| | Hello there. Shopify now stops shoppers with a quick warning before any link sends them off your store, a timely fix after last week's fake checkout scares. Also today: tax on US return shipping fees starts tomorrow, what a redirect checkout really costs you, and smarter restock emails. In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into: - Your online store now asks shoppers to confirm before a link sends them to a website outside your store, with connected domains exempt.
- From Oct 23, Shopify Tax starts calculating tax on return shipping fees for US orders, so refund amounts may change.
- Merchants weighing a redirect checkout like 2Checkout heard why pixels under-count those sales and how to measure them in Shopify instead.
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| | 🛡️ Your store now warns shoppers before off-site redirects. Shopify added a confirmation step before your store sends anyone to an outside website. Shoppers see a short message with the destination address and can either continue or go back to your store. Domains connected to your store and supported Shopify and social sites skip the message, but sites you own that are not connected may still trigger it, so connect those domains if you link to them. 🤖 Claude Duet connects to Shopify from day one. Shopify says Claude Duet already connects to Shopify on its first day. The idea is that you design a store right inside the chat, then keep using Duet to stay on top of how the store is performing. If you already lean on AI assistants for store work, it is one more place to try asking questions about your numbers. | |
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| | 🧾 Tax on US return shipping fees starts Oct 23. A developer preparing their app says Shopify will start calculating tax on return shipping fees for US orders that use Shopify Tax on October 23, 2026. Their open questions are how that tax is shown for tax-exclusive versus tax-included orders. If you charge customers for return labels in the US, check a refund or two after tomorrow and ask your returns app whether it is ready. 📊 Do you know what you actually made last month? A seller asked where your real monthly profit number comes from, since Shopify shows one figure, the ad platforms show another, and refunds, discounts, shipping and cost of goods arrive later. It is a fair test for any store heading into the holidays: if you cannot answer with confidence, set up a simple monthly profit sheet before the busy season. 📦 Amazon plans to hire over 300,000 holiday workers. Amazon wants to fill more than 300,000 holiday positions, up 20% from last year, while seasonal retail hiring overall is at a low. Temporary workers will average $20 an hour, and seasonal staff who stay into January and work 30 or more hours a week get medical benefits. Expect fast delivery promises from the big player again this season. | |
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| | 💳 Does a redirect checkout really hurt conversion? A merchant planning a US store asked whether 2Checkout's off-store checkout cuts conversions. Replies note that Shopify adds its own third-party transaction fee, Shop Pay only comes with Shopify Payments, and buyers who pay then close the tab never fire the pixel. So judge a test from Shopify's side, orders versus checkouts started by payment method, not from Meta or GA4 alone. 🛒 Full carts, few checkouts: where does a CRO tool fit? One store owner sees visitors adding items to the cart but few people finishing checkout, and wonders where a conversion rate tool fits without ending up as one more dashboard. If you have tracked down a cart drop-off, the steps you took to find it, such as session recordings or a checkout funnel report, would help this seller. | |
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| | 🔔 Restock emails that match the units you put back on sale. A merchant wants back-in-stock emails sent only to as many people as there are units, so adding 8 items notifies the first 8 on the list. One reply points to a Back In Stock notify me app that emails sign-ups automatically on restock, but could not confirm that one-per-unit behaviour. Ask the app's support to confirm before a limited drop goes live. 🧠 How Sidekick hands heavy work to smaller models. Shopify Engineering explains how Sidekick passes its most token-heavy jobs to open models that Shopify post-trains and runs itself, and where NVIDIA models, software and GPUs speed that loop up and make it cheaper. For merchants it is a look under the hood of the assistant in your admin, and a sign Shopify is working to keep it fast as usage grows. | |
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| | 🗓️ Shopify Partner Town Hall on Nov 5. Shopify Developers invited partners to the next Partner Town Hall on Nov 5 at 10:00 am ET, with VP of Partnerships Atlee Clark, VP of Product Eytan Seidman and Chief Information Security Officer Andrew Dunbar. If your agency or app developer joins, ask them what changes in security and product are coming for stores like yours. | |
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| | Three remote roles posted in the last two weeks, each linked to its own posting with the source named. Each posting is linked from the source named on its line, with the date it was posted. Check the details on the posting itself. | |
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