Shopify drops two major Editions each year—one in January and one in June—consolidating product updates, infrastructure improvements, and platform announcements into a single release moment. Winter '25 is the largest Edition in recent memory, with updates across checkout, international commerce, developer tools, AI, and operations.
Here's the practitioner's guide to what actually matters.
Checkout Speed: The Foundation Everything Else Builds On
The headline infrastructure improvement in Winter '25 is a 50% reduction in cart loading time. Shopify has rebuilt core storefront rendering, and the performance gains compound across every other checkout feature announced in this edition.
Why this matters more than it sounds:
Every 100ms of checkout latency costs roughly 1% in conversion rate. A 50% speed improvement on a checkout that was already best-in-class is a meaningful conversion lift for most Shopify Plus stores—without any configuration changes required. It's automatic.
On top of raw speed, Winter '25 expands Checkout Extensibility to the thank-you page and order status page. This is significant because the post-purchase journey—previously a developer dead zone—becomes a customizable conversion surface. Use cases include post-purchase upsells, subscription upgrade prompts, loyalty enrollment, and review requests—all in Checkout blocks, no hacks required.
Managed Markets: Global Commerce Finally Makes Sense
International expansion has historically been one of Shopify's weaker spots compared to purpose-built cross-border platforms. Winter '25 changes that calculus substantially with Managed Markets improvements.
What Managed Markets Handles Automatically
Duty and import tax calculation at checkout (DDP)
Local payment method enablement by market
Currency conversion with market-specific pricing rules
VAT invoice generation for B2B customers
Cross-border shipping label and customs documentation
Localized domain routing and language assignment
Tax compliance in 175+ markets
Consolidated reporting across all markets
The VAT invoice update is particularly notable for B2B operations. European B2B customers require compliant VAT invoices to reclaim tax—this was previously a manual headache or required third-party integration. Shopify now generates these automatically, removing a meaningful barrier to B2B expansion into EU markets.
Developer Experience: GraphQL Becomes the Primary API
Winter '25 marks a definitive milestone in Shopify's API strategy: GraphQL is now the primary API. The REST API isn't going away immediately, but Shopify has announced that new functionality will be GraphQL-only going forward.
What GraphQL-first means for development teams
New features won't be in REST
Any integrations relying solely on REST will miss functionality released post-Winter '25
Better performance for complex data fetching
GraphQL allows fetching multiple resource types in a single request, reducing API calls and latency
Migration timeline: start now
Brands with extensive REST integrations (custom apps, ERPs, warehouse systems) should begin GraphQL migration planning
Webhook improvements
Enhanced webhook payloads and new event types make real-time integrations more reliable
Hydrogen & Oxygen Improvements
For brands running headless on Shopify's Hydrogen/Oxygen stack, Winter '25 brings performance improvements to the rendering layer and expanded developer tooling. Edge caching improvements reduce time-to-first-byte for international visitors—complementing the Managed Markets global commerce improvements on the storefront side.
Shopify Sidekick: AI That Actually Helps Operations
Sidekick—Shopify's AI assistant built into the admin—gets meaningful capability upgrades in Winter '25. The expansion moves it from answering documentation questions to executing operational tasks.
What Sidekick Can Do Now
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Generate and apply discount codes based on natural language instructions
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Surface insights from store analytics ("which products are trending this week?")
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Draft product descriptions using store context and brand voice
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Answer complex admin questions without leaving the current page
Current Limitations
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Cannot execute bulk operations across large catalog changes
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Limited to Shopify admin context—no cross-platform integration
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Marketing campaign execution still requires manual confirmation
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English-only interface currently
Shopify Flow: Automation Gets More Powerful
Flow—Shopify's no-code automation tool—receives one of its most substantial updates in Winter '25. The changes make complex multi-step automations more accessible to non-technical operators.
Winter '25 Flow Improvements
New trigger types
B2B-specific triggers including company creation and price list changes; expanded product lifecycle triggers
Improved conditional logic
Nested conditions and multiple branch handling without hitting complexity limits
Metafield actions
Read and write metafields directly from Flow automations—opens up complex business logic without code
Better error handling and logging
Flow runs now surface failure reasons clearly, making debugging automations much faster
B2B Improvements: Building on the Headless B2B Foundation
B2B commerce on Shopify has been one of the platform's fastest-moving areas since the Summer '23 Edition. Winter '25 continues that trajectory with several operational improvements.
Company hierarchies
Better support for multi-location B2B customers—a single company can now have multiple locations with different pricing, payment terms, and shipping addresses without workarounds
Net payment terms improvements
Net 30/60/90 terms are now more configurable, and the draft order flow for B2B has been streamlined to reduce friction in the sales rep workflow
Price list flexibility
More granular price list controls including quantity-break pricing at the variant level and improved API access for dynamic pricing integrations
VAT invoice generation
Automatic VAT invoice generation for EU B2B transactions—a critical requirement for European B2B buyers and previously a significant gap in Shopify's B2B offering
Operational Improvements Worth Knowing
Beyond the headline features, Winter '25 includes dozens of smaller improvements that add up to meaningful operational efficiency gains:
Bulk product editing improvements in admin
Improved search relevance in Shopify admin
POS receipt customization expanded
Subscriptions API improvements for app developers
Faster theme editor save times
Returns improvements for mixed-item orders
Better multi-location inventory routing
Analytics dashboard improvements and new metrics
Expanded metafield definitions and validations
Shop Pay Installments expanded to more regions
What This Means for Your Store in 2025
Winter '25 is a strong platform release, but not every update requires action. Here's a prioritization framework:
Act on this now
- • Post-purchase checkout extensions — if you're doing post-purchase upsells via third-party apps, evaluate migrating to native Checkout blocks
- • Managed Markets evaluation — if international markets are a 2025 goal, this is the most capable version of the feature yet
- • Flow audit — review existing automations and explore new trigger types that may eliminate manual processes
Plan for this in Q1/Q2
- • GraphQL migration assessment — inventory all REST API integrations and prioritize migration for anything business-critical
- • B2B feature review — if you run B2B, audit which new capabilities reduce workarounds in your current setup
Monitor but no action needed
- • Sidekick AI — useful for day-to-day admin tasks but not yet capable enough to replace dedicated operations tooling
- • Checkout speed improvements — these are automatic; no configuration needed to benefit
The consistent theme across Winter '25 is Shopify doubling down on the areas where it has the most to gain: international commerce, B2B, developer experience, and AI-assisted operations. For brands on Shopify Plus, the platform is getting meaningfully more capable with each Edition—and the gap with alternative platforms continues to widen.
If you want a review of how Winter '25 applies specifically to your store and tech stack, our team is available for a consultation. We work exclusively in Shopify and BigCommerce and can give you a grounded assessment of what to prioritize.
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