Shopify Editions Summer 2025: Recap
Shopify planted seeds for merchant growth – here are our top picks from the Summer ’25 Editions.
MAY 26, 2025 / Estimated read time: 4-6 minutes
While Shopify’s Winter ’25 Editions was dubbed “the boring edition,” Summer ’25 is anything but. This release is sleek, focused, and signals Shopify’s next era – where thoughtful refinement meets seriously powerful upgrades.
Instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall, Shopify honed in on what merchants actually need: a streamlined design system, built-in tools for retention and repeat revenue, smarter AI support, and more flexibility across checkout, variants, and storefronts. No fluff. Just features that make commerce cleaner, faster, and more scalable.
This isn’t about shiny distractions – it’s about sharpening the core. Summer ’25 cuts friction, closes feature gaps, and gives merchants the freedom to scale without extra apps or clunky workarounds. Whether you’re a scrappy solo founder or an enterprise player with international ambitions, Shopify’s latest drop brings more power, fewer limitations, and a smoother path to growth.
At HRVST, we’ve combed through the updates to surface what’s most worth your time – and how each one can help your brand grow. Here’s what made our shortlist from this season’s release:
Horizon: Shopify’s new design system
Let’s start with Horizon – a complete rethink of Shopify’s design approach. This sleek new framework introduces 10 polished themes designed to boost performance and reduce setup time. Horizon gives merchants a cleaner foundation to build from – while still leaving room for custom UX, brand expression, and strategic design that converts.
A theme editor glow-up
Hover-to-preview, a simplified sidebar, and AI-generated content blocks? Yes, please. The improved Theme Editor is faster, cleaner, and more intuitive, making customizations smoother and less time-consuming. It’s a solid upgrade that helps teams move quicker without compromising on quality.
Smarter, sleeker checkout customization
Shopify’s doubling down on extensibility with expanded APIs and new UI components for checkout. Developers can now create more tailored, branded checkout flows – without compromising speed, security, or Shopify’s native upgrade path. It’s freedom without the fragility.
Subscriptions – now native
The wait is over: Shopify now supports first-party subscriptions. Sell recurring products, memberships, or gated digital content directly through Shopify without relying on clunky third-party apps. It’s simple, seamless, and built to scale with your business.
No more variant limits
The variant cap that haunted ecomm teams everywhere? It’s gone. Now, merchants can offer more variations (like colour, size, material, etc.) without splitting products or relying on hacks. Customization just got a lot more...customizable.
Bundles, built-in
Sell fixed bundles and multipacks directly through Shopify with the new Bundles app. Inventory syncs automatically, setup is a breeze, and AOV gets a nice little lift. It’s bundling the way it should be – native, stable, and app-free.
Big-ticket flexibility with Shop Pay Installments
Give shoppers the option to split payments on orders from $50 to $17,500 – with no interest. It’s a powerful way to increase conversions on high-ticket items and reduce friction at checkout without third-party tools.
Marketplace Connect: all your listings, one place
Managing Amazon, Walmart, and eBay just got easier. With Marketplace Connect, merchants can now sync inventory, manage listings, and fulfill orders across major marketplaces – right inside Shopify. It’s a single hub for multi-channel selling.
Sidekick goes wide
Sidekick, Shopify’s AI-powered business assistant, is now live on thousands of stores. From automating tasks to brainstorming product ideas and making data-informed decisions, Sidekick brings a layer of intelligent support to everyday operations. It’s like having a strategist, assistant, and copywriter – on call 24/7.
Shopify’s Summer ’25 Editions isn’t trying to show off – it’s showing up.
This isn’t about flash. It’s about finally giving merchants and agencies what they’ve been asking for: fewer workarounds, more control, and a storefront experience that scales with your ambition. It’s Shopify in its prime – mature, capable, and ready to power the next era of growth.
At HRVST, we don’t just watch these changes – we help you capitalize on them. Whether it’s launching a new storefront, integrating subscriptions, or optimizing for international growth, we turn new features into real results.
Ready to see what this version of Shopify can do for your brand?