Matthew Collins, the 3rd of September 2026
Watch a trade buyer place a repeat order and you'll see the same pattern. They know what they want. They add it quickly. Then they slow down at checkout, choosing the same payment method they chose last week.
Shopify has removed some of that friction. Checkout now remembers a signed-in customer's last used payment method and pre-selects it on their next purchase. It applies to D2C and B2B checkouts where saved payment methods are enabled. For stores built on repeat orders, it's a small change that adds up.
What changed at checkout?
Shopify announced the update in its changelog on the 21st of August 2026. The entry is short and clear.
- Checkout remembers the payment method a signed-in customer used last time.
- It pre-selects that method on their future purchases.
- It only works in checkout flows where saved payment methods are enabled.
- It covers both D2C and B2B checkouts.
There's nothing to switch on beyond saved payment methods. If those are already enabled on your store, your signed-in customers will start to see it.
Who benefits most?
Any store with returning customers who sign in. That's where the value sits, because guests have no history for checkout to remember.
Trade stores feel it most. Wholesale buyers often place the same kind of order every week, sometimes from the same list of products. On Fáilte Foods, we built a favourites list so buyers could save products and reorder with ease. Conversion there sits above 30%, and in wholesale, repeat ordering does much of that work. Every step you take out of a repeat order matters.
Consumer brands with loyal customers benefit too. Subscribers, members and regular buyers who sign in will find checkout a little quicker. On mobile, where every tap costs attention, that matters more than it sounds. A customer who paid a certain way last time now starts from where they left off, rather than making the same choice again.
Signing in is now worth more
The feature depends on customers being signed in. So it's worth checking how easy that is on your store.
Shopify's newer customer accounts use a one-time code sign-in, with no password to remember. Legacy customer accounts are deprecated, and Shopify has said stores still on them should upgrade. Our post on planning your legacy customer accounts upgrade covers what that involves.
For trade stores, buyers usually have to sign in to see their prices anyway. For consumer stores, it's worth making the sign-in link easy to find before checkout, especially for returning customers.
What should you check on your store?
This is a quick review, not a project. Work through it with a test account for each type of customer you serve.
- Confirm whether saved payment methods are enabled for your checkout.
- Place two orders as a signed-in test customer with different payment methods. Check what's pre-selected on the third.
- Repeat with a B2B test company if you sell to trade. Try whichever methods your trade buyers use.
- Review any payment customisations. If you hide or reorder methods for some buyers, test that the result still makes sense.
- Check any rules that send B2B orders to review. We covered those in our post on B2B order review rules on Shopify Plus.
- Tell your customer service team, so they know why a buyer's checkout looks different.
Step four is the one we'd prioritise. Stores with custom payment logic are the most likely to show buyers something you didn't expect.
Then give it a few weeks and look at the numbers. Compare checkout completion for returning, signed-in customers before and after the change. Look at trade and consumer orders separately, because they behave differently. If completion rises, it's a good argument for making sign-in more prominent across the store.
Where this fits for B2B and DTC stores
Many of the businesses we work with sell to trade buyers and consumers from the same store. A change like this touches both paths at once. Your testing should too.
Still deciding how to structure those two audiences? Our guide to running B2B and DTC in one store or two sets out the trade-offs. Payment behaviour is one more reason to test both journeys whenever checkout changes.
Native B2B features have also reached more plans this year. Shopify brought company profiles, payment terms and vaulted credit cards to Basic, Grow and Advanced in April. Our post on B2B on Shopify without Plus covers what's included.
Where parallel helps
We design and build B2B stores where reordering is the whole point. That means company accounts, trade pricing, quick reorder tools and a checkout that behaves the way your buyers expect. See how we approach B2B commerce on Shopify.
If you'd like us to test your checkout against changes like this one, send us a brief and tell us how your buyers pay.