Shopify vs. Shopify Plus – Comparability
The top-grossing companies on Shopify have annual revenues of between $7 and $11 billion.
And there has been $200 billion worth of sales through Shopify stores to date.
That makes you want to get up and set up a digital commerce store on Shopify right away, isn’t it?
Well, before you do that, you have to choose between Shopify’s two similar but slightly different products – Shopify and Shopify Plus.
In this article, we will take a look at the differences between the two and guide you in choosing the most suitable option for your business’s E-commerce needs.
Let’s get started…
Shopify is a leading E-commerce platform that gives anyone and everyone the power to set up an E-commerce store and start selling their products online. Designed for businesses of all sizes, Shopify is a fully hosted platform, which means it keeps you free from the major backend handling tasks.
Read more about why you should pick Shopify over other platforms to build your E-commerce solution here – https://synergytop.com/blog/blog/why-to-choose-shopify-to-build-your-ecommerce-solution/.
Shopify Plus is an E-commerce solution designed for high-growth brands and merchants and is a fully-hosted E-commerce platform. Shopify has included a strong set of features in the Plus version like advanced Shopify apps, customization during checkout, and much more.
In short, Shopify plus is for high-growth businesses with high-volume sales and Shopify is for smaller businesses., To quantify it in terms of sales revenue, the businesses on Shopify Plus must have a minimum of $1 million in revenues.
Now let us take a look at the primary features of Shopify and Shopify Plus.
Notable Features of Shopify
- Shopify offers a wide variety of themes and templates to quickly create attractive and appealing online stores.
- Shopify-based online stores can list and sell an unlimited number of products and support is also provided for the new sales channels.
- With Shopify, sellers can avail of one-step order fulfillment.
- Businesses can monitor the sales and growth of their Shopify storefronts using basic analytics and reporting tools.
Notable Features of Shopify Plus
- Shopify Plus can handle high-traffic volumes with ease. It can handle up to 10,000 checkouts per minute with ordering and transaction modules.
- Shopify Plus ensures that all the systems will always remain online with dual content delivery network connectivity.
- It also supports Pinterest’s product pins and Facebook shopping with the help of social commerce extension.
- For integration with multiple channels such as Ebates, Wanelo, etc. there are software development kits available.
To summarize, Shopify makes everything available for a modern retail business to build a successful online presence. It requires minimum technical overhead but does not compromise the site quality.
But it might not be the best-suited solution for stores that have a lot of footfall and make several sales simultaneously.
These limitations of basic Shopify can be overcome with the use of Shopify Plus once the order volume reaches a certain threshold. The enhanced capabilities of Shopify Plus make it the ideal option for turning start-ups into large-scale businesses.
The additional features that you get with Shopify Plus include:
- Dedicated Support– With Shopify Plus, users will get dedicated and personalized support for their store. To handle the entire store setup, a launch engineer is also assigned to the website.
- Effortless Migration – The transporter app being part of the suite of tools, makes the migration of online stores from other platforms to Shopify Plus quite smooth and seamless. The records can be extracted and converted from one platform into CSV files supported by the transporter app.
- Staff Accounts– Staff accounts are an important feature to keep in mind while weighing Shopify and Shopify Plus. A limited staff account is permitted with the Basic Shopify plan but Shopify Plus offers you to add unlimited staff accounts. You can control your staff’s actions in a better way and grant access to multiple team members.
- Checkout Control– As a business owner, you will need to give more attention to high-spend customers. Based on the shopping cart values or any other condition, Shopify Plus allows customizing the checkout experience.
- Privileged Applications– Shopify Plus offers customers access to a list of exclusive applications which are not available to basic Shopify clients. These apps are – Wholesale Channel, Shopify Flow, Launchpad, Script Editor, Transporter App, and Bulk Account Inviter.
- Wholesale Platform– As your business grows, you will surely deal with customers who will purchase from you in bulk. The wholesale channel with Shopify Plus helps create a separate storefront for your store. Using this channel, a retailer can sell the products to their wholesale customers at exclusive prices.
- Unified Dashboard– With the advanced dashboard of Shopify Plus, you can manage all the things in one place like staff accounts, analytics, user permissions, and much more. A client can manage multiple stores and have a complete overview of all these stores.
- Shopify’s APIs– You can connect an unlimited number of applications to your Shopify store but for complex businesses, it is necessary to integrate these APIs with their existing platforms. This integration is possible with Shopify’s APIs available in the Plus version.
- Merchant Success Program–Users can make the most out of their E-commerce platform with the Merchant Success Program. It offers training that helps you to tap your full potential and help you with products, platforms, and third-party integrations.
- Access to Other Resources– There are many resources available exclusively for Shopify Plus users apart from the Merchant Success Program. A few examples of such resources include a Facebook Community, Partners Directory, beta programs, and the Shopify Plus academy.
Shopify vs. Shopify Plus – Which One Should YOU Choose?
Shopify Plus is not needed by every retail company as Shopify offers adequate features for most sellers who are just beginning online sales.
However, for retailers who are looking to grow their online presence with existing web-based storefronts, Shopify Plus is the best route for them.
To choose between Shopify and Shopify Plus, you should consider two things –
A – Your goals for business growth
B – Your budget
Here are some other questions that you should be answering, before making a decision between Shopify and Shopify Plus.
- To what extent do you need your Shopify store to be custom-built?
- Which segments of the market do you want to break into?
- Do you have support staff?
- How much can you afford per month?
If you are a reasonably big brand and would like to expand your business in the digital domain without any hassle or overhead costs for managing your store, then the Plus version is the right choice for you. With Shopify Plus, a store gets all the crucial features needed for running a large-volume business.
If you are a start-up and have a new store with high expectations, then Shopify is enough for you to have a successful online business.
Final Thoughts
Using Shopify or Shopify Plus depends on your business goals. To maintain a basic steady business, Shopify is great; but for ambitious growth goals, Shopify Plus is the appropriate platform. Whatever your plans are, remember to start building your store slowly as upgrades can be done at any time.
Read more about how to optimize your Shopify website to get more sales here https://synergytop.com/blog/blog/how-to-optimize-your-shopify-website/.
About SynergyTop
SynergyTop is a San Diego-based digital commerce platform with a team of experienced Shopify experts. We have developed and deployed sophisticated online stores using both Shopify and Shopify Plus for several brands including Karuna Skin, Icon Swim, Hiya Health, Easy Tatt, Orphan Boards, and more. We also helped one of our clients, Rubicon, integrate their Enact system with Shopify.
Connect with us today to learn more about our Shopify development and support services.
