-life improvements. You can now cancel campaigns even after sending starts, which has probably saved someone from a major mistake already. There’s automatic typo and broken link detection, which is honestly something that should have existed years ago. You can also include store credit balances in your marketing emails now.

Analytics got faster—the admin loads 30% faster, which everyone will appreciate. The mobile app has better analytics with the ability to run ShopifyQL queries on the go. Customer cohort analysis and benchmarking features are now available in the updated analytics experience.

Focus on What Moves Your Business Forward

I know that every time Shopify does one of these updates, you feel like you have to be paying attention to all the things. But the truth is, most of these updates are either small improvements to things you’re already using or solving problems you don’t actually have. 

Do your best not to get FOMO and just focus on the 1-3 updates that will really make a difference in your business. For most of you, that will for sure be the campaign tracking. For others, it might be the POS updates, and for others, it might be joining Shopify Collective and getting your product to more people. 

Like everything in business, it’s better to do fewer things well than a whole bunch of things poorly. Focus on the ones that solve the problems that are right in front of you and ignore the rest.

Listen to the Episode

Links Mentioned

Shopify Editions: Summer 2025

Hubble Shopify Customer Account Editor

Shopify Collective

Shopify Secrets Course

Qwiqode Shopify Sections* (Use Discount: Badass for 10% off)

Video Links

Shopify Theme Blocks Editor

Shopify Campaign Tracking Tool

Shopify Sidekick

Shopify POS

Multi-Class Discount Apps

Discounty

Discount Kit

Abra

Stackable