ShopOps weekly

A quieter week, two useful theme features, and a founder story worth your full attention

July 24, 2026

Hello there,

Quieter week on the Shopify news front – which is a good thing. It means less scrambling and more time to actually work on your store.

So this week we're going a little deeper: a practical collections trick worth knowing, two new theme features for the more technical among you, and a founder story that's stayed with me since I read it.

• Quick tip – build an "everything except" collection with no tagging and no app
• Two new Shopify theme features – one genuinely useful, one arguably a step back
• Brand story – the brand she built from her kitchen, lost, and rebuilt from scratch

If this was forwarded to you, subscribe here 🔓

Shopify Updates You Can't Miss

Shopify shipped two new theme features this month. One's a real improvement. The other has developers debating.

1. The "partial" tag – instant partial page updates, natively

Shopify introduced a native way to update just part of a page without a full reload. The classic example: a customer on a collection page clicks a filter, and the product grid instantly refreshes to show the filtered results – no page reload, no jump, no flash.

Was this possible before? Yes – but only through custom workarounds that were fiddly to build and maintain. Making it native means faster, smoother filtering and a better browsing experience, with far less development effort.

Why it matters: Smooth, instant filtering meaningfully improves the shopping experience on collection-heavy stores. If browsing your catalog currently feels clunky, this is worth asking your developer about once it's fully available.

2. The "block" tag – more of a developer story

Shopify also introduced a way for developers to build page templates directly in Liquid using reusable theme blocks, rather than JSON. The debate: it trades away some of the drag-and-drop flexibility merchants got with Online Store 2.0, in exchange for code that's easier for AI agents to generate. It's meant to work alongside JSON templates, not replace them.

For most merchants this is behind-the-scenes, but it signals where Shopify is heading: making theme code easier for AI to write.

Both features require the "Liquid July '26 changes" feature preview to test, so they're developer-facing for now.

Quick Tip: Build an "Everything Except" Collection – No Tagging, No App

Shopify's new collections logic lets you Include and Exclude in the same collection – which unlocks things that used to need a workaround.

Say you want "50% off everything not currently on sale" but need to exclude bundles and kits:

Products → Collections → Create collection (set to automated)
Include condition: "Compare-at price is empty" (not already on sale)
Exclude condition: "Product type is equal to Bundle"
Save

Two conditions, done. You can also now combine multiple sources, hand-pick products alongside automated rules, and target specific variants.

One gap that remains: you still can't filter by stock at a specific fulfillment location, so items held for a physical store or gifting may show as "out of stock" online.

👉 Find a Shopify expert to set up advanced collections

There Are 20+ Open Projects on App Store Research Right Now

Short calls with the founders building the next generation of Shopify tools. You share how your store works, they pay you, and you get early access to what's coming.

A few open right now:

→ Klaviyo AI campaign calendar – see how AI can plan and execute your email calendar ($100)
→ Returns → exchanges – how D2C brands convert 40% of returns into exchanges ($250)
→ Multi-channel fulfillment – for brands managing Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop, or Walmart ($300)
→ Post-purchase revenue platform – replace shipping protection, returns, and order editing with one tool ($250)
→ AI customer support – for brands with 2+ support agents ($100)
→ Mobile app for DTC brands – shape what dedicated mobile commerce looks like ($100)

Over $1 million paid out to merchants so far. New projects added constantly.

👉 Sign up as a brand & participate in research

The Brand She Built From Her Kitchen – And Rebuilt From Scratch

Ira Kaganovsky started making natural deodorant at her kitchen table, driven by a personal concern about what our skin absorbs. It grew the way kitchen-table businesses do, until it sold out at the Four Seasons in three days. Then life interrupted everything, and she came back to a company in debt with eight employees and no revenue.

How she rebuilt it lean – and what she'd tell any founder about scaling – is worth the full read.

👉 Read her full story →

Want your story featured? Submit it here.

Top Listings

This week we're highlighting two agencies for brands ready to bring in serious help.

❋ Slash Themes – Shopify Agency · ⭐ 5.0 (11 reviews)

→ Custom theme development and Figma/PSD-to-Shopify builds
→ Platform migrations from WooCommerce, Magento, and legacy Shopify setups
→ Speed and performance optimization, app integrations, and custom functionality
→ Headless commerce and checkout upgrades for growing and enterprise merchants

A strong fit if you want a commerce studio that builds for scale from the start – technically precise, fast to deliver, and focused on stores that need to grow without limitations. (Development-focused – they don't take on marketing or SEO work.)

❋ Braun Design Co – Shopify Plus Agency · Austin, TX

→ Custom Shopify and Shopify Plus builds for wellness, sports & lifestyle, jewelry, and consumer brands
→ Platform migrations from Magento or WordPress with zero-downtime planning and SEO preservation
→ Custom design and development – tailored builds, not theme installs
→ Ongoing monthly maintenance and long-term development partnerships (average client relationship: 5+ years)

A strong fit if you want a boutique Shopify Plus partner with realistic-budget, agency-level expertise – and a team that sticks around well past launch. Best for established brands, not bargain-basement builds.

Know an agency that belongs in the directory? Send them our way.

❤️ Quick Pulse Check

This week's question: When you bring in outside help (agency, freelancer, app), how do you usually pay?

A) Fixed price per project or deliverable
B) Monthly retainer or ongoing spend
C) I mostly do things in-house

Reply with A, B, or C. (We read every response)

Last week we asked:
"How fast does your store actually load?"

Nearly half sit in the "2–4 seconds, probably room to improve" middle – which is the honest answer for most stores. The 27% who haven't measured are the real opportunity: it takes two minutes to run your homepage through GTmetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights, and that single number often reshuffles what you prioritize next. Speed is one of the few things that affects both conversion and search ranking at once.

See you next Friday,

– Jon & the shopexperts team