Table of Contents
Executive Summary
The October 2025 platform updates from Shopify introduce a suite of powerful features focused on enhancing merchant capabilities in key growth areas, including Business-to-Business (B2B), international commerce, and in-person retail via Point-of-Sale (POS). A primary theme is the significant expansion of payment options and flexibility, with the introduction of ACH bank payments for B2B, new local payment methods for POS, and accelerated checkouts for mobile applications.
For B2B merchants, the platform now offers not only streamlined ACH payments but also granular, dynamic control over order review workflows, enabling complex business rules to be applied at checkout. International selling is bolstered by tools for precise customs and tariff management through country-specific HS codes and new profitability reports that offer deep insights into cross-border sales performance by market and by order.
Shopify Flow, the platform's automation engine, receives critical updates that improve operational control, including the ability to cancel in-progress workflows and new triggers for discounts, disputes, and fulfillment events. Furthermore, merchants gain access to more sophisticated analytics through new heatmap visualizations and dedicated sales pattern reports. Product management and merchandising are also refined with the global launch of unit pricing and a new "Unlisted" product status for specialized selling scenarios.
I. Business-to-Business (B2B) Enhancements
Shopify has released significant updates designed to streamline operations and provide greater control for merchants engaged in B2B commerce.
ACH Bank Payments
• Feature (October 23, 2025): U.S. merchants can now accept ACH direct debit bank payments for B2B orders through Shopify Payments. This method is available to wholesale customers who have U.S. bank accounts.
• Functionality: B2B customers can pay directly from their bank accounts during checkout and have the option to save their payment details for future orders.
• Merchant Benefit: This feature eliminates the need for manual payment matching. Once a customer's bank details are saved, merchants can charge their account directly from the Shopify admin as payments become due.
• Activation: The feature can be activated within the Shopify Payments settings.
Dynamic B2B Order Review Controls
• Feature (October 01, 2025): Merchants can now dynamically determine which B2B orders require manual review at checkout using the Payment Customization Function.
• Technical Implementation: The new orderReviewAdd operation, available via the Payment Customization Function API, allows merchants to define custom business rules that automatically send specific orders to a draft state for review.
• Use Cases: This provides granular control beyond a static "all-or-nothing" setting. Merchants can create rules to flag orders based on various conditions, such as:
◦ High order values
◦ Carts containing pre-order items
◦ Orders from new customers
• Availability: This advanced functionality is exclusively available for B2B purchases on stores with the Shopify Plus plan.
II. Expansion of Payment and Checkout Capabilities
The platform has expanded its payment processing options across multiple channels, enhancing checkout experiences for both online and in-person transactions.
Channel | Feature | Details | Announcement Date |
Point-of-Sale (POS) | Local Payment Methods | Introduces "Pay by link" functionality in retail stores, allowing customers to pay via a secure QR code or link on their own device. This reduces manual entry and expands checkout options. | October 21, 2025 |
B2B | ACH Direct Debit | U.S. merchants can accept direct bank payments from wholesale customers with U.S. bank accounts, streamlining recurring payments and reconciliation. | October 23, 2025 |
Mobile Apps | Accelerated Checkouts | Developers can now integrate Shop Pay and Apple Pay checkout buttons directly onto product and cart pages in mobile apps using Checkout Kit for Swift or React Native. | October 08, 2025 |
The newly supported local payment methods for Shopify POS include:
• iDeal
• Klarna
• Swish
• Twint
• Mobilepay
• USDC
To enable these POS payment methods, merchants must update their Shopify POS app to version 10.13 and activate the desired provider in their Shopify Admin settings.
III. International Commerce and Global Sales
New features provide merchants with greater control and deeper insights into their international sales operations.
Country-Specific HS Code Management
• Feature (October 13, 2025): Merchants can now enter country-specific Harmonized System (HS) codes for their products.
• Benefit: This allows for more precise customs classification and tariff calculations in each destination market. Merchants can provide detailed codes beyond the standard 6 digits, ensuring duties are calculated accurately.
• Managed Markets Integration: For users of Shopify Managed Markets, the system displays the HS codes assigned by Managed Markets separately from the merchant's own codes, ensuring clarity on which rates and rules are being applied.
Cross-Border Sales Profitability Reporting
• Feature (October 22, 2025): Two new reports have been added to the Shopify Reporting Platform to provide insights into the profitability of international sales.
• New Reports:
1. "Average profit margin by market": This report helps merchants understand profit earned per market, detailing costs paid by customers and any additional costs incurred by the merchant for fulfillment.
2. "Profit margin by order": Accessible by drilling down from the market-level report, this provides the same profitability metrics on an individual order basis for a granular view.
IV. Automation and Workflow Management (Shopify Flow)
Shopify Flow has been updated to give merchants more control over automation processes and greater visibility into key store events.
Cancellation of In-Progress Workflows
• Feature (October 29, 2025): Merchants can now cancel Shopify Flow workflow runs while they are in progress.
• Functionality: Cancellations can be performed when a workflow is executing a "wait" step or when it is in the process of retrying after an error. This addresses a key issue where workflows could automatically retry for up to 36 hours, preventing a corrected workflow from being re-run.
• Benefits: This update enables faster feedback loops when building and testing automations and ensures that transient failures do not block workflow development. Turning off a workflow will also now cancel any runs that are in progress.
New Workflow Triggers
• Feature (October 02, 2025): Four new triggers have been added to Shopify Flow, allowing for automated responses to a wider range of store activities, whether initiated by the merchant or by a third-party app.
Trigger | Description | Potential Use Case |
Automated discount created | Starts a workflow when an automatic discount is created. | Log all new automatic promotions in a spreadsheet. |
Discount code created | Starts a workflow when a new discount code is generated. | Tag orders that use newly created discount code types. |
Dispute created | Starts a workflow when a chargeback or inquiry is submitted for an order using Shopify Payments. | Send an immediate Slack notification to the finance team. |
Fulfillment order split | Starts a workflow when a fulfillment order is split, returning data for both the original and resulting orders. | Coordinate with fulfillment partners when an order is divided. |
V. Analytics and Business Intelligence
New analytics tools have been launched to help merchants identify sales patterns and understand business performance more effectively.
• Heatmap Visualization (October 09, 2025): Heatmaps are now available in Analytics for two-dimensional analysis. This visualization helps merchants spot patterns at a glance, such as:
◦ Peak sales times across different hours of the day and days of the week.
◦ Top-performing combinations of products and sales channels.
• Weekly Sales Patterns Report (October 09, 2025): A new dedicated report, "Weekly Sales Patterns," displays net sales broken down by hour of the day and day of the week, providing clear insights into temporal sales trends.
VI. Product and Merchandising Management
Updates to product management provide more flexibility in how items are priced and presented to customers.
"Unlisted" Product Status
• Feature (October 21, 2025): A new product status called "Unlisted" has been introduced.
• Functionality: Unlisted products are hidden from store search, collections, all sales channels, internet search results, and the Shopify Catalog. However, they remain accessible and purchasable via a direct URL.
• Ideal Use Cases: This status is designed for items that should not be publicly discoverable, such as:
◦ Private sales
◦ Warranty items
◦ Product add-ons
◦ "Free gift with purchase" offers
Global Unit Pricing
• Feature (October 02, 2025): The ability to display unit pricing for products is now available globally.
• Functionality: Merchants can show customers how much a product costs per unit of measurement, including price per weight (gram, ounce), volume (liter, gallon), length (meter, foot), or quantity (item count).
• Benefit: This helps customers make more informed purchasing decisions by allowing for easier price comparisons.
VII. Point-of-Sale (POS) and Mobile Commerce
The platform's capabilities for in-person retail and mobile-first commerce continue to expand, creating a more unified omnichannel experience.
• In-Store Subscriptions (October 14, 2025): Merchants using the Shopify Subscriptions app can now sell subscription products in their retail stores through Shopify POS. This allows staff to add recurring purchase plans directly at checkout, aligning in-store offerings with online ones to drive repeat revenue.
• Mobile App Accelerated Checkouts (October 08, 2025): As detailed in the payments section, the ability to add Shop Pay and Apple Pay buttons to mobile app storefronts using the Checkout Kit provides customers with the fast, seamless payment options they expect on mobile devices.