Shopify Editions Fall '26: what's new and how to use it

Shopify Editions Fall '26 was released on October 28, 2026 under the name Exponential, with more than 150 updates across eleven areas of the platform. The common thread: AI agents that buy on behalf of customers, a rebuilt Sidekick that prepares changes in your store, Canvas as a new way to design a store, and Shopify Protect against fraud and chargebacks. This article covers what works for a Dutch or European store, what applies only in the United States for now and what you can still put to use before Black Friday on November 27. We checked the main points against Shopify's documentation on November 2, 2026. Unless we name a brand, an example is an illustrative scenario and not a client case.

What is Shopify Editions Fall '26?

Shopify Editions is the bundle in which Shopify announces its product news. Fall '26 is the tenth edition and carries the subtitle "Everything new for non-linear growth". The updates fall into Agentic, Sidekick, Online, Merchandising, Retail, Payments, Operations, Shop, Marketing, Fulfillment and Developer. Not everything is new: Rollouts and SimGym already existed and are being extended, while Canvas and Shopify Protect appear in an edition for the first time.

The name refers to the network effect. Every store that stops fraud attempts or sells products produces signals that help the next store. Shopify attaches big numbers to this: more than a billion products discoverable through AI channels, over 400 million people with a Shop Pay account and more than 12,000 high-risk payments stopped every minute. Those are Shopify's own figures, not independent measurements.

What works for a Dutch store?

Many announcements name no country or plan, so we went through the Shopify updates feature by feature. Here is what we found.

Usable now

• Rollouts: plan or test theme, checkout, catalogs and discounts together. Experiments need at least the Grow plan.
• Knowledge base: manage the facts AI agents receive about your store, under Sales channels > Agentic.
• Catalog check: a view in your admin that shows whether your store qualifies for Shopify Catalog and what to change.
• Sidekick: the new version plans several changes and presents them for review. In some stores it can't run code yet.
• Shopify Protect: on for every store using Shopify Payments, and Shopify names no regional limit.
• SimGym: run AI shoppers on your theme. It works only on a Liquid storefront, so not on Hydrogen or headless.
• DHL eCommerce: Dutch businesses can now buy these shipping labels in the admin.
• WhatsApp in Shopify Messaging: ask for consent at checkout and send automated messages on abandoned carts. Shopify names no countries here, so check your admin.

Available, with limits

• Canvas: early access for some stores, desktop only and not for third-party Theme Store themes.
• Direct checkout in Google AI Mode and Gemini: your store can be based anywhere, but the shopper must be in the United States, Canada or Australia, and even there it is rolling out gradually.
• Shop Pay in AI agents: Shop Pay is available in the Netherlands through Shopify Payments. We could not find a country list for the agents themselves.
• Tiled payment methods in checkout and the refreshed admin: rolling out soon.
• Custom fields in checkout: not before or during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. All field types will then be on Plus, while other plans get delivery instructions and a gift message.

Not for the Netherlands yet

• Shopify Managed Markets: only for businesses in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
• Shop Promise: only for US stores.
• Multi-currency payouts: the new countries are Australia, France, Singapore and Hong Kong.
• The seven new local payment methods, such as Alipay, WeChat Pay, MB WAY and OXXO, are aimed at other markets. Nothing changes for iDEAL | Wero in the Netherlands.

Eight ways to put Fall '26 to work

1. Run Black Friday as a single Shopify Rollout

Take a fashion brand selling in the Netherlands and Belgium. Normally someone switches the homepage by hand on Black Friday night, changes the prices and activates the discounts, only to reverse it all on Monday. With Rollouts this becomes a single Event, scheduled from Friday November 27 at 00:00 through Monday November 30 at 23:59. It holds the adjusted homepage, a market catalog with sale prices per country and the discounts. When it ends, everything rolls back automatically.

Watch these traps before you rely on it:

• Choose Event, not Launch. A Launch is permanent and can't be reverted after it ends.
• If you replace the whole theme, translations only work through apps that use the Admin API, such as Translate & Adapt. Manual translations and CSV uploads don't carry over, which affects every multi-language store.
• A replacement theme applies to all markets, and publishing a new theme can remove rollout customizations. So don't publish a theme while the rollout is running.
• B2B catalogs can't be included, and a discount can only belong to one open rollout at a time.
• Keep reach at 100%. Below that, ads and product feeds may show a different price from the one the customer sees.
• Scheduling follows the time zone in Settings > General. Check that it says Amsterdam.

Do a dress rehearsal in mid-November with one collection and a short promotion. That way you know the rollback works before real revenue depends on it.

2. Check your reference prices, now that agents read them too

AI agents now also receive your compare-at price through Shopify Catalog, with no setup on your part. A struck-through price no longer lives only on your own product page. In the Netherlands, since January 1, 2023, a discount must be based on the lowest price of the preceding 30 days, with a few exceptions, such as products on the market for less than 30 days. The Dutch regulator ACM actively checks this and fined five online stores a total of €621,000 in 2024.

An example: a jacket normally costs €129 but was on sale at €99 until November 5. If you sell it for €89 on Black Friday, the correct reference price is €99, not €129. So before your rollout, export the compare-at prices of your promotional products and set them against your price history for the past 30 days. No Shopify update does this check for you.

3. Fill your Knowledge base before an agent starts guessing

Say someone asks an AI assistant whether a bicycle brand also delivers to Belgium, whether a gift can be exchanged until the end of January and whether there is a repair service. The answer comes from the Knowledge base, under Sales channels > Agentic > Sources. Shopify calls it the source for all non-product information about your store, such as returns, shipping, gift services and second hand.

The key detail is in how it works. Facts from a scan of your storefront stay unpublished until you publish them, but facts linked to your admin, such as policies and contact details, go live immediately. An outdated return policy is therefore also what agents get told. So first put your policy texts in order, especially if you offer an extended holiday return window, and then approve the suggested facts per category. Published facts are public, so include nothing that should stay internal. It holds 1,000 facts. If you use the old Knowledge Base app, it stops on January 15, 2027: up to 1,000 facts transfer automatically, and above that you move them yourself.

4. Give Shopify Sidekick a business rule, not an isolated task

The strongest real example comes from Haarlem. Fashion brand Olivia & Kate wanted to switch off deferred payment for customers who return a lot. A developer quoted roughly €1,200 for it. When co-owner Steffen Boskma put the rule to Sidekick to have the steps written out for that developer, Sidekick offered to build the workflow itself, and it went live. On reporting, he says in Shopify's case study: "Before, it was a whole report. Now it is a question."

These are questions you can ask the new Sidekick:

• "How is the promotion going today, compared with yesterday?" A useful daily check during Black Friday week.
• "Rewrite the descriptions of every product in the Winter Jackets collection in our tone and show me the plan first." You approve one plan and Sidekick applies the changes.
• "Why is this week's payout lower than last week's?" Sidekick can now also answer questions about payouts and chargebacks.
• "Create a draft order for this customer with the same products as their last order." You see the highlighted changes before saving.

Sidekick remembers what you teach it, so explain your tone of voice and house rules properly once. Always read bulk changes, though: approving a plan is quick, so check that text is in the right language and tone before you agree.

5. Test with AI shoppers first, then with real customers

Say you are unsure whether the size chart should move higher up the product page. Create a draft theme and have SimGym compare both versions with the same AI shoppers, focused on add-to-cart confidence. That usually takes one to five minutes. Each month includes an allowance; after that a single simulation costs $0.75 and a comparison $1.50. If it looks good, start an Experiment in Rollouts with a 50/50 split among real visitors.

That order matters. Shopify itself writes that Sidekick's recommendations are not tested on real shoppers and are not live A/B tests, and AI shoppers can behave differently from your customers. So treat a simulation as the filter and the Experiment as the proof. Visitors are assigned at random: you can't target by segment, customer tag or device. Also plan such a test well before Black Friday, because peak traffic behaves differently from normal traffic.

6. Do the Shopify Protect sums with iDEAL in mind

International articles on Protect assume a market full of card payments. The Netherlands works differently: according to the Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor, 73% of online purchases in the first half of 2026 were paid with iDEAL | Wero, and iDEAL has no chargebacks. You get the basics regardless: Shopify blocks near-certain fraud before authorization, stops card-testing bots and explains the risk of each order in plain language. AI helps gather evidence for disputes, including delivery photos from the carrier.

The separate app Shopify Protect: Rule Builder mainly suits stores with many card payments, such as a sneaker store with expensive drops that also sells abroad. You decide when an order is blocked, when 3D Secure is requested and when it waits for review. You first test a rule on the orders of the past 90 days, so you see how many good customers it would affect. The app costs $0.07 per screened transaction, so $210 at 3,000 transactions a month. Check how many chargebacks you had last quarter first. With a handful a year, you won't earn that back. Shopify's announcement still mentioned a waitlist, while the app has been in the App Store since October 27, so check whether you can install it yet.

7. Sell through AI channels to customers in North America and Australia

Agentic commerce means an AI agent searches, compares and checks out on the customer's behalf. For a Dutch brand, the first real opportunity lies across the border. Take a design lighting brand from Eindhoven that already ships to the United States and Canada. That brand can sell through Google AI Mode and the Gemini app with direct checkout, with no extra fee on top of normal payment processing. You manage the orders in your admin as usual. Customers outside those countries can still find your products, but they check out on your own store.

Here is what you need to arrange and know:

• You need a valid Google Merchant Center account, products eligible for Shopify Catalog, the supplemental terms for agentic storefronts and completed terms of service, privacy and return policies.
• Subscriptions, bundles, customizable products and B2B-only products aren't supported, nor are pickup and local delivery.
• Google Analytics and custom pixels don't fire in this checkout and upsells may be missing. So measure this channel on your Shopify orders, not in GA4.
• Direct checkout is on by default as soon as you are eligible. If you don't want it, switch it off under Sales channels > Agentic.

8. Use Canvas as a sketchbook, not yet as a workshop

Canvas shows your whole store on one surface: you zoom into a page, click an element or ask Sidekick for a change, and watch the real store code update. Shopify reports going 20% faster from no theme to a live store. The limits are significant, though. A theme edited in Canvas opens only in Canvas from then on, no longer receives theme updates and can't be downloaded. Markets, translations and app blocks or app embeds aren't there yet either. For a multi-language store with reviews and a Klaviyo form through app blocks, it is still too early.

Where it already fits is as a sketchbook. Duplicate your theme, because the original stays in the existing editor. Have Sidekick work out three directions for your spring collection homepage, discuss them with your team on real pages and then have the winner built properly in your main theme. A new brand with one language and few apps can also start with it directly.

Smaller updates that do save work

• Stores with a till: staff can open a known customer's abandoned online cart in Shopify POS and complete the sale there. Carts are also available across POS devices, you can schedule stock counts by item and location, and POS recognizes more customers when they choose a digital receipt and share their details.
• WhatsApp: ask for consent at checkout and start with the ready-made automations under Messaging > Automations. Abandoned checkout messages are billed, unlike email, so begin with one flow and measure the return.
• Black Friday email: Shopify Messaging now has a ready-made campaign to review, adjust and schedule.
• Search: predictive search gives better suggestions, and Shopify says add-to-carts from search rose 8%.
• Analytics: sessions are now also filtered for bots. Keep that in mind when comparing conversion rates with earlier periods.
• AI connectors: with the connectors you manage your store from nine agents, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot. Grant them access as carefully as you would a new employee.

Deadlines for apps and custom work

The least exciting points in the edition can turn out the most expensive if you miss them. These dates are published:

• January 1, 2027: public apps not yet on expiring offline tokens are delisted from the App Store and blocked from new installs. From April 1, 2027 their old tokens stop working. Custom apps and apps you created yourself are excluded.
• January 15, 2027: the old Knowledge Base app stops.
• March 1, 2027: script tags stop loading on storefronts. Apps have already been unable to create or update them since October 1, 2026.

So ask your app vendors now whether they will make the switch in time, and have your custom work checked for script tags. Our article on Shopify pricing explains what platform changes like these can mean for your budget. The new theme architecture, which moves page structure back into Liquid, is mainly a matter for developers. You don't need to rebuild your current theme for it now.

Your plan up to Black Friday

Don't take on all 150 updates at once. This order gives the most return for the least risk:

1. 1 By November 8: review the Catalog check, put your policy texts in order and publish the first facts in the Knowledge base.
2. 2 By November 15: finish your SimGym tests and last Experiment. Check the reference prices of your promotional products.
3. 3 By November 20: build the Black Friday rollout and rehearse it with one collection. Schedule your email campaign and then freeze your theme.
4. 4 November 27 through 30: publish no new themes and use Sidekick to follow the promotion daily.
5. 5 From December: look at Canvas, Rule Builder and the custom checkout fields, and review your apps before January 1.

Frequently asked questions about Shopify Editions Fall '26

When was Shopify Editions Fall '26 released?

On October 28, 2026, under the name Exponential. Shopify speaks of more than 150 updates. Some are available right away, others are in early access, rolling out soon or coming soon.

What is agentic commerce?

Agentic commerce is selling in which an AI agent searches, compares and checks out on the customer's behalf. At Shopify your product data runs through Shopify Catalog and the payment through Shop Pay. Card details are not shared with the agent.

Can Dutch customers already check out in Gemini or Google AI Mode?

Not yet. Direct checkout is rolling out to shoppers in the United States, Canada and Australia. Dutch customers can find your products, but they check out on your own store.

Do I need Shopify Plus for the new features?

For most of them, no. Experiments in Rollouts need the Grow plan or higher. Plus does make a difference for, say, all field types in custom checkout fields and organization-level roles for POS. If you are weighing that step, read what Shopify Plus is.

Do I have to do anything to be ready for AI?

According to Shopify, every store is agent-ready by default. It still pays to review your Catalog check, Knowledge base, product data and policy texts, because that is where you decide what an agent says about your brand and whether you qualify at all.

Does Canvas replace the theme editor?

Not yet. Shopify itself says Canvas does not replace the existing editor for now. It is in early access, for some stores, and still lacks support for markets, translations and app blocks.

What this means for your store

Fall '26 shifts the work. More of the sale begins outside your own site, and more of the management can be prepared by AI. That makes the basics matter more: correct prices, clear policies, good product data and a theme free of old code. Want to know which updates will do the most for your store, or a new store built with this in mind from the start? Read how we work on Shopify webshop development or see our approach as a Shopify agency.