Shopify Dawn Theme v15 Update

The Shopify Dawn theme version 15 has been out for over a week. This excites me because I’m a big fan of using Dawn for your Shopify store. Why?

• The Dawn theme is free.
• You will get the newest features of Shopify right away without added development costs — aside from merging any code edits you made to your previous version.
• Upgrading Dawn from version to version tends to be streamlined.
• You ensure your store’s theme is set up the way Shopify thinks.

Here are the main highlights that popped out to me in the version 15 release.

Support for 2000 SKUs

Shopify has long been plagued with its 99 variant SKU limit on products. So, Shopify plans to roll out a limit increase to 2000 SKUs. This is a massive win for larger stores. The dawn theme getting support for 2000 SKUs is a sign Shopify will be rolling out the feature to everyone very soon.

Support for the Shopify Plus Exclusive Feature of Combined Listings

Shopify Combined Listings is a free app that allows Shopify merchants to showcase all variations of a product on a single product page, assuming that you need more than 2000 SKUs for a single product listing.

However, the app is locked down and limited to Shopify Plus and enterprise stores only. So, for now, many sites must build a custom implementation. I’ve done this myself using custom metadata to link products, and I’ll likely post about that in the future if this new feature remains exclusive to Plus and enterprise stores.

Added SEO Future Possibilities with Structured Data Filter

A nice little addition is the use of structured_data. The structured_data filter can only be used on the product and article objects in your liquid templates right now. However, the feature is very nice if you want to remove boilerplate code and have your theme stay on the greenpath.

<!-- New structured_data filter -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
  {{ product | structured_data }}
</script>

<!-- Your way to extend the structured_data filter -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
   "@context":"http://schema.org/",
   "@id":"/products/{{ product.handle }}#product"
}
</script>

Now, Shopify will handle the basics for you, but more advanced structured_data will require customization of your Dawn theme. You can add additional information to the new structured_data filter by adding another block with the same @id to the page — make sure you replace my-product-handle with your actual product handle.

<!-- Json output from {{ product | structured_data }} -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
   "@context":"http://schema.org/",
   "@id":"/products/my-product-handle#product",
   "name":"My product",
   ... other fields ...
}
</script>

<!-- Your custom data -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
   "@context":"http://schema.org/",
   "@id":"/products/my-product-handle#product",
   "aggregateRating": {
        "@type": "AggregateRating",
        "ratingValue": "5",
        "reviewCount": "3000"
   }
}
</script>