Hi. I'm Art Director and CMO Sato.

I attended Shopify’s “Shopify Unite” e-commerce conference in Melbourne, Australia from October 26 to 27, 2022.

With Shopify Unite, we’ve seen a lot of announcements about new features in the past. Since this year our product updates will be announced online twice per year (Shopify Editions), we’re currently in three cities around the world, with a focus on deep dive into new features and specific implementation methods for developers, from partnership examples in those regions to future prospects, and of course partner networking.

In this article, I would like to introduce Shopify Unite with a lot of photos from venues and cities so that you can experience Shopify Unite.

From Japan to Melbourne

On October 24, I went to Melbourne by night flight from Narita and was personally the first time I visited Singapore since 2019 before the coronavirus.

They arrived in Melbourne the next morning.
I bought a SIM card at the airport and went to the city while feeling nostalgic about the sense that "air is different" unique overseas.

Melbourne is a city with bright contrasts between buildings and greenery

Shopify has chosen Melbourne as the host city of Unity alongside Toronto and London.
The first impression was that a city with bright contrast between skyscrapers and greenery.

Although the building is lined up, it is spacious and unoppressed; there are greenery everywhere in the city and a large park was impressive.

Australia is a place of development for cafe culture, where you can have delicious coffee at local cafés, while visiting the cafe and thinking about Shopify Unite the next day.

Travel in the city is on foot and with free trams.

There were countless graffiti and street art in the city.

It is also fun to look back in the alley.

The historical library was also spectacular.

Shopify Unite Report

On the second day of arrival, Shopify Unite will be held.

The location was held at the Timber Yard, a 20-minute drive from downtown.

From Shopify, we have North American teams and members of the APAC area who are often seen at online events.

Participants included the agency responsible for building stores and app development partners, who came from Australia, Singapore, India, Japan, Taiwan and other APAC areas.

What's New at Shopify Unite

Here are a few of the announcements from Shopiy Unite.

Keynote: The Importance of Partner Community

In the keynote, there was a mention of the importance of partners in Shopify’s ecosystem.

Checkout Extensibility: Customizing the Checkout Screen

Checkout Extensibility, which allows for safe customization of checkout screens that have historically been highly constrained by security, is initially limited to Plus but allows you to add cross-cell offers, custom banners and additional input items.

There was a more detailed introduction to this feature, which is noteworthy because it’s close to conversion points (purchase).

Enhanced CMS Features and Content Platforms

Shopify’s CMS capabilities are greatly enhanced, allowing you to manage and make use of metafield data cross-cutting.
This is expected to lead Shopify’s use as a platform, depending on the idea.

The beta registration was also started for participants on the day.

Shopify Functions Can Modify Backend logic

Functions lets you customize Shopify’s back-end logic as a native feature, not an app.

The company says it’s launching a “discount”-related feature on the day, which will include “payment methods” and “delivery,” as part of its future plans.

This is available for all plans.

Establishing a Shopify Development Environment

Polaris, a design framework for Shopify apps, has partnered with Figma to provide powerful back-up for app development that adopts new features announced at Unity such as the ability to output designs in code and the Shopify CLI command line tool (extension) for development.

As a backdrop for these development environments, it was not possible to cover all the use cases of merchants around the world with native features, so the importance of partnering on functional development was discussed.

Shopify Apps Needs Aimed at the APAC Area

The APAC area’s notable needs include:The possibility of an app to meet these needs was mentioned.

• OMO
• invoice
• local delivery
• Purchasing options (pre-order, trial, etc.)

Hydrogen, a Headless Commerce Framework

There were sessions and workshops on Hydrogen, a headless commerce framework provided by Shopify.

In the session, we will focus on flexibility as an advantage of Hydrogen (headless commerce).

The future roadmap suggested that it would be more convenient to build and leverage Hydrogen, including integration with apps around storefronts.

We also spent some time explaining the differences when compared to server-side rendering, static site generators and Liquid construction.

Summary

With this Shopify Unite, I think it is clear that Shopify is aiming to become a “commerce operating system” that has become more prominent in the past by increasing its flexibility to accommodate merchants of various sizes and needs.

On the other hand, I felt that there was an effort to maintain consistency as a platform such as thorough application design guidelines for more items that can be customized.

As for metafields that have been greatly enhanced in recent years, the introduction of a content platform will dramatically improve convenience and extensibility, making it easier to do what you want: Functions can modify back-end logic.

However, in a situation where there is more work to be done, implementing features without planning can become too complex and costly for maintenance.

To properly organize and prioritize the business challenges of a brand or merchant, then select features.
We believe this is an important point to be designed and implemented by experts who are well versed in both business and development ways of delivering that functionality.

The whole conference was full of people who really liked commerce and building things around it, with a positive atmosphere.. With the Shopify language in common, we were able to communicate constructively with our first-time international partners on a flat basis.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with my domestic and international partners in the APAC area, as well as with Shopify, but it’s getting more exciting about Shopify going forward, and I liked Shopify even more (in that sense, I think its ability to boost the Shopify community is really impressive).

By the way, Mr. Thomas of Ship&co was on stage from Japan this time and the situation in Japan Shopify was also introduced.
In this book, we published an introductory book on the development of themes. Hello Shopify Themes It also debuted on Unity's screen.

By using Shopify as an operating system for commerce, it is expected that there will be cases that are introduced to the world from Japan.
As one of the people involved in Shopify, I would like to continue to do my best!

Photo by Shota Sato