The goal of virtually every business is to grow and earn revenue. It can be challenging to scale and maintain the same level of service and customer focus, however.
As businesses grow, especially into international or adjacent markets, they need an infrastructure designed to meet their new demands. Fortunately, Shopify Plus has been designed with the needs of enterprise-level businesses in mind.
That said, Shopify Plus can be used for any size business that’s looking to expand into a global customer base, open a wholesale channel, or grow in the near future.
What is Shopify Plus?
The top plan on the popular Shopify ecommerce platform, Shopify Plus is the highest option and includes all the features of the previous plans, plus some exclusive extras.
Some of these include:
Global Expansion
Moving into international markets offers a world of possibilities for new audiences and customers, but it can be intimidating for business owners. International ecommerce requires multiple storefronts with the respective currency, payment options, language, and cultural understanding.
Shopify Plus simplifies this with up to 10 different store variants (along with the original), which can all be run from one centralized hub. Each store has its own backend, however, so it’s easy to manage inventory, run location-specific promotions, or manage orders.
High-Volume Transactions
One of the challenges businesses face with scaling is handling the site traffic during busy sales periods like Christmas and Black Friday. Sites may crash, meaning you may miss out on a sale and have a frustrated customer as a result.
Shopify Plus can handle up to 10,000 transactions per minute. This allows your business to handle your busy sales periods.
Customizable Checkout Page
More and more businesses are realizing the value of the checkout experience in the overall customer and user experience. Shopify Plus enhances your checkout page with customization options like fewer clicks to complete the order, promotions or discounts triggered by cart value or number of products, and discounts for valued customers.
In addition, the Shopify Plus checkout page is up to 60 percent faster than standard Shopify, so it can handle higher customer volume and more orders. This could mean a big difference in your bottom line.
Shopify Plus has tools to customize your checkout page yourself, including:
- Scripts, which allows short pieces of code to create a customer-centric checkout experience that encourages completed sales, reduces cart abandonment, and improves the overall experience. You may need a bit of coding knowledge, but it’s easy to customize on your own.
- Scripts Editor, which takes the customization to the next level with triggered promotions and discounts when specific conditions are met, such as cart value or number of products.
- Customer customization, which allows you to tailor the customer experience to show appreciation for your high-value customers. This can be done with automated discounts, promotions, incentives, and more.
Systems Integration
In addition to managing the front-end, scaling means taking on more responsibilities and tasks on the day to day. Managing all these background processes can impede manageable growth.
Shopify Plus integrates with important systems to support growing businesses, such as:
- Order management
- Inventory management
- Product information management
- Warehouse management
- Enterprise resource planning
- Third-party logistics
Better yet, if your system isn’t covered, Shopify Plus has partnerships with leading technology companies for solutions and tools.
Cybersecurity
Security breaches happen all the time, and just one breach is all it takes to lose your customers’ trust. Your business is responsible for the sensitive customer data it collects and stores, and customers are growing more wary of purchasing products on unknown sites.
To combat this, every aspect of your site and the shopping experience has to instill trust in your visitors. Shopify Plus helps with hosting and protection in compliance with Level 1 PCI DSS, the top of the line for online payment security. All payment information is encrypted in transit and the customer’s data is protected throughout the whole shopping experience.
In addition, Shopify Plus handles the assessments and risk management for your store, so you can focus on your core competencies.
Wholesale Capabilities
For a lot of businesses, scaling means expanding into the B2B ecommerce space. Wholesale can mean a lot of additional revenue, but that comes with another site to manage and plenty of processes to control, including logistics.
Shopify Plus is set up for businesses to run both B2C and B2B storefronts from the same dashboard to minimize the workload. It also includes the same automation features to reduce some of the tasks for your wholesale channel.
Customers must have a login to enter the wholesale channel and receive special pricing. You can also list exclusive wholesale products or introduce volume discounts, order volume thresholds, tiered pricing levels, and more.
Multichannel Integration
Modern consumers want to shop on whatever channel or device they choose. Shopify Plus makes this possible with the tools for native social selling, including seamless integration with social media platforms. All of these channels are managed from the same dashboard.
Is Shopify Plus Right for Your Business?
Shopify Plus is the “big guns” among Shopify pages and geared toward businesses that are already selling at high volumes and looking to grow. Its tools are designed to automate processes, boost growth, and generate revenue.
It may not be ideal for every business, however. Ideally, Shopify Plus should be used for businesses that want to grow or expand into new markets and businesses that are outgrowing their current platform or Shopify plan.
Experts recommend upgrading to Shopify Plus when you hit $1 million in revenue each year, or $85,000 each month. Shopify Plus comes with a high monthly fee, but that’s worth it for the tools and resources if the revenue can offset the costs.
Also, keep in mind that you need to request a quote from Shopify for the plan. The plan starts at $2,000 a month or 0.25 percent of revenue, whichever is greater, but your specific fees may vary.
Make the Upgrade
Shopify Plus is a powerful platform that has just about everything an ecommerce business owner needs for sustainable growth and profits. Every feature and capability is designed to streamline, automate, or customize the storefront, allowing owners to provide exceptional customer experience.
Guest Article by Sean Richards
Sean Richards is the VP of Strategy & Partnerships for Vincit. Prior to Vincit, Richards provided business development, digital marketing strategy and partnership development at several reputable companies and marketing agencies in both California and Arizona. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Design Management from Arizona State University.