Shopify's search is finally getting an upgrade

What Liquid AI means for merchants, TikTok Shop’s explosive growth, and the best BFCM popup playbook.

Author

Cam Wind
November 14, 2025

Hey, it’s Cam 👋

It’s been one heck of a week. Things are heating up ahead of BCFM. Scroll any social feed right now and it’s obvious Black Friday sales or ore-sales are in full effect.

We are seeing brands swapping content and offers, building their lists, and locking in their final store changes. The hype is building.

We’ve got a great lineup to wrap up the week. Let’s get into it.

What’s in this issue

  • Shopify’s new Liquid AI partnership and what it means for merchants

  • Ben’s behind-the-scenes YouTube episode on running Platter

  • TikTok Shop’s explosive growth and Gen Z’s love for Coach

  • Freepik’s new AI collaboration tool, Spaces

  • Ben’s Haymakers for Hope fight recap

  • Alia’s BFCM popup guide for higher conversions

  • This week’s notable Shopify updates

Representation of most people trying Shopify’s search for the first time.

STORY OF THE WEEK

Shopify partners with Liquid AI to bring better AI to the platform

Shopify just signed a multi-year deal with Liquid AI to bring their ultra-fast foundation models directly into core Shopify features. In plain language, this means Shopify stores are about to get much better at understanding what shoppers want.

The first upgrade is going to be search. Liquid’s models return results in under 20 milliseconds, which means faster, more accurate, and more forgiving searches for shoppers.

Shopify is also rolling out a new AI-powered recommendation system that already beats their old one in testing. For brands, that means more relevant product suggestions and personalized shopping experiences, all handled natively by Shopify. This is Shopify doubling down on AI as a built-in part of the platform, giving merchants better performance without slowing stores down.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

A realistic look at Ben’s week running Platter

Ben dropped a new YouTube episode showing what life actually looks like as the CEO of a fast-growing Shopify agency. Client calls, late nights, NYC moments, wins, stress, the whole thing. It’s probably his most honest episode yet.

If you’ve ever wondered what a founder’s week looks like behind the scenes, this one’s worth watching.

OTHER INTERESTING NEWS THIS WEEK

TikTok Shop is now basically the size of eBay

TikTok Shop sold an estimated $19B globally last quarter. eBay sold $20.1B. The U.S. alone hit $4.5B, up 125 percent from the previous quarter. That’s wild growth for something launched in September 2023.

Gen Z is fueling Coach’s comeback

Coach saw a major jump in sales thanks to younger shoppers bringing the brand back into rotation. The company said that generation accounted for about 35% of new customers.

Freepik launches Spaces

Freepik announced Spaces last week, a new AI-powered workspace that lets teams collaborate on creative assets in real time using “nodes”. It allows designers and marketers to generate, edit, and iterate together in one shared space. While I’m not sold on AI content just yet, this is a preview of how content creation will work in the very near future.

EVENT RECAP OF THE WEEK

Ben won his Haymakers for Hope fight

If you’ve been reading the newsie over the past few weeks, you know that we’ve been building up to Ben’s big fight at Haymakers for Hope. Last Thursday it happened, and Ben won by stoppage in the 2nd round!!! He also raised over $52,000 for cancer research in honor of his Nana.

PARTNER CONTENT OF THE WEEK

Alia’s BFCM popup guide

If you haven’t finalized your popups for BFCM, Alia just published a great guide on BFCM Popups. It has examples from top brands like Graza, Milk Bar, Tushy, Nike Strength, and Caden Lane use popups not just to capture emails, but to scale profitable list growth before/after the holiday rush.

SHOPIFY CHANGES THIS WEEK

Notable changes from Shopify’s changelog

  • Apple Pay available as a payment method in Shop Pay checkout

  • Enhanced AI image generation and editing on the Shopify mobile app

  • Collection duplication

See all of the latest changes in the changelog.

That’s it for this week.

Hope y’all have a good weekend and rest up for a busy second half of November!

If you’re curious how Platter can help increase profitability of your Shopify store, schedule a call with our team.

— Cam