If you've sold products on Shopify before, regardless of the plan, you will know the checkout was typically quite rigid and lacked any real customisation options. This was by design, with Shopify ensuring security and performance above all else on these pages. By now, you've seen the banners and you know Shopify Extensibility is here, and all stores must now adapt to the new experience.

Your checkout is one of the most important pages on your website. It is the final step in converting a user to a customer. A poor experience here can lose a customer, however a positive experience can create a more valuable customer, and one who will return time and again. Secure, efficient, and concise checkout experiences are critical for any online store, and Shopify provides the default structure to achieve this, along with tools that can elevate this crucial point of the customer journey. Ensure you are prepared and ready to maximize the impact of the Checkout Extensibility migration on Shopify.

In this article, we will focus on:

• What Shopify's Checkout Extensibility Is
• The Deadline for Migrating to Checkout Extensibility
• The Benefits of Checkout Extensibility
• Upgrading to Checkout Extensibility & What You Need to Do
• Optional Next Steps Once You've Migrated to Checkout Extensibility

As one of the U.K.'s leading Shopify development agencies, we want to make sure all merchants are ready for the new era of checkouts. Grab a coffee and check out (pun intended) our guide on what you need to know.

What is Shopify's Checkout Extensibility?

Shopify's Checkout Extensibility is a set of tools and APIs that allow store owners and developers to customise the checkout process. With more attention than ever on online security, Checkout Extensibility provides merchants with more flexibility and personalization options, without compromising performance, security, or scalability.

As customisations are sandboxed within Shopify, it can impact the checkout experience as the added security is slowing the site. The existing checkout.liquid framework is risky, with open-ended HTML, CSS, and JavaScript giving potential for misdeeds. Migration also ensures you are compliant with the latest Shopify tools which will always be their core focus for support.

What is the Deadline for Migrating to Checkout Extensibility?

Shopify officially deprecated the use of checkout.liquid for Shopify Plus merchants on the 13th of August 2024. This means that merchants can no longer make any adjustments to their checkout page through that access. Existing edits and customisations to checkout.liquid files will still function, however they can't be edited, which is a significant issue.

The Benefits of Checkout Extensibility

Checkout UI Extensions

With UI Extensions, store owners can add custom elements to various steps within the checkout journey. This could be in the form of product upsells, promotional messages, or dynamic content generation per customer. Developers can now also integrate apps directly into the checkout flow of a customer, for example real-time shipping estimates or personalized, targeted discounts.

Shopify Functionality

Shopify Functions allow developers to create custom business logic on your store that can extend the backend functionality, particularly during the checkout process. This could be customised discount logic, for example complex scenarios like "buy 2, get 1 free", or providing custom shipping options to customers such as rates based on location, product weight, or even customer type.

Shopify APIs

Using Shopify APIs for checkout customisation can allow developers to directly interact with data related specifically to customer checkouts. This could be to build bespoke checkout flows or to amend checkout data such as cart contents. APIs could also be beneficial for linking to fulfillment systems or subscription services at the checkout.

Checkout Extensibility: What Do I Need to Do?

1. Define Customisation Goals:

Understand what you want to achieve in checkout.

2. Check You Are On Shopify Plus:

Remember, only Shopify Plus merchants have access for Checkout Extensibility.

3. Install Shopify CLI (Command-Line Interface):

Set up the CLI for extension development.

4. Create Checkout UI Extensions:

Build and customise the front-end of the checkout.

5. Create Shopify Functions:

Implement custom backend logic for your checkout.

6. Test Your Customisations:

Validate your work in local and staging environments.

7. Deploy to Production:

Push customisations live to your Shopify store.

8. Monitor and Optimise:

Track performance and iterate on the checkout experience.

9. Manage from Shopify Admin:

Control your customisations through the admin interface.

10. Extend with Apps:

Optionally, enhance checkout with additional Shopify apps.

Optional (But Recommended) Next Steps

Update Your Thank You and Order Status Pages on Shopify

Once you have migrated to Checkout Extensibility, you should customise and activate your Thank You and Order Status pages in your Admin Settings. These pages can turn post-purchase interactions into additional sales opportunities and help manage customer expectations, so are the vital first port of call for optimisation.

Customer Events & Custom Pixels

With the deprecation of checkout.liquid and the removal of Additional Scripts to the checkout, you may now need to reconstruct conversion tracking elements, or other 3rd party installations such as Hotjar or Google Tag Manager.

These are built using Custom Pixels which exist isolated from the sandboxed checkout but with access, ensuring whatever customisations are made to the checkout, security is always maintained.

Contact Mucky Puddle For Shopify Development Support (Or a New Shopify Custom Theme?!)

Although Checkout Extensibility is now in force, maximizing the benefits of the migration is a substantial gap which many Shopify Plus merchants have yet to fill. At Mucky Puddle, we are a team of experienced Shopify developers, and can help you seamlessly transition to the new tools on offer for your checkout.

Our custom Shopify themes are designed and developed to meet best e-commerce practices, optimised for a smooth and effective customer journey and checkout. Contact us today to discuss your Shopify needs, and let us help you take your ecommerce store to the next level in tandem with Shopify's evolving platform.