A/B Testing Themes and Checkout With Shopify Rollouts

Shopify launched Rollouts in March to schedule and test storefront changes inside the admin. On June 5, it went further: Rollouts can now schedule, gradually publish, and A/B test entire themes and checkout and customer account configurations. You can now run real tests on Shopify without a separate tool. This is what Rollouts does and how we'd run a first experiment.

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Published Jun 8, 2026. Author: Ecomm Guys. 4 min read.

Key Points

Rollouts can schedule, gradually publish, or A/B test a whole theme or a checkout and accounts configuration.
You can run an event that reverts automatically, such as a BFCM theme for one week.
Rollouts is available on Basic plans and above, with market targeting on Advanced and Plus.
Shopify creates a copy of the live theme or configuration, so you can keep editing during a test.
Start with one clear hypothesis and enough traffic to reach a result.

What Rollouts Does Now

When Shopify introduced Rollouts on March 31, it let you save theme changes and schedule them. You could also set an end date so a store reverts after a promotion, and A/B test changes against your current theme with real traffic. The June 5 update extends that to whole themes and to checkout and customer account configurations. You can now:

Schedule a new theme or checkout to go live at a set time, such as switching from Dawn to Horizon.
Swap temporarily to another theme or checkout setup, such as a BFCM theme for a week, with automatic revert.
Roll out a new theme or configuration gradually to a percentage of visitors.
A/B test two different themes or checkout setups to find the winner.
Schedule or test localized content by market, such as different button text by region.

How It Works

You create a rollout from Markets > Rollouts in the admin. Shopify automatically makes a copy of your published theme or configuration, so you can keep editing the live version separately from the experiment. Mutually exclusive experiments let you run more than one test at the same time without the same visitor seeing both.

Rollouts is available on Basic plans and above. Targeting a rollout to a specific market, such as a localized homepage for European buyers, needs the Advanced or Plus plan.

What We'd Test First

Checkout testing is the most interesting part of this update. Until now, testing checkout changes on Shopify was hard. With Rollouts, you can test an upsell block, a trust message, or a change to the order of payment options against your current setup.

For themes, the best use is de-risking a redesign. Rather than switching everyone to a new theme on launch day, release it to a share of visitors, compare conversion and revenue per visitor, then expand. If something is wrong, only a fraction of traffic sees it.

How to Run a Test Properly

A native tool removes the setup cost, but the discipline is the same.

Write a hypothesis first, such as showing delivery dates on the cart page will raise checkout starts.
Pick one main metric before you start, such as conversion rate or revenue per visitor.
Test one meaningful change at a time.
Let the test run long enough to cover full weeks and normal traffic patterns.
Avoid running tests across major promotions, which skew behaviour.
Record the result and the decision, so the next test builds on it.

Traffic Sets the Limit on What You Can Test

This puts testing within reach of stores that never paid for a separate tool. The limit is traffic. A store with modest monthly sessions can still test, but it should test big changes, such as a new product page layout or a checkout block, where the difference is large enough to detect. Small tweaks need far more traffic to show a clear result.

It also pairs well with SimGym. Use AI shopper simulations to find friction, then use Rollouts to confirm the fix with real customers.

Run Your First Test Before Fall

Open Markets > Rollouts and set up a scheduled event for your next promotion so you get used to the tool. Then pick one hypothesis for your product page or checkout and run your first A/B test before the fall, so you have results in hand before BFCM planning starts.

Want help planning and running tests on your Shopify store? Book a call with our team.

Sources

Schedule, publish, and A/B test new themes and checkout and customer account configurations Shopify Changelog, June 2026
Schedule and test storefront changes with Rollouts Shopify Changelog, March 2026
Types of rollouts and changes Shopify Help Center