Shopify announced the removal of the checkout.liquid theme file and Shopify Scripts on February 13, Monday. Both checkout.liquid customizations and Shopify Scripts will no longer be available from August 13, 2024.
The Checkout.liquid Deprecation
Shopify will replace checkout.liquid with checkout extensibility. Checkout.liquid customization won’t be available for Shipping, Payment and Information from August 13, 2024. Shops that are using checkout.liquid currently for their in-checkout pages will require to upgrade customizations to checkout extensibility before August 13.
Stores that fail to upgrade their checkouts will automatically be upgraded to un-customized and out-of-the-box Shopify Checkout. However, Shopify Plus merchants can continue leveraging checkout.liquid to customize post-checkout pages that include Thank You and Order Status Page. Shopify will eventually allow customizations on post-checkout pages with checkout extensibility as well.
Advantages of Checkout Extensibility
Checkout extensibility is “an easier way to customize Shopify Checkout in a way that’s app-based, upgrade-safe, higher-converting, and integrated with Shop Pay,” states Shopify. Unlike the earlier old way of customizing Shopify Checkout, customizations with checkout extensibility are upgrade-safe. This allows merchants to enjoy new checkout features as soon as they are made available.
Checkout extensibility also offers seamless integration with Shop Pay. Stores will be able to include any or all of their customizations to Shop Pay with only a few clicks. Thus, creating a similarly smooth experience across their Shop Pay and guest checkout. This allows Shopify Plus stores to surface business-portal customizations in express checkouts besides tapping into Shop Pay’s 4X faster checkout experience and 91 percent higher conversion rates on mobile.
With the help of checkout extensibility, Shopify Plus merchants can make code-free customizations to checkout with the help of a new checkout editor and public apps. Instead of editing and maintaining code in their checkout.liquid theme file, brands can use a suite of impressive and efficient apps and branding tools. Meanwhile, it also gives merchants the flexibility to develop custom applications for bespoke and advanced customizations.
Shopify Scripts Deprecation
Shopify Scripts will be replaced by Shopify Functions. Merchants using Shopify Scripts will have to move to applications supported by Shopify Functions before August 13, 2024.
Shopify Functions comes as a new powerful way to extend as well as customize Shopify features in order to suit the unique business requirements of different brands on the Shopify platform. Functions are installed with an app, hence, merchants can configure them directly alongside native features in the admin. This means you can modify your customizations without any need to touch a line of code.
With Shopify Functions, you can create customized shipping and payment methods as well as unique discount coupons. Shopify plans to include support for checkout and cart validations, return validations, shipping rates and order routing in near future. Shopify will also release “additional Functions APIs to cover existing Scripts use-cases, and more”.
However, it is important to note that both Functions and Scripts are compatible together. So, in case, a store is not supported by Functions yet, you can continue using existing Shopify Scripts.
