What Online Store 2.0 Actually Changed

Should You Upgrade Your Shopify Theme?

Shopify's own position is the starting point: upgrading is not mandatory, and merchants can continue using a vintage theme if it meets their needs.

What it does publish is a set of figures. Sections and blocks have ceilings. Contrast and touch targets have specified ratios and pixel sizes. Valid HTML is stated as a requirement. None of that needs a designer's opinion to assess.

My own recommendation, which does not come from Shopify, is to measure against those figures before deciding whether to rebuild.

If the measurements come back clean and the theme still does not do what the business needs, that is a good reason to rebuild. If they come back with a list of accessibility failures, my own view is that fixing those is worth pricing against a rebuild before choosing.

Sections, Blocks And The Numbers

Shopify describes sections as Liquid files that allow you to create reusable modules of content that can be customised by merchants.

The limits are specific. JSON templates and section groups can render up to 25 sections, and each section can have up to 50 blocks.

Those are ceilings worth knowing before a design is signed off. Whether a given page approaches them depends on how many sections it actually uses, and in my experience a homepage that gains a section per campaign is the one that gets close.

JSON templates also support app blocks, so merchants can include app content within sections without editing theme code. My own reading is that this is the change with the clearest commercial consequence, since an app supporting app blocks can be placed by the merchant rather than by a developer.

The Accessibility Numbers

In my experience this is the part of a theme review most often skipped, and it is among the easiest to do, because Shopify publishes the figures.

Its theme accessibility best practices were created with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in mind, and it sets out the four WCAG principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

The measurable parts are these.

1. Text that is less than 24 pixels regular, or 18.5 pixels bold, has a contrast ratio of 4.5:1.
2. Text that is 24 pixels regular, or 18.5 pixels bold, and larger, has a contrast ratio of 3.0:1.
3. Icons have a contrast ratio of 3.0:1 against their background.
4. Touch targets on primary controls and links need to be at least 44 by 44 pixels.
5. The Tab key and Shift and Tab keys can be used to navigate the theme.
6. The theme must be built using valid HTML.

Every one of those can be measured rather than debated. Contrast ratios come out of a calculator. Touch targets come out of the inspector. Tab navigation needs nothing but a keyboard.

My own view is that this list is the highest return part of a theme audit, because the failures are usually systematic. A single muted grey used across the theme fails once in the stylesheet and everywhere it is applied, so one fix clears them together.

Where Theme Work Meets Performance

The theme is one of the things Shopify names as a factor merchants can control, alongside apps loading storefront assets, uploaded images, and third party code added manually.

Its theme performance guidance carries its own numbers: a minified JavaScript bundle should be 16 KB or less, JavaScript should not be required for basic functionality such as finding or purchasing products, and large frameworks are advised against, with React, Angular, Vue and jQuery named.

I have covered the merchant side of that separately in What Is Actually Worth Optimising On A Shopify Store. Both sets of figures are measured on the same pages, so I would check them together rather than separately.

The Four Paths Shopify Names

The same migration assessment that says upgrading is not mandatory also sets out four paths, and it is worth knowing there are four rather than two.

Not migrating is one of them. Installing a new theme is another. Updating to a new version of your current theme is a third. Manually migrating is the fourth.

In my experience the middle two get skipped in conversation, and a rebuild gets presented as the alternative to doing nothing. My own view is that updating the theme you already have to a newer version of itself is worth pricing alongside the other three, because it is on Shopify's list and it rarely reaches a quote.

Shopify also names the factors to weigh before migrating: whether Online Store 2.0 features are actually needed, how satisfied you are with the current theme, how much you rely on apps and customisations, the budget available, and the level of code expertise you have.

Read that list against a rebuild quote and two of the factors are about you rather than the theme. Reliance on apps and customisations decides how much of a rebuild is really a re-implementation, and code expertise decides who maintains the result. Neither appears on a design mock up, and in my experience neither gets asked about early enough.

Where Metafields Fit

This piece makes no claim about when metafields were introduced, because the sources read here do not establish it. What they do support is sections on every page, and app blocks inside JSON templates.

My own reading of why metafields matter to a theme decision is about where content lives: product specific content that would otherwise sit in a description field or be hardcoded into a template has somewhere structured to go instead.

My own reading is that this is what removes the usual excuse for hardcoding. If a product needs a specification table, a metafield holds the data and the section renders it, rather than a developer editing a template each time the data changes.

That matters for a rebuild decision, because a theme that hardcodes what could be a metafield is generating developer tickets that no longer need to exist.

Example: A Rebuild Quote Audited Against The Published Numbers

This is a constructed example, not a client engagement, assembled from the published limits and figures above.

A merchant is quoted for a full theme rebuild. The stated reasons are that the theme is old, the homepage is slow, and the team cannot change anything without a developer.

Audited against the published numbers, three different problems appear.

The homepage template is close to the 25 section ceiling, because every campaign added a section and none were removed. That is a content problem, not a theme problem.

The accessibility figures fail in a small number of places that recur everywhere: a muted text colour below 4.5:1 and a set of icon buttons under 44 by 44 pixels. Both are stylesheet fixes.

And the reason the team cannot change anything is that product specifications are hardcoded in a template rather than held in metafields. That is the only one of the three that is genuinely a theme rebuild candidate, and even then only for the templates concerned.

The useful outcome is that the quote was for one project and the audit found three, two of which are cheaper and faster than the thing being sold. That is my reading of the case rather than a claim about quotes in general.

Signs Your Theme Needs Auditing Before A Rebuild

Five signals.

1. You are being quoted for a rebuild and nobody has audited the theme you have.
2. Your homepage template has grown a section per campaign and nothing has been removed.
3. Product content that changes regularly lives in a template rather than a metafield.
4. Nobody can tell you whether the theme passes the published contrast figures.
5. Adding an app means a developer ticket, which is worth checking against whether the theme supports app blocks.

Signal four is the one I would check first, because it is measurable rather than a matter of opinion, and in my experience the failures tend to be systematic rather than scattered.

If any apply, you can Request The Free Shopify Store Audit. The main site has a Shopify Section.

Common Questions About Shopify Themes

Do I Have To Upgrade To Online Store 2.0?

No. Shopify's migration assessment states that upgrading is not mandatory and that merchants can continue using a vintage theme if it meets their needs. It sets out four paths, including staying put. Treat a rebuild as a decision to justify rather than a default position.

How Many Sections Can A Shopify Template Have?

JSON templates and section groups can render up to 25 sections, and each section can have up to 50 blocks. Those ceilings are worth knowing before a long page design is signed off, since a template that gains a section per campaign can approach the first one.

What Are Shopify's Theme Accessibility Requirements?

Shopify's theme accessibility best practices were created with WCAG in mind. The measurable figures are 4.5:1 contrast for text under 24 pixels regular or 18.5 bold, 3.0:1 for larger text and for icons, touch targets of at least 44 by 44 pixels, keyboard navigation by Tab, and valid HTML.

Where Do Metafields Fit?

This piece makes no claim about when metafields were introduced. My own reading is that metafields give structured product content somewhere to live other than a description field or a hardcoded template, so content changes need a developer less often, provided the theme actually reads from them.

What Are App Blocks?

JSON templates support app blocks, which let merchants include app content within sections without editing theme code. My own reading of the commercial consequence is that an app supporting app blocks can be placed by the merchant rather than by a developer.

Part of The Shopify Development Guide. See also What Is Actually Worth Optimising On A Shopify Store, What To Settle Before You Build A Shopify App and Migration And Replatforming.