Shopify gives greater support to local businesses

Data from marketing company SEMRush shows that online users search for local businesses an average of 299,000 times per month.

In collaboration with Google, Shopify has announced a new inventory sync feature to help SMEs take advantage of consumer interest in local firms.

Merchants will be able to automatically let nearby customers know when a product is available in store by listing its availability on the search engine. Shopify claims this will make it easier than ever to shop and support local brands.

What else is included in the update?

As well as its new inventory tool, created in partnership with Google, Shopify has launched ‘Tokengated Commerce’ to enable buyers to connect their crypto wallets to UK retailers.

The platform is also expanding a suite of B2B (business-to-business) management tools to Shopify Plus merchants. Sellers will be able to access Shopify’s powerful customisation features and manage all aspects of their commerce business in one place.

Excitingly, merchants will be able to customise their online store in a way that Shopify previously didn’t allow. ‘Shopify Functions’ is a new tool that lets developers extend or replace Shopify’s backend logic with custom code.