How to Upgrade from checkout.liquid to Checkout Extensibility

With checkout.liquid deprecated in Shopify, it’s time for Shopify Plus merchants to make the upgrade to Checkout Extensibility. While this upgrade will affect your conversion tracking, there’s no need to sweat! We’ve got you covered.

Here’s everything you need to know about how to maintain tracking during the upgrade.

This article covers:

• What Is checkout.liquid?
• The New Checkout Experience
• Implications for Merchants
• Things to Know Before You Upgrade
• Transitioning to the New System
• Shopify Checkout Extensibility With Elevar

What Is checkout.liquid?

The checkout.liquid layout renders the checkout in Shopify. It’s available only to Shopify Plus merchants.

Shopify announced the deprecation of checkout.liquid in February 2023.

checkout.liquid will be sunset for the Information, Shipping, and Payment checkout steps on August 13, 2024, and for the Thank You and Order Status pages on August 28, 2025. Additional scripts and script tags will also be sunset for the Order Status page on August 28, 2025.

Stores that currently use checkout.liquid need to upgrade to Checkout Extensibility before these dates. [Resource]

The New Checkout Experience

Checkout Extensibility is a suite of Shopify features that allow merchants to deliver a customized checkout experience. It surpasses the capabilities of checkout.liquid in a number of ways.

Merchants now have access to new features such as branding tools to customize checkout, trust badges, contact modules, and other checkout extensions. They can also build custom bundles displayed during checkout and use a one-page checkout system that allows buyers to complete all steps on a single page.

The update affecting analytics and conversion tracking data is the deprecation of checkout.liquid. The new method for implementing client-side tracking during checkout relies on Shopify’s pixel.

From adding an item to the cart to completing a purchase, pixels enable Shopify merchants to track conversion events at each step of the user journey. Merchants can use app pixels or create custom pixels to meet their specific requirements.

Custom pixels allow Shopify merchants to collect customer event data across their online store, including during checkout and on post-purchase pages.

Get more details about how Shopify’s pixel impacts your tracking.

Implications for Merchants

While there are significant advantages of Checkout Extensibility that Shopify merchants can look forward to using to deliver customized checkout experiences, there are certain limitations to be aware of.

Some Shopify features are incompatible with the deprecated checkout.liquid, such as preorders, try-before-you-buy, product bundles, and one-page checkout (to name a few).

A significant implication of upgrading to Checkout Extensibility is the potential for it to negatively impact your tracking if you don’t take steps to safeguard your tracking mechanisms beforehand.

Learn more about how Checkout Extensibility could impact your tracking and steps you can take to ensure a smooth transition with tracking in place. [Resource]

Things to Know Before You Upgrade

ou will need to migrate the functionality of everything you want to keep to the new checkout experience using Shopify pixels, the new checkout builder tool, and checkout apps. However, it is important to note that it won’t be possible to migrate everything over, and you might have to change your checkout flow.

Transitioning to the New System

Establishing manageable milestones is crucial for the success of any significant transition. Those milestones ideally should be rolled out and tested independently.

The official Shopify Checkout upgrade guide is an excellent starting point when preparing for migration:

1. Review your existing checkout customization.
2. Review your Thank you and Order status page customizations.
3. Customize your checkout, thank you and order status pages by adding apps or editing your branding.
4. Set up your Pixels or additional first party features.
5. Publish.

To simplify, there are three main types of scripts / modifications:

• Layout modifications — Changes to the look and feel of the checkout process.
• Custom scripts and third-party integrations — Upsells, custom Thank You pages, live chat, etc.
• Conversion tracking – Google, Meta, Tiktok, Microsoft, etc.

You will need to take a different approach to migrate each type.

Layout Modifications

With Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility, you don’t have the ability to make changes directly to the code of your checkout, however there is now a Checkout editor.

You should be prepared to make some changes to your checkout flow when you upgrade. Unfortunately, not all modifications will be supported in Checkout Extensibility, so you must budget time to build your new checkout.

Custom Scripts and Third-Party Integrations

You can now install checkout specific apps from the App store. Most ecommerce stores will have lots of apps and scripts already that make modifications to checkout.liquid for things like shipping rates calculation, upsell modules, customer loyalty widgets, etc.

Those app developers should be making Shopify Checkout Extensibility compliant updates to their apps before the deadlines.

Find details about how to prepare your Elevar integration prior to upgrading to Checkout Extensibility. [Resource]

Conversion Tracking

The change to checkout extensibility is an opportune time to simplify your conversion tracking strategy. Shopify pixels aim to do just that.

To simplify Shopify pixels, allows you to run code anywhere on your site. You specify the standard events you want to listen to, and execute conversion tracking codes within that block.

There is a different code to install a complete conversion tracking solution for each major platform using pixels, but before you go down that road, consider using Elevar to make your life easier.

Shopify Checkout Extensibility with Elevar

As a Shopify Plus preferred partner, you can depend on Elevar to support your transition to Checkout Extensibility.

Elevar seamlessly integrates with Checkout Extensibility to load Google Tag Manager and fire checkout datalayer events using the Customer Events Setting.

Plus, Elevar differentiates between first-time subscriptions and one-time orders and identifies new vs returning purchases server-side.

Learn more about how Elevar can support your transition to Checkout Extensibility, or book a call with us.

Save these resources to help with your upgrade:

• How to prepare your Elevar integration prior to upgrading to Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility
• Updates to thank you and order status page checkout extensibility
• Using GTM with Shopify’s CE
• Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility