In today’s digital landscape, eCommerce websites are a dime a dozen. You don’t have to look hard to find any number of platforms that can get your site up and running and processing orders in no time at all.
But while it may be easy to establish a working eCommerce site without too much investment, it’s much harder to ensure that customers have the best possible experience when they visit your store. This is why taking the time to choose a highly functional and scalable platform for your business is an essential part of creating an online purchasing experience that keeps customers coming back.
What Is Shopify Plus?
Shopify has been around for many years and has been a popular choice for businesses that need a dependable, feature-rich eCommerce platform. But although it serves as a great starting point for most companies, Shopify Plus is the advanced version of the eCommerce platform designed specifically to help you provide an enhanced online shopping experience full of powerful integrations and advanced features that make it ideal for growing your business effectively and supporting larger volumes of orders.
While Shopify Plus has higher monthly costs than its basic predecessor, enterprise-tier structures offer more significant benefits for larger companies, such as unlimited staff accounts, 24/7 priority support, and the ability to integrate with third-party retail systems.
High-Volume Transactions
One of the most significant benefits of using Shopify Plus for your eCommerce business is its ability to handle high volumes of orders and traffic. This is an important feature to consider early on in the decision process when deciding which eCommerce platform to get established on.
While certain platforms may feature aesthetics that are more appealing to the eye, if it can’t handle the number of orders and traffic you expect from your site long-term, you may get into the challenging position of switching platforms later.
Shopify Plus has a powerful architecture designed for high-traffic websites and can effectively scale up or down as needed. With Shopify Plus, you can be secure in the knowledge that your site is built on a platform that won’t crash when it’s hit with a burst of traffic or orders and ensures that your customers can complete their purchases without any interruptions or delays.
Global eCommerce
The other major advantage of using Shopify Plus is that it allows you to scale into other global marketplaces quickly. With its integrated multi-currency support and language features, Shopify Plus allows you to easily transition your business into other countries without building a completely different website.
Using Shopify Plus’ language and currency features, you can easily target customers in countries around the world, creating a dynamic experience on desktop and mobile devices that simplifies the buying process.
Systems Integration
While having a great eCommerce website is an excellent step in establishing revenue streams and creating customer loyalty, the power of Shopify Plus lies in its ability to be integrated with many existing enterprise-level systems.
Many businesses face a challenge when scaling their eCommerce operations – staying on top of multiple disparate systems. While you may be able to manage product listings, pricing, and customer service successfully through one tool, typically, you need more than one system to handle fulfillment, inventory tracking, and customer data.
Shopify Plus offers a great deal of flexibility in this sense. It is designed to easily integrate with third-party systems like QuickBooks, Salesforce, NetSuite, and other major enterprise-level platforms. This allows you to streamline your operations and better manage customer data, inventory tracking, and more in one central location.
Customizable Checkout
A customer’s journey on your website doesn’t start and end with the product selection. With Shopify Plus, you can customize the checkout process for each unique customer, making their total purchasing experience something personalized to them.
For example, Shopify Plus’ customizable checkout allows you to add fields for customer information, display dynamic product recommendations, offer special discounts, and give out purchasing reward points.
This feature allows you to provide a unique and personalized customer experience (CX) that encourages customers to return to your store more often. It also opens up opportunities for targeted marketing campaigns, as you’ll have access to customer data to understand their buying habits and preferences.
Security
Online security continues to be a significant concern for businesses, especially as more and more information is shared digitally. Shopify Plus offers an impressive suite of features to keep your business, customer data, and payment information safe from malicious actors or hackers.
Shopify Plus’ security features include fraud protection and PCI compliance to protect customer data, as well as a host of other measures designed to ensure that transactions are processed securely. In addition, the platform uses robust encryption to keep your data secure, and you can also enable two-factor authentication for added security.
When customers see that you are taking their online security seriously, they will be more likely to trust your brand and purchase from you versus other competitors using platforms that may not have the same level of protection.
Multichannel Integration
Shopify Plus also makes extending your reach and creating new sales channels easy. With its seamless integration with Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and other major marketplaces, you can easily manage product listings across different platforms from a single interface. This eliminates the need for manual data entry and reduces time spent managing multiple websites or accounts.
Multichannel integration also gives you the ability to diversify your customer base and reach new audiences. With the click of a button, you can create product listings on multiple platforms, syndicate product content, and ensure that your prices are consistent across channels. This allows you to tap into new markets quickly and easily, giving your brand more exposure and increasing the chances of gaining new revenue streams.
How to Choose a Shopify Plan
Choosing whether or not to use Shopify Plus will depend on the size and scope of your business. If you’re just starting out, the basic Shopify plan may be enough for your needs. However, as you grow and require more features and functionality, upgrading to a higher-tier plan or switching to Shopify Plus may become necessary. Below are some key factors to consider when deciding which plan is right for you:
Integration Costs and Monthly Budgets
Shopify basic ranges from $29 – $299 monthly, depending on the chosen tiers. Shopify Plus starts at $2,000 monthly and has a variable transaction fee depending on order volumes.
Credit Card Processing Fees
Shopify charges between 2.4% to 2.9% transaction fees for basic to advanced tiers, while Shopify Plus offers more flexibility and lower rates, ranging from 0.15% to 2%.
Sales Limitations
One of the major advantages of Shopify Plus is that it offers unlimited sales and no limits on order size. This sets it apart from the basic tiers, which are limited to $100,000 in sales.
Business Reporting
Shopify Plus offers advanced reporting tools that allow you to get real-time insights into your business, enabling you to make more informed decisions. However, basic tiers are limited in this regard and offer fewer analytical capabilities, so businesses should decide if this is an important factor before deciding.
Bring a Better Customer Experience to Your eCommerce Platform
Shopify Plus offers numerous for both new and well-established online brands. With powerful integration and reporting tools, highly scalable architectures, customizable customer checkouts, and global omnichannel capabilities, Shopify Plus is the most comprehensive eCommerce platform on the market today.
Author Bio:
Ville Houttu
Ville Houttu is the Founder and CEO of Vincit USA. He helped Vincit’s parent company in Finland go public on Nasdaq First North marketplace. Ville has an M.Sc. in Engineering and focuses on a lean working model while scaling operations that prizes development and design innovation. With Ville’s leadership, Vincit USA has been recognized as one of Inc 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies. In 2020, it ranked in the top 50 on the FAST Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators. He is also one of the few Ironman triathletes who plays pedal steel guitar on several albums on Spotify.
