Shopify Plus: Businesses of all shapes and sizes have come to rely on Shopify to boost their brand and drive their sales. Some of the world’s largest brands use Shopify as their go-to e-commerce platform. Shopify is a robust marketplace that offers a niche for small and large companies alike.
While Shopify is a wonderful way for small businesses to make headway, large companies with established brands may need more powerful capabilities to suit their customers’ needs. That’s where Shopify Plus comes into the picture.
In this article, we will explore the basics of just what is Shopify Plus – what it can offer companies with a far-reaching appeal, whether it might be a good fit for your business, exclusive Shopify Plus benefits, and how to get the platform up and running in your store.
Shopify is a marvelous tool any business can use to enter the e-commerce landscape. It offers the essential tools and capabilities brands need to reach their customers. As such, Shopify is great for small businesses, often starting on a shoestring budget and creating their first-ever online shopping experience.
In contrast, large companies with established brands generate high sales volume and significant revenue. Therefore, these companies require more robust capabilities from their e-commerce platform.
In essence, the premium platform is still Shopify at its core, but offers additional features better suited for companies with high sales volumes. As a result, this platform offers greater customization and control over its functions. It’s a great solution for large companies and brands, as well as for smaller businesses that are starting to outgrow the features that their regular Shopify plan offers. the
Shopify’s premium platform builds on Shopify’s core features. It gives you a fully functional e-commerce website that can be customized to suit your brand. You can add a blog, integrate with your social accounts, and add various payment methods. The Shopify app store is an amazing marketplace for apps to help your store function in just about every way imaginable. Shopify’s basic platform has a lot to offer, which is a big part of its success to date.
However, additional Shopify Plus features make it much easier to scale your business and create a unique experience for your customers. It’s much more customizable, particularly when it comes to third-party payment and custom-built apps. You can also customize your store’s checkout features. For example, it’s possible to customize the user interface depending on the purchase value, creating a Shopify Plus custom checkout that helps your store feel like more than an out-of-the-box Shopify store.
Another benefit of the platform is additional customer support and a dedicated launch engineer. While Shopify’s support is already great, the enterprise version will assign an engineer who can provide individual support throughout your entire launch process. For merchants considering Shopify vs Shopify Plus, it’s also important to consider how many staff accounts you will require. Standard Shopify platforms give you several staff accounts, while upgrading places no limitations on staff accounts.
On Shopify’s premium platform, merchants also have access to exclusive applications. Some Shopify Plus app options are not available on the regular Shopify platform, including Wholesale Channel, Shopify Flow, Launchpad, Script Editor, Transporter App, and Bulk Account Inviter.
Plus also facilitates integration with other platforms such as customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and third-party logistics (3PL), among other platforms.
If you have multiple stores, upgrading is also a must. The standard Shopify platform does not support various stores. As such, you would need a separate dashboard for each store. With Plus, you can integrate and manage multiple stores in one dashboard. This feature makes running various stores simultaneously much easier than with the standard Shopify platform.
For B2B merchants, Shopify Plus has a dedicated wholesale channel designed just for this. As you can see, the premium platform is ideal for large-scale businesses. Nevertheless, small businesses looking to expand can also find the upgrade beneficial as sales volume increases.
Upgrading starts with an initial minimum flat fee of $2,000 monthly. This fee may surprise you, considering other e-commerce platforms can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
The platform’s cost does go up based on sales volume. You can expect to pay 0.25% of your sales volume once your monthly sales surpass $800,000. Nevertheless, Shopify Plus pricing is still often a more affordable option than many other e-commerce platforms out there.
On the whole, the premium plan offers many more features than the standard Shopify platform. However, the cost and amount of work needed to get started may be too much for startups and small businesses. As a result, the premium platform is better for larger companies and established brands, who may require specialized features like a unique Shopify Plus theme, custom design and development, and more.
Generally speaking, starting with the standard Shopify account first makes sense. Then, you can decide if you need more robust capabilities. At that point, you can choose to upgrade or remain on the standard Shopify platform.
Shopify Plus aims to be a one-stop shop for all your e-commerce and store management needs. As a result, you can expect high-quality service and relative ease of use. Nevertheless, Shopify is not the only game in town. There are other options, such as Magento or BigCommerce.
When considering Magento vs Shopify Plus, it’s important to realize that Magento is an open-source platform built on a PHP system. Since it is open-source, users can customize it to suit their needs. However, doing so does require knowledge and expertise in programming. Therefore, most businesses will need to employ IT professionals who can handle the coding and underlying infrastructure.
Another e-commerce platform to consider is BigCommerce. This platform is great for brands that have a presence across other platforms like Etsy or eBay. As such, BigCommerce’s relatively easy multi-channel integration makes it a great alternative to Magento. When it comes to BigCommerce vs Shopify Plus, BigCommerce does require users to be more tech-savvy. Thus, it’s not a platform you can jump right into effortlessly. Moreover, customizing your store may need you to hire an IT professional to support you.
A Shopify Plus agency is a service Shopify offers to its Shopify Plus clients. Premium users have access to a select group of vetted agencies (they really are vetted – there is an extensive list of Shopify Plus partner requirements) that offer third-party services in this service. Partners help brands implement the platform, with the apps, services, design, checkout, and other components needed to get a store up and running.
Businesses that don’t have trusted IT professionals to help them can turn to Shopify Plus Agency Partners to help them with their implementation and migration processes. It’s important to note that Shopify Plus partners offer varying services and fees. Therefore, it’s a good rule of thumb to check out what each partner offers and how much their services will cost you. Nevertheless, an agency is a great service, especially if you’re a newcomer and could benefit from the networking and knowledge.
If you’re already on Shopify, upgrading makes sense when:
As your business expands and your needs change, upgrading is a relatively seamless process. Upgrading from a standard Shopify plan takes only a few minutes. Shopify allows you to try the upgrade to Shopify Plus free for fourteen days. From there, you will need to make the corresponding first months’ payment.
You don’t need programming or developer support when you upgrade from a standard Shopify plan. However, the advanced options such as customizing checkout, access to the Liquid theme template, and other advanced features do require coding knowledge. If you don’t have a trusted professional to support you, Shopify Plus Partners can help you find the right professional for the job.
By now, you might be thinking, “Shopify Plus sounds great, but does it truly work?”
Douglas Low, CEO of Incu, a shop specializing in men and women’s fashion, had this to say about Incu’s experience with the platform:
“We’ve seen pretty significant growth in conversion and revenue year over year, which would not have been possible without the foundations and network of support provided by Shopify Plus.”
Incu’s story is the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of Shopify Plus stores that use this platform to drive their growth.
Another example is American rapper 2 Chainz’s successful merchandise line. 2 Chainz’s team turned to the platform to handle their online sales process. In 30 days, the shop sold $2.1 worth of merchandise.
2 Chainz’s success boils down to merchandising on demand. Under their previous model, the strategy called for building up inventory and then unloading it at deep discounts. Since upgrading, their new business model allowed the brand to sell merchandise on-demand. In other words, they would only produce what customers ordered. From there, they were able to eliminate unsold stock and maintain a healthy profit margin.
Another of the many case studies is up-and-coming brand: Puravida Bracelets.
Puravida bracelets is a fashion jewelry and accessory brand that shifted from Magento to Shopify. The name of Pura Vida’s success was transferring success found on social media to a bona fide e-commerce platform. After trying Magento, Pura Vida found success with Shopify’s seamless integration features.
In particular, Pura Vida’s bread and butter is their growing customer base that stems from subscribers. According to Pura Vida’s co-founder Griffin Thall, “Subscriptions are one of the most exciting and fastest-growing aspects of our business. It’s also given us a ton of stability that has allowed us to grow with confidence we wouldn’t have otherwise.” Indeed, Shopify Plus can help simply businesses’ multi-channel approach. Since switching to Shopify, Pura Vida has experienced sustainable growth to the tune of a 50% increase in sales revenue year after year, predominantly due to higher conversion rates.
PickyStory is an e-commerce sales automation platform, designed to act as your store’s discount engine for all campaigns and deals you run. Larger brands using Shopify Plus can create fully customized front-end experiences using PickyStory’s storefront API and robust infrastructure.
Your store’s own developers can use PickyStory’s discount engine to create custom sales flows that are both unique to and representative of your brand. With PickyStory and Shopify Plus, you can increase your revenue and take your brand to the next level.
Shopify’s premium platform is a great option for your business, especially if you do over $80,000 a month in sales and quickly approach six figures. Shopify Plus offers robust capabilities that large-scale e-commerce sites need without the significant investment in infrastructure, coding, and maintenance. As a result, your business can save time and money by going with a one-stop shop.
Ultimately, this platform is great for expanding business and established brands. If you’re already on Shopify, upgrading may be the best solution for your growing brand. When upgrading, you have the option to try Shopify Plus for fourteen days, which means you can always downgrade if you don’t feel the platform is meeting your needs.
While Shopify Plus is not the only option on the market, it offers the best cost-benefit proposition. In particular, it simplifies the migration, integration, and implementation process. With other systems and platforms, your shop may need months to get off the ground. With Shopify’s premium platform, you can get your business off and running in a few weeks. What are you waiting for?
Learn more on the PickyStory blog.
Good Luck!
PickyStory is the e-commerce conversion platform. It enables merchants to uplift their revenue in store. PickyStory offers a variety of deals like Bundle Products, Combo Products, Bundle Builder, Kits, Looks, and coupons.
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