- Use Shopify Flow to automate repetitive operational tasks.
- Replace Shopify Scripts with Shopify Functions because Scripts stopped working on June 30, 2026.
- Use Shopify POS when online and physical retail operations need shared inventory and customer data.
- Configure Markets for regional currencies, languages, catalogues and pricing.
- Evaluate third-party logistics providers through Shopify Fulfillment Network rather than assuming it is a Shopify-operated warehouse service.
- Use Shopify Messaging for segmented email and SMS campaigns.
- Treat apps, Liquid and Hydrogen as different levels of customisation with different costs and maintenance requirements.
- Confirm plan, country, and payment-provider requirements before implementing a feature.
Shopify includes tools for storefront management, automation, international selling, physical retail, marketing, and custom development. However, not every feature is relevant to every merchant, and some capabilities depend on the store’s plan, location, or technical architecture.
The right feature should solve a specific operational or customer problem. A retailer with physical locations may benefit from Shopify POS, while a merchant entering new countries may obtain more value from Markets. Hydrogen may be appropriate for a complex headless storefront, but unnecessary for a store that can meet its requirements with a standard Shopify theme.
This guide explains 12 Shopify features worth evaluating in 2026, including what each feature does, its important limitations and when it may be useful.
1. Shopify Flow: Automate Repetitive Tasks
What it is: Shopify Flow is a workflow automation app that responds to store events using triggers, conditions, and actions. It can automate processes across Shopify and compatible apps.
Why it matters: Flow can reduce repetitive administrative work involving orders, customers, inventory, fraud reviews, and product management. Its value depends on whether the workflow addresses an existing manual process.
How to use it: Install Shopify Flow, choose a template or create a workflow, and test it using controlled data before activating it. Examples include tagging high-value customers, notifying staff about low inventory, or routing orders according to defined conditions.
Important limitation: Flow is available on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. Some actions, including sending HTTP requests, require Grow or higher, while tasks created by custom partner apps require Plus.
Practical tip: Monitor workflow failures and document what every active workflow changes. An undocumented automation can create operational confusion later.
2. Shopify Functions: Customise Commerce Logic
What it is: Shopify Functions allow developers and eligible apps to extend Shopify’s backend commerce logic. They can support customised discounts, delivery options, payment methods and other defined use cases.
Why it matters: Functions execute within Shopify’s infrastructure and provide a supported replacement for many customisations previously handled through Shopify Scripts.
How to use it: Merchants can install an app built with Shopify Functions. Stores requiring proprietary logic can work with a developer to build a custom app, subject to the APIs and plan capabilities available for that function.
Important limitation: Shopify Scripts stopped executing on June 30, 2026. Stores that previously used Scripts must migrate the relevant logic to Shopify Functions or a supported app.
Practical tip: Document every existing Script’s purpose, conditions and affected customer experience before recreating it with Functions. Test discounts, delivery and payment behaviour using representative orders.
3. Shopify POS: Seamless Omnichannel Retail
What It Is: Shopify POS blends your online and in-store sales into one seamless system. Imagine effortlessly tracking inventory across your website and physical shop, ensuring customers get a consistent experience.
This unified setup saves you time, reduces mix-ups, and makes your business feel like a trusted, all-in-one destination.
Why It Matters: It delivers a seamless shopping experience that keeps customers happy. Picture a cosy coffee shop syncing its online and in-store inventory with Shopify POS, cutting stockouts by 30%.
This ensures your customers always find their favourites, boosting loyalty and making your store feel reliable and welcoming.
How to Use It: Easily set up Shopify POS hardware and sync it with Shopify Admin to streamline your sales. It’s like giving your store a central command centre for online and in-store operations.
Pro Tip: Tap into POS analytics to spot your top-performing locations and boost profits with data-driven decisions.
4. Shopify Markets: Manage Regional Experiences
What it is: Shopify Markets allows merchants to configure experiences for different countries, customer groups, retail locations or sales channels. Customisable elements include currencies, catalogues, pricing, domains, languages and tax settings.
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Why it matters: International customers may require localised product availability, pricing, language, delivery and tax information. Markets centralises many of these configurations within Shopify.
How to use it: Create a market, assign the relevant regions, and configure its catalogue, currency, domain, language, pricing, duties and taxes. Preview and test the experience before activating it.
Important limitation: Accepting payments in multiple currencies requires Shopify Payments or Adyen. Theme customisation by market requires Advanced or Plus, while some checkout customisation remains exclusive to Plus.
Practical tip: Do not activate a market until shipping rates, product availability, translations, returns and tax responsibilities have been reviewed.
5. Shopify Fulfillment Network: Connect With Logistics Providers
What it is: The Shopify Fulfillment Network app connects eligible merchants with third-party logistics providers that store inventory and fulfil orders. Supported providers include Flexport and other logistics partners.
Why it matters: A third-party logistics provider can help a growing business outsource storage, picking, packing and shipping. The Fulfilment Network app provides Shopify-based visibility into relevant inventory transfers and fulfilment activity.
How to use it: Install the Fulfillment Network app, review provider recommendations, confirm product eligibility and create an account with the selected provider. Inventory must then be transferred to the provider’s locations.
Important limitation: The app is currently intended for businesses fulfilling from the United States. Logistics providers charge separately for receiving, storage and fulfilment, and using their locations may create tax obligations.
Practical tip: Compare providers using total cost, supported products, warehouse locations, service levels, return handling and integration reliability, not delivery speed alone.
6. Shopify Collabs: Manage Creator Partnerships
What it is: Shopify Collabs helps eligible merchants recruit creators, create affiliate offers, send gifts, generate commission links and track partnership activity.
Why it matters: Collabs can centralise parts of a creator programme that would otherwise require separate spreadsheets, links and payment records. It does not guarantee that a creator or campaign will generate profitable sales.
How to use it: Define the programme’s audience, commission structure, products, eligibility rules and creator expectations before inviting partners. Use trackable links and discount codes where appropriate.
Practical tip: Evaluate revenue, refunds, commission costs, new-customer acquisition and content quality together. Sales attributed to an affiliate link should not be assessed without considering the cost of the partnership.
7. Shopify Messaging: Create Email and SMS Campaigns
What it is: Shopify Messaging, formerly Shopify Email, lets eligible merchants create email and SMS campaigns and automations from Shopify. It supports branded templates, customer segments and campaign reporting.
Why it matters: Merchants can create welcome, browse-abandonment, cart-abandonment, checkout-recovery and other lifecycle communications using store and customer data.
How to use it: Configure the sender details, build customer segments, select a campaign or automation template and confirm that recipients have the necessary marketing consent.
Important limitation: Messaging is available on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. Email and SMS have separate pricing and delivery considerations. Shopify does not automatically translate an email into every customer’s language.
Practical tip: Measure attributed purchases, unsubscribes, delivery problems and spam complaints alongside clicks. High sending volume is not evidence of campaign effectiveness.
8. Shopify Analytics: Data-Driven Decisions
What it is: Shopify Analytics provides dashboards, reports and data explorations covering areas such as sales, sessions, customers, products, marketing and operations. Available reports and customisation options can depend on the Shopify plan.
Why it matters: Analytics can help merchants identify changes and differences between products, locations, customer groups, channels and periods. It should be used to investigate performance rather than automatically assuming why a metric changed.
How to use it: Begin with a defined business question, select the relevant dimensions and metrics, and compare similar periods or customer groups. Filter bot traffic where supported and account for promotions, tracking changes and seasonality.
Practical tip: Document metric definitions before combining Shopify data with GA4 or another platform because similarly named metrics may be calculated differently.
9. Shopify App Store: Extend Functionality
What it is: The Shopify App Store provides third-party and Shopify-built apps for functions such as reviews, subscriptions, merchandising, fulfilment, customer support and reporting.
Why it matters: Apps can add functionality without requiring every capability to be developed from the beginning. However, each app introduces cost, permissions, configuration and ongoing maintenance.
How to use it: Define the required outcome first, then compare apps based on compatibility, data access, pricing, support history, recent updates and effect on storefront performance. Test the app on a duplicate theme where appropriate.
Practical tip: Avoid installing multiple apps that perform overlapping functions. Before removing an app, check whether it inserted theme code, created data or changed templates that require separate cleanup.
10. Liquid: Customise Shopify Themes
What it is: Liquid is Shopify’s template language. It works with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and JSON to control how store data and theme components are displayed.
Why it matters: Liquid makes it possible to adapt product templates, collection layouts, content sections and other storefront elements beyond the options exposed in the theme editor.
How to use it: Start with theme settings and reusable sections. When code changes are necessary, create a duplicate theme, document the modification, and test important templates across devices before publishing.
Important limitation: Liquid customisation affects theme-based storefronts. It is not the same as changing Shopify’s backend platform or building a headless storefront. Extensive modifications can also complicate future theme updates.
Practical tip: For custom theme, tracking, or integration work, you can hire Shopify experts to plan, implement, and test the required changes.
11. Multipass: Connect External Authentication to Shopify
What it is: Multipass allows Shopify Plus merchants to authenticate customers through an external website or application and sign them into the Shopify store without requiring a separate Shopify login process.
Why it matters: It can support businesses that already manage customer authentication through another platform and want a connected store experience.
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How to use it: A developer configures Multipass in Shopify Plus and generates signed customer login tokens from the external system. The implementation must protect the Multipass secret and validate customer data correctly.
Important limitation: Multipass is exclusive to Shopify Plus. It does not create B2B catalogues, company accounts, wholesale pricing or ERP synchronisation by itself. Those require separate Shopify B2B features or integrations.
Practical tip: Use Multipass only when an external authentication system is genuinely required. Shopify’s standard customer accounts are more appropriate for many stores.
12. Hydrogen and Oxygen: Build a Headless Storefront
What it is: Hydrogen is Shopify’s framework for building custom headless storefronts. Oxygen is Shopify’s deployment platform for Hydrogen applications. These tools separate the customer-facing storefront from a conventional Shopify theme while continuing to use Shopify’s commerce services.
Why it matters: A headless architecture can support unusual content, design, integration, or performance requirements that are difficult to meet with a standard theme.
How to use it: Define the architectural requirement first, then build the storefront using Shopify’s supported APIs and Hydrogen tooling. Configure analytics, customer accounts, caching, SEO, redirects, and testing before directing production traffic to it.
Important limitation: Hydrogen introduces development, testing, and maintenance responsibilities. It should not be selected simply because headless commerce sounds more advanced.
Practical tip: Compare the long-term cost and complexity of Hydrogen with improving an existing Shopify theme before committing to a rebuild.
FAQs
1. Which Shopify features are most useful for a new store?
Most new stores should begin with core Shopify Analytics, Shopify Messaging, theme configuration, and relevant payment and shipping settings. POS, Markets, Flow, Functions or Hydrogen should be adopted only when the business has a corresponding requirement.
2. Is Shopify Flow available on every Shopify plan?
Shopify Flow is available on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. Most features work across these plans, but sending HTTP requests requires Grow or higher, while tasks created by custom partner apps require Shopify Plus.
3. What replaced Shopify Scripts in 2026?
Shopify Functions and supported apps replace many use cases previously handled through Shopify Scripts. Scripts stopped executing on June 30, 2026, so merchants must migrate any remaining discount, delivery or payment logic.
4. Does a store need Shopify Plus to use these features?
No. Several features are available on standard plans, but Multipass, custom partner-app Flow tasks and certain checkout customisations require Plus. Always confirm the requirements for the particular feature before implementation.
Conclusion
The most valuable Shopify feature is the one that solves a defined customer or operational problem. Flow can reduce repetitive work, Markets can support regional selling, POS can connect physical and online retail, and Messaging can manage customer communication. More technical options such as Functions, Liquid, Multipass and Hydrogen require clearer implementation and maintenance planning.
Start by documenting the problem, current process and relevant baseline metric. Confirm the feature’s plan, country and integration requirements, then introduce the change in a controlled way and measure the result.
Avoid activating features simply because they are popular or described as growth tools. Sustainable improvement comes from selecting the appropriate capability, configuring it correctly and verifying that it produces a useful commercial or operational outcome.
