The Top 9 Benefits of Shopify Plus

As your business grows, so can Shopify. In fact, one of the biggest benefits of Shopify is how easily it can scale with your business.

That means that Shopify works just as well for a Mom & Pop shop that wants to get online, a budding entrepreneur who wants to bring a new product to market, or a nationally recognized brand that needs to amp up their ecommerce game.

No other platform – in our opinion - does quite as good a job at growing from the early start-up phase to the mature enterprise level.

And that’s a good thing. Because changing e-commerce platforms while you’re in the middle of a significant growth pattern is a difficult and dangerous thing.

But how do you decide when is the right time to upgrade your site to Shopify Plus?

Although Shopify Plus is significantly more expensive than the lower-tier packages, there are some key advantages that can help an ecommerce business more than make up for the additional platform investment.

Before we start though let’s break down the platform fee differences between the various packages:

Calculations above assume a $100 average order value. The calculations are provided for illustration purposes only and should not be considered an exact quote for Shopify fees and services.

As your business scales up in monthly revenue, the case for Shopify Plus becomes clear.

Within reason, of course. If your monthly revenue is below $10,000 – you may want to stick with Advanced Shopify for a while unless you have significant expansion plans in the works.

But even if you haven’t – yet – hit the minimum monthly sales for Shopify Plus to start (basically) paying for itself, there are advantages of Shopify Plus that warrant considering it, even for lower-volume sites.

Are the benefits of Shopify Plus worth the additional expense?

Here are the Top 9 benefits of Shopify Plus that you will not get with other Shopify plans.

Let’s take a look at the top 9 benefits of Shopify Plus in comparison to the regular Shopify plans.

Lower Transaction Fees

As outlined above, the credit card processing fees reduce with each tier of Shopify. Plus, if you want to use your own payment processor, the 3^rd party transaction fees also reduce. The more sales you make, the more of an impact these fee reductions will have on your bottom line.

Eventually, it starts costing the same – or less – to be on the more impressive Shopify Plus platform than sticking with their regular plans.

International Stores

A key benefit of Shopify Plus is that you can easily create up to 9 cloned versions of your store to easily target other geographic locations. For example, you can take your .com store and duplicate it for Canada (.ca), the UK, (.co.uk) or Australia (.com.au). By creating a dedicated eCommerce experience for different countries, languages, or currencies, you can better target potential customers in those locations.

For example, E-commerce trends have shown that Canadians prefer to purchase from Canadian retailers so that they don’t have to deal with currency conversion or cross-border shipping fees. By creating a dedicated version for your Canadian target audience, you can significantly increase conversion rates versus taking a one-site-fits-all approach.

Unlimited Staff Accounts

As your business grows, so will the team that needs to support and grow that business. Each Shopify tier offers more staff accounts to allow people to work directly in Shopify rather than having to go through an authorized user. This can include order processors, developers, digital marketers, and more.

Shopify Basic, the lowest tier, only offers 2 staff accounts. Advanced Shopify offers 15 staff accounts. Shopify Plus give you unlimited staff accounts, so you never have to worry about running out of seats at the table.

Custom Checkout Configuration

Although the Shopify checkout is clean, streamlined, and effective, if you want custom functionality within the checkout flow, you must upgrade to Shopify Plus first. At Marketplace Solutions, we have developed custom checkout flows for our Shopify Plus customers that drive real improvements in conversion rate and average order value. Unfortunately, we cannot execute these programs without a Shopify Plus account.

Shopify Plus also offers exclusive access to Shop Pay and a 60% faster checkout, which has been shown to increase conversion rates by as much as 18%.

This is another area where determining if Shopify Plus is worth it comes down to the cost versus the benefit. If you can generate an extra 18% in revenue by investing a bit more in the platform, is it worth it for your business?

Dynamic Promotional & Discount Tools

Shopify Plus gives its merchants exclusive access to Launchpad, a handy platform that gives you the power to schedule bulk changes to your store that coincide with the start/end of your desired campaign/event.

This lets you automate all the activities associated with a sale, product launch, or other campaign.

Shopify Plus also offers an increased number of discount types and discount combination, so that you can do more to target specific customer targets with specific offers that will resonate with them.

Lastly, Shopify Plus has a feature that allows you to create invitation-only and limited-release product collections, which is a great way to boost customer engagement and retention.

Wholesale & Dealer Pricing

For retailers who also want to establish a dealer or distributor network, Shopify Plus offers a Wholesale channel option that lets you create a distinct, password-protected version of your site that can be made exclusive to business-to-business (B2B) buyers.

This allows you to establish dedicated wholesale pricing, including tiered and custom pricing options, bulk discounts, unique shipping options, as well as offering products that are only available to wholesale or bulk buyers.

Faster API Calls = Faster Website

Site speed is always a critical part of an e-commerce site’s success. Every time your website needs to connect to another system to validate a specific data point, it usually requires some kind of API call. For example, discount code validation, gift cards, referral program tracking, and more.

With Shopify Plus you get access to exclusive APIs with higher API limits, which means faster API call rates. And faster API call rates lead to a faster website. And a faster website leads to more sales.

Process Automation

Simply your backend processes with some of the Shopify Plus automated flows that allow you to configure business processes and logic. For example, retailers can automatically calculate international sales tax from over 12,000 taxing jurisdictions, provide rule-based discounts to unique customer segments, or adjust the shipping rates for high-volume customers. These Shopify Plus automated flows can instantly boost productivity, letting you spend more time growing sales.

Shopify Plus Support Levels

All Shopify Plus merchants receive exclusive support by Shopify’s priority support team, which includes assistance during the upgrade and migration process, as well as ongoing support from a Merchant Success Manager.

This added level of support can really help your business stay ahead of the curve as new E-commerce technology emerges and will often provide advanced access to new beta features as they are being released.

Do the Benefits of Shopify Plus Outweigh the Costs?

The answer to that question, as with many in life, is… It depends.

• It depends on your current and projected sales volume.
• It depends on the level of customization that you need for your site and your checkout.
• It depends on the number of staff accounts you need to effectively run your E-commerce store.
• It depends on if you can afford to invest in the future of your E-commerce store.

Need help deciding which is the right Shopify plan for your business?

Contact us today so we can discuss your options!