What is Shopify Plus? Is It Worth It?

As an online business owner or e-commerce company, you might be familiar with Shopify. But what about Shopify Plus? Has your company ever consider to use Shopify Plus as an e-commerce platform? ​​

Just a short brief, Shopify Plus was built in 2014 to compete with enterprise e-commerce platforms such as Magento, Volusion, and Demandware, and it aimed to attract large e-commerce merchants. 

And, now let’s deep dive into this e-commerce platform from what exactly Shopify Plus is, how much it will cost you, and whether the features it provides make it a good choice for your business. 

What is Shopify Plus? 

Shopify Plus is a fully hosted, enterprise-level e-commerce platform and a website builder. It is one of Shopify’s plans for e-commerce businesses. It has unique features offered:

• More customization.
• Greater automation capabilities.
• Improved multichannel and omnichannel capabilities.
• Faster speeds.
• The capability to handle large volumes of traffic and sales.

We will describe all of those features in more detail. 

The Benefits of Shopify Plus 

Some of you might be wondering what makes Shopify Plus so special. And here are some of the key features and benefits that differentiate it from the Shopify regular plans or other platforms. 

• Customize Checkout Page Experience

Things that you won’t find on the standard Shopify plans is a customization option for your checkout page. It can be hugely frustrating for many merchants who choose the standard Shopify plan. 

If you choose Shopify Plus, you have access to the checkout.liquid file, and an app called Script Editor gives you full control over the checkout page. You will be able to create a customizable checkout with a personalized user experience, such as adding personalized messages, discounts, or special offers to the customers. Besides, you also will be able to: 

• Utilizing the customer’s location data to offer click and collect options.
• Allowing customers to pay with points from loyalty apps.
• Keep the checkout page on your own domain, not on checkout.shopify.com. 
• Calculating international taxes

Another benefit is that the checkout customization feature can boost revenue by up to 10% and reduce abandoned cart rates. 

1. The ability to handle the heavy traffic 

As an e-commerce retailer, one most important things is that your website is live and fully operational. Marketing, email flow, and conversion strategies will be meaningless if your website does not work and makes purchases. And it’s a fact that every second of website downtime costs a loss for every e-commerce retailer.

Therefore, you need a platform that will not collapse when traffic spikes due to flash sales or seasonal events. Shopify Plus is the answer because it can withstand enormous traffic demands during flash sales or seasonal events. But also ensure that you have reliable Shopify shipping software to handle the orders from that huge traffic.

2. Automated workflow and campaign 

Running an e-commerce business is complicated, and a lot must be done daily. But thanks to Shopify Plus, which offers Shopify Flows where you can automate tasks by creating flows. A flow is a series of tasks and automation capabilities triggered by events. Shopify Flows allows you to customize and automate important inventory and order processes that previously were manual. 

The possibilities are endless. You can create flow both internally and for your customer or clients. For example, you can create a flow that sends an email notification to your team when a new order is placed. You can also add a flow that reorders inventory after a certain point. Another case is you can automate the flow for identifying and canceling high-risk orders, hiding out-of-stock products from your online store, and following up with customers. 

In short, these are the Flows capabilities for your e-commerce store:

• Repetitive tasks automation
• Build connectors to integrate your tools 
• Create custom logic triggers after certain events or criteria are met
• Create customizations that do not require coding knowledge

3. Advanced multichannel and omnichannel capabilities

Shopify Plus offers more customization and enables seamless native social selling on top platforms like Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and Kik. These features give you more control over the customers you want to reach. 

And it means that you can send updates, promos, and abandoned cart or incomplete checkout reminders straight and directly to each customer’s Messenger app. 

4. B2B and wholesale options

Shopify Plus lets you create separate, password-protected stores for your wholesale and B2B customers. Within this shop, you can set up various features aimed explicitly at B2B and wholesale customers, such as:

• Bulk discount
• Custom shipping rules
• Custom pricing
• Minimum and maximum order quantity
• Customized payment options

All these features allow you to unlock the additional revenue your wholesale and B2B business can bring without feeling overwhelmed by your ability to manage it. 

5. Unlimited staff or admin account

As your business grows and gets bigger, you will hire more people. It means more people will need access to your Shopify store to edit the content. To overcome it, Shopify Plus offers unlimited staff accounts to grow your business. Not only that, but you can also set different permissions for different staff accounts to control what they can access and do based on their roles.

6. Dedicated Customer Support

Dedicated customer support might be a consideration when choosing an e-commerce platform. So does Shopify Plus. It provides a large Plus Merchant Success Team that is available to assist customers 24/7/365. Every merchant or company that chooses Shopify Plus will be enrolled in the Merchant Success Program and get their own Merchant Success Manager. They will assist you in developing your store by providing expert advice on customer acquisition, conversion and retention strategies, brand strategy, technical solutions and integrations, and business operations and management. 

This program consists of 5 key areas, and they will have access to:

• Specialized Support
• Shopify Plus Academy
• Merchant Growth Model
• Platform and Ecosystem
• Plus Community

Even better, merchants also will get:

• A Dedicated Launch Manager will assist you in setting up and launching your Shopify store. They also will help you guide on issues such as data migration, setting up international stores, custom integrations with third-party technologies, and best practices on testing and going live.
• Solutions Engineer that will ensure all of the technical components of your online store are optimized and operating properly together.

Shopify Plus Pricing

Talking about its pricing plans tends to create confusion since no prices are listed on its website. Every company or business interested in Shopify Plus is encouraged to contact them for a quote. This is understandable because its pricing is heavily based on usage and sales volumes. It means that the price can vary for each business – and even month to month.

But to give you a better perspective, here’s what exactly to expect for Shopify Plus pricing. And please note that this is not ‘official’ pricing. It is just a guide to help you decide. 

1. For build costs, you can expect to pay a quality third-party design agency anywhere from US$30,000 to US$250,000. Surely you can use a pre-designed template, but for most enterprise merchants that want something unique to align with branding, you’ll need to pay extra.
2. Licensing costs start at US$2,000 and run up to US$40,000 per month. But keep in mind this increases incrementally after hitting US$1 million up to cap a US$16 million in monthly sales.
3. Transaction costs are added at 1.6% + US$0.35 per transaction using Shopify Payments. There’s also an extra 0.15% fee if using a third-party processor.

Well, it seems like a huge investment. Still, it can be quite cost-effective compared to other enterprise solutions, especially if you consider what the platform’s features can do for your business.

When Should You Upgrade to Shopify Plus?

Upgrading the platform is a big decision to take. And the fact is that most e-commerce or online companies eventually question whether they should stay with their current platform or upgrade to a new one. So, to help you have better decisions, what are the telltale signs that you should be making a switch? 

• You have scalability and reliability issues – where your current hosting environment or platform has reached its limits. And even worse, a surge in traffic makes your online store to a halt.
• Your existing e-commerce platform seems costly because hosting and development costs are skyrocketing.
• You have limited time to set up or run your online store.
• Your online store cannot directly integrate with other online or offline sales channels such as social media, marketplace, other websites, offline payments for stores, etc.
• Your current e-commerce platforms are too restrictive and lack flexibility. When you want to add new features is quite complex, expensive, and time-consuming.
• Your current platform is powerful, but it has many design constraints.
• You’re paying a lot for your current platform but aren’t happy with the support you’re receiving.

Now you’ve seen some of the issues you may face with your current plan or e-commerce platform. And you already know the benefits and features from Shopify Plus that can help you solve these problems! So, let’s dig into the pro and cons. 

The Pros & Cons of Shopify Plus

Here below, we have compiled a list of pros and cons for you to weigh and decide whether you’d want Shopify Plus for your e-commerce or not.

The Pros of Shopify Plus

• Excellent service with a dedicated team is available to customize the platform to your needs and also assist you after setting up the platform. 
• Transparent price, even though the price depends on usage and sales volumes, prices are relatively fixed. It means the price won’t fluctuate as much as on other platforms.
• Unlimited scalability with unlimited sales volume or bandwidth
• Infinitely customizable, which is the only Shopify plan that lets you customize your checkout page.
• Time-saving because you don’t have to waste time doing the technical part of your business, and you can take advantage of various unique workflow automation tools.

The Drawbacks of Shopify Plus

• Limited content management capabilities because it is not really great or suitable for blogging and creating rich and informative content
• Platform lock-in because Shopify Plus is a hosted platform. So the existence of your e-commerce business is completely dependent on Shopify.
• Limited integration because it is dependent on what Shopify’s API provides.
• The learning curve since someone in your organization needs to learn Shopify-specific skills such as Liquid, Shopify development languages, etc. 

The Takeaways

Those are Shopify Plus’s benefits, pricing, pros, and cons. Shopify Plus is a robust platform that can accelerate your brand’s growth with endless possibilities. And with its bespoke service and features, no wonder that it also comes with a price. 

That’s why you must navigate opportunities to optimize your website for your company and customers. And since it comes with a hefty price, it’s also essential to consider investing once your business has hit that tipping point in the growth that makes the expense worth it.

So, are you starting to consider using Shopify Plus for your business? Or do you have more questions or need further discussions about Shopify Plus? Just talk to us. It’s free. We are Lime Commerce, a full-service e-commerce and digital agency specializing in Magento, Shopify, e-commerce, and mobile app development. With over eight years of experience creating stable and well-optimized e-commerce systems that fuel and do endless possibilities for your business.