Shopify adds A/B testing, Agentic Shopping, and 150+ new features

Hey, it’s Cam 👋

Yesterday was a big day in Shopify land.

Shopify Editions Winter '26 dropped and it’s one of the first releases where the AI features are feeling genuinely useful for merchants. Keep reading to get the major updates.

Im also breaking down how we helped Lambs & Ivy, Inc., a 45-year-old nursery brand, retheme from an outdated setup in Shopify to a modern store that can support 700+ SKUs without confusing customers.

Let’s get into it.

BIG NEWS THIS WEEK

Highlights from Shopify Editions Winter '26

Winter Editions was absolutely packed with updates (over 150 of them), so rather than sifting through the entire release, I thought I’d summarize the biggest news in one place.

Here’s the short list:

1. Agentic Storefronts

Shopify is going to make it easier for your products to show up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot. Merchants will now have the ability to define schema, attributes, and metafields, and Shopify syncs that data so AI platforms can recommend your products accurately. Read their full news release.

2. SimGym (AI user testing)

SimGym is Shopify’s new app that simulates shopper behavior using data from billions of purchases. It gives you recommendations before you ship updates.

3. Rollouts

The new Rollouts feature lets you schedule theme updates and run A/B tests inside the Shopify admin. This should help merchants make theme changes with more confidence.

4. Sidekick upgrades

Sidekick now has Pulse, a personal digest that looks at your store data and market trends and suggests actual next steps. It can also complete a lot of those tasks for you: build segments, create discounts, tweak the theme, and more. It looks pretty impressive.

5. Product Network

You can now surface products from other Shopify brands in your search results, collections, emails, and post-purchase pages. You earn a commission on every sale. US only.

6. Tinker

Tinker gives you a space to stay on top of emerging AI tools without drowning in your feed. Users can also experiment with AI apps and give them a try. I’m excited to try this one.

If you want all the info, have a look at the Editions page. The CSS and interactions are impressive in their own right. But these six are the ones we think most brands and operators will care most about.

Now onto the store breakdown.

STORE SPOTLIGHT

How Lambs & Ivy Modernized their 45-Year-Old Brand with a Cutting-Edge Storefront

Lambs & Ivy, Inc. has been around for over 45 years. They sell nursery bedding and décor and have a gigantic catalog. Over 700+ SKUs to be more specific. They also have a really complex merchandising workflow that runs through ChannelAdvisor.

Their old Shopify store had a mix of issues:

• Outdated navigation

• A huge catalog with unclear discovery paths

• Product pages with inconsistent logic

• Slow load times from third-party scripts

• Required SEO content that wasn’t structured well

• A lot of manual merchandising work

When they connected with our team, the biggest goals were to modernize the store, preserve SEO, and reduce the operational load for the team.

Here’s how we approached it.

1. Making a 700+ SKU catalog easy to browse

The old navigation didn’t reflect how parents really shop. There were tons of products but very few intuitive paths into them.

What we did:

• Introduced an image-led mega menu with clear visual entry points

• Built collection-of-collections layouts so shoppers can explore by: Nursery theme, Product type, and Full sets

Parents now have simple, visual pathways instead of a wall of text.

2. Turning lifestyle imagery into shoppable modals

Lambs & Ivy had great lifestyle photos but they weren’t serving much purpose other than looking good.

What we did:

• Created hotspot modules where parents can tap through a nursery scene and instantly view products

• Added quick Add to Cart actions so shoppers can build a room faster

It makes the collection discovery experience feel more intuitive.

3. Cleaning up PDPs while keeping SEO intact

The SEO agency needed long-form content on the page, which previously pushed key product information down and made the layout cluttered.

What we did:

• Reorganized PDPs so storytelling, specs, and related items each have a clear home

• Brought SEO modules back in a more structured and consistent way

The page reads naturally for shoppers while still giving search engines what they need.

4. Fixing performance issues

Heavy scripts and delayed review rendering hurt the customer experience. People complained about slow pages.

What we did:

• Cached review star data in a reserved metafield to eliminate the Bazaarvoice layout shift

• Cleaned up script loading to make transitions feel smoother

The store feels more stable and loads more predictably for customers.

5. Automating merchandising through ChannelAdvisor

A lot of product information still had to be managed by hand.

What we did:

• Mapped ChannelAdvisor data into Shopify metafields so badges and attributes populate automatically

• Added intelligent back-in-stock logic that reads product status codes

• Rebuilt wishlist functionality inside the new theme

The team spends far less time fixing product details or chasing inconsistencies.

What was special about this build

This was a lot more than a simple redesign, it was a full rebuild around:

• More intuitive shopping patterns

• Cleaner page structure

• Faster performance

• Less manual work for the team

• A setup that can handle and grow with a large catalog

If you’re on an older Shopify setup with heavy custom logic or a catalog that feels impossible to manage, Lambs & Ivy, Inc. is a good example of what a thoughtful redesign can unlock.

If you want to chat about this build or explore whether your store needs a similar overhaul, shoot me a message or grab time with the team.

See you next week!