Both Shopify and Shopify Plus provide the necessary tools to manage orders, grow your customer base and drive sales, but Shopify Plus can provide the extra customization you may need in order to scale.
So, let’s investigate the key differences and to decide which one is right for your business.
Shopify is one of the most popular website building platforms for eCommerce. From small eCommerce businesses to large brick and mortar retailers looking to go online or scale, it offers a powerful, all-in-one solution to successfully launch, operate and grow your digital store.
Online shopping has become especially relevant during current times as COVID-19 lockdowns forced retailers to shut doors globally.
eCommerce was experiencing high growth already prior to the COVID-19 crisis, but this was accelerated even further by the pandemic. Online sales saw growth rates of 27% YoY overall for 2020.
Even after the pandemic, retailers are expecting thousands of store closures as shoppers are reluctant to return to stores and will continue to shop online.
This is where Shopify comes into play for many retailers - to help with their online businesses. Shopify also offers a more extensive version for larger businesses with Shopify Plus. This plan was helpful for large enterprises with physical store networks that were suddenly forced to launch online operations.
For example, with Shopify Plus, Heinz U.K. was able to launch their Direct-to-Consumer online store with no prior eCommerce presence in just one week, making their products available also to vulnerable customers who couldn’t visit physical stores.
In this article, we will discuss the differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus, their pricing structures, and the main advantages of Shopify Plus.
Shopify is known worldwide as one of the easiest ways to set-up and manage your eCommerce shop. It can be for both growing businesses that are already online or businesses that are still completely new to eCommerce.
Shopify offers a range of excellent tools as well as direct support to set up your product pages, payment processing and domains without the knowledge of coding.
Shopify supports over 1 million businesses worldwide who use Shopify as their go-to back-end platform to manage their online store. Shopify Plus is currently used by over 10.000 brands in over 175 countries and in 20 different languages.
All plans have the same functions, but the differences are the level of detail, how much you can customize, and the level of support you get. Shopify Plus also costs a lot more.
Shopify is for small and medium-sized businesses that are either launching or growing. A great option for individuals or small businesses that need between 2-15 employee accounts.
With these packages you get the same functionalities, however less customizable versions compared to “Plus”.
Shopify Plus “Enterprise” option is of course more expensive. But it's also highly customizable if you are a high-volume business approaching 1 million in revenue, or already making over 1 million.
Shopify Plus offers a highly customizable experience, with access to more features, integrations, apps and dedicated 24/7 support.
Shopify offers five different plans:
With Shopify Plus, the rates are not that straightforward and depend on sale volumes.
There is a monthly fee of around $2000 a month, however it depends on how much you make in revenue. You’ll need to pay 0.25% of the sales as a fee for anything after $40.000 a month.
Now that we’ve briefly defined the main differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus, it's clear that Shopify Plus is a larger investment. However, it may be essential to guarantee the added support and functionalities to achieve growth and scale operations.
Shopify users include internationally well-known and already established companies like Nestlé, Tesla and Heinz, as well as younger and high-growth businesses like GymShark, Kylie Jenners’ Kylie cosmetics and also sustainable footwear companies Giesswein and Allbirds. They all use Shopify’s scalable solution, Shopify Plus.
Shopify supports its clients in the best way they can - with simple handling and an extensive partner network with many third-party apps to integrate. If you are a merchant selling high volumes then you can get access to exclusive functions.
Based on the below, we'll provide analysis by function available for Plus users. This should make it easier to determine whether it would make sense to upgrade to unlock further growth and scale.
For any business selling online, it is crucially important to determine how much traffic your site receives, click rates, and conversion rates. By knowing your data, you gain valuable insights in order to optimize your SEO, as well as customize your product assortment.
Shopify Plus Exclusives:
Glew allows you to easily track KPIs and daily reports, measure marketing results across all sales channels from Instagram to Amazon to influencers. It also allows you to analyze shopping behavior and product performance.
The more your business grows, the more personalized you want your shop to be. For any business selling online, it is important to determine your visitors’ demographics and interests to maximize sales.
Digital marketing and design - from social media ads, SEO, SEM, content marketing to email marketing services - is extremely important to get your product in front of your customer.
With countless products online and fierce competition, there's a need to differentiate yourself.
Shopify Plus Exclusives:
For example, a luxury fashion retailer Ledbury used their existing theme “Debut” to customize and personalize it to appeal to their target audience.
Furthermore, they come with different languages - with the Advanced plan you have 5 included, and for Plus customers you can choose between 20 languages included in the price.
Can you imagine opening your Amazon account and seeing ten different products that you have already bought, of which five of them you already returned and two weren’t happy with?
What you probably prefer to see is a selection of product recommendations customized to your previous purchases and interests instead.
With a catalog of over 350 million products across books and homeware to clothing and services, Amazon has got a wide product selection and target audience. Therefore they have to offer a highly customized experience that fits their preferences.
Product customization is therefore a key to serving the customer base successfully. What makes Shopify Plus stand out so much from its other plans, is that it offers a great level of customization needed for large scale operations.
Shopify Plus Exclusives:
Furthermore, it helps to convert customers. Digital eyewear retailer Peepers increased their conversions by 30% and grew their order values by 20% with a custom checkout page with Shopify Plus.
One of the key factors of a successful retail business is excellent customer service and customer service automation. With bad customer service or without any, customers are left frustrated and less likely to return to your shop.
Same goes with help and support for customers of Shopify - a great and responsive support system helps you to run your shop better, in turn helping your customer to get the best experience. If you don’t get the proper support needed to solve issues with your shop, it can also affect your buying customers.
With Shopify Plus you get 24/7 support from a dedicated support agent, so that none of the issues go unnoticed. When you have already reached higher sales and are experiencing large amounts of orders then it's a very important thing to consider.
Shopify Plus Exclusives:
Shopify Plus Consultant will guide you through the Shopify Plus platform and helps you assess your business needs.
A Merchant Success Manager can help plan your growth strategy to unlock potential, from acquisition and conversion to brand strategy.
When sales grow, it is important to scale operations accordingly. That means you will be able to take on the increased workload without your profitability and customer experience suffering.
This means handling increased transactions, payments processing, shipments and customer service interactions, especially when expanding cross-border.
Shopify Plus can provide the support you need in order to scale your business.
Shopify Plus Exclusives:
To sum up, both Shopify and Shopify Plus options are excellent and have the same functionalities and capabilities. With Shopify Plus, the main difference is that you get more of each of this functionality. For example, more customization, additional staff members and additional support and help.
Choosing the right platform depends on your business size, where it makes sense operationally to focus and if it adds value to your customer. If you are running a small to medium sized business under 800.000 in revenue then you may want to still opt for Shopify Advanced or the other more affordable options.
If you are an enterprise level business making more than 1 million in revenue, you are better off choosing Shopify Plus with added functionalities. This will make sure you’ll scale accordingly and enable growth.
While the price for Plus can get pretty high, it is well worth it if you are a larger scale company and need the extra support this enterprise plan can provide.
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