In this reaction episode of the Liquid Weekly Podcast, hosts Karl Meisterheim and Taylor Page take a deep dive into the Shopify Winter Editions '26 "Renaissance" release. They explore the stunning (and Easter egg-filled) visuals of the new landing page, including hidden interactive elements like the "Party in Slack like it's 1499" emoji and a Da Vinci-priced beanie.

The duo breaks down the most impactful announcements for developers and merchants, including the evolution of Sidekick into an agent that can generate apps and modify themes, the new Sim Jim tool for simulating shopper behavior, and the introduction of Rollouts for native A/B testing. They also discuss major updates like the Shopify Product Network (effectively "Collective on steroids"), global expansion for Collective, and new B2B capabilities like ACH payments and store credit. On the technical side, they cover critical changes: the deprecation of Shopify Scripts in favor of Functions by June 2026 and the new security requirement for expiring access tokens.

Sponsor

The Support Heroes - https://thesupportheroes.com/

Chapters

00:00 Intro: Hunting for Easter Eggs in the Editions Site 
01:51 Welcome & Winter Weather Chat 
05:09 Deep Dive: Winter Editions '26 "Renaissance" Site Visuals 
11:47 Sidekick Updates: App Generation, Pulse, & Automations 
21:24 Agentic Commerce: Rollouts & SimGym (Shopper Simulator) 
25:54 Shopify Product Network & Collective Global Expansion 
31:46 B2B Updates: ACH Payments & Store Credit 
33:39 The "Key" Easter Egg Struggle 
38:20 Major Update: Functions Replace Scripts (June 2026) 
38:59 Major Update: Enhanced Security with Expiring Tokens 
49:50 Web Vitals API by Region 
50:40 Picks of the Week

Resources

Shopify Winter Editions '26: https://www.shopify.com/editions/wint... 
Technical breakdown thread: https://x.com/Danetag/status/20013357... 

Interesting Winter Editions X Links

Ben Sehl -   / 1998769059647656084  
Paul Nuschke -   / 1999136680809205949  
Eytan Seidman -   / 1998766589110526350  
Jake Casto -   / 1999196458923278386  

Picks of the Week

Karl - Endurance by F. A. Worsely -   / 128717.endurance  
Karl - The PITT - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pitt

Taylor - Everand - https://www.everand.com/