Key takeaways
- Shopify raised the product variant limit from 100 to 2,048 - a massive unlock for merchants with complex catalogs.
- Sidekick can now build Shopify Flow workflows from natural language, making automation accessible without technical knowledge.
- Apple Pay is now selectable inside Shop Pay checkouts, giving customers more choice at the critical moment.
- A new “Unlisted” product status lets you share products via direct link without making them visible in your storefront.
Here are the Shopify updates October 2025 - new Shopify features October 2025, Shopify AI updates, Shopify checkout updates, and Shopify product updates all in one place. October was a busy month with meaningful changes across AI, catalog management, analytics, and checkout.
Related guide: changing checkout field labels.
Related guide: Sidekick’s current limitations.
AI & Sidekick
Sidekick can now build Flow workflows from natural language.
Related guide: adding tracking scripts to Shopify.
Related guide: using Shopify Sidekick.
Tell Sidekick what you want to automate - “send a follow-up email 3 days after an order ships” or “tag high-value customers automatically” - and it creates the workflow for you. This removes one of the last technical barriers to Shopify automation. Previously you needed to understand Flow’s trigger/action logic. Now you describe the outcome and Sidekick handles the structure.
AI image editing arrived on mobile.
Merchants can now edit product images directly from the Shopify mobile app using AI tools - background removal, object cleanup, and basic adjustments. For merchants who photograph products on their phone, this cuts the workflow significantly.
Products & Catalog
Variant limit raised to 2,048 (was 100).
This is the biggest product update in years. The old 100-variant cap forced merchants with large option sets - sizes, colors, materials - to create workarounds like separate products or third-party apps. 2,048 variants per product removes almost all of those constraints.
New “Unlisted” product status.
Products can now be set to “Unlisted” - accessible via direct link, but not showing in collections, search, or the storefront. This is useful for wholesale pricing, early-access launches, influencer gifting, and testing new products with a small audience before a full launch.
Analytics
Sales heatmaps by hour and day of week.
Shopify Analytics now shows when your sales happen - broken down by hour and day. Useful for scheduling promotions, planning flash sales, and staffing decisions. If you see a consistent spike on Saturday mornings, you can plan around it.
Configurable report item counts.
You can now control how many rows appear in analytics reports. Useful for merchants with large catalogs who need to see more than the default view.
Marketing & Email
Filter products by collection in the email editor.
Related guide: tracking conversions in Shopify.
When adding products to email campaigns, you can now filter by collection rather than searching through your entire catalog. For stores with thousands of SKUs, this makes building promotional emails significantly faster.
Dynamic email sections.
Email sections can now pull live product data at send time. Prices, availability, and inventory levels reflect what’s actually in your store when the email goes out - not when you built the campaign. This matters for merchants running time-sensitive promotions.
Checkout & Payments
Apple Pay is now selectable in Shop Pay checkouts.
Customers checking out via Shop Pay can now choose Apple Pay as their payment method. Previously Shop Pay handled the full checkout experience. This gives customers with Apple Pay the option to use their preferred method without leaving the Shop Pay flow.
Customers can update their email address inside their account.
A small but frequently requested fix. Shopify account holders can now update their email directly from the account page, without needing to contact support.
B2B
New Functions API: OrderReviewAddOperation.
Developers building B2B apps can now use the OrderReviewAddOperation in the Functions API to add custom review steps to the B2B order process. This supports more complex approval workflows for wholesale merchants who require sign-off before an order is submitted.
Automation
Three new Flow triggers.
Shopify Flow picked up new trigger points in October:
- Discount creation - trigger workflows when a new discount code is created
- Payment disputes - automate responses when a dispute is opened (tag the order, notify the team, etc.)
- Split fulfillment - trigger when an order is split across multiple fulfillments
These expand what’s possible with automation, particularly for operations and finance teams managing disputes and logistics.
