Upgrading to Shopify Plus

What is Shopify Plus?

Shopify offers more than enough features and functionalities to launch a beautiful eCommerce website delivering a first-class user experience.

However, as your store grows and expands, you may find that Shopify’s features no longer meet your business’s needs.

Enter Shopify Plus, the premium version of the Shopify platform designed for large and high-volume businesses.

In this article, we’ll discover the differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus and explain how you’ll know when it’s time to upgrade.

Shopify vs Shopify Plus – what’s the difference?

Before deciding whether upgrading to Shopify Plus is the right option for your business, it’s important to understand the differences between the two services.

The main difference is the target audience. Shopify caters to small and medium-sized businesses whereas Shopify Plus targets large enterprises.

Once businesses reach a specific size, they may encounter limitations with Shopify’s standard service. By upgrading to Shopify Plus, they gain access to more advanced functionalities, support, integrations, and headless commerce capabilities, allowing them to continue growing and providing a seamless customer experience.

Shopify Plus boasts lots of additional features that aren’t available on Shopify – we’ll delve into these later in this article but they’re designed to support large enterprises that experience high website traffic and high sales volumes.

Naturally, advanced features come with a higher price tag. Shopify Plus has a minimum monthly fee of £1,650. Whilst this sounds steep compared to the price of Shopify’s standard plans, the advanced functionalities and customisations available with Shopify Plus can significantly benefit large businesses, enabling them to stay competitive and facilitating further growth.

Is Shopify 2.0 the same as Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus should not be confused with Shopify 2.0. While Shopify 2.0 was a significant update to the Shopify platform released in 2021, Shopify Plus is an entirely separate version designed specifically for high-volume merchants with more advanced needs. Shopify 2.0 brought many new features, enhancing the platform’s customisation capabilities and security and increasing page loading speeds. However, a Shopify Plus subscription offers more extensive customisation options, advanced support, and new features.

What are the advantages of Shopify Plus?

By upgrading to Shopify Plus, you gain access to powerful tools and features designed to help enterprise-level businesses to scale and grow.

Let’s look at some key advantages of upgrading to Shopify Plus.

24/7 support – Receive 24/7 priority support by telephone, email, or live chat.

Unlimited staff accounts – Shopify Plus allows businesses to add an unlimited number of employee accounts and manage the permissions for each of them.

Expansion stores – You can add up to nine additional stores under the same brand to expand into global markets. Each store can be configured with a different language and currency, and all stores can be managed from one central location.

Customise your checkout experience – Make advanced customisations to your store’s checkout to achieve higher conversion rates. Customise your checkout experience by adding trust badges and information about shipping, offers, and loyalty programs.

Automation tools – Shopify Plus offers an array of exciting automation tools to help you save time and be more productive. Shopify Flow helps to automate workflows, and Launchpad will schedule and automate events like flash sales and product drops across multiple channels.

Multi-channel selling – With Shopify Plus, it’s easy to expand your business’s reach by selling products across multiple channels, including marketplaces like Amazon and social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. This is made possible through seamless integration with various sales channels, allowing you to manage all channels from one central hub.

Personalised promotions – Upsell to customers at the checkout using automated personalised promotions to increase average order value. Shopify Functions automates the whole process and is only available with Shopify Plus. 

Detailed analytics – With Shopify Plus, you can add the Google Tag Manager to your store, which provides more detailed analytics that can be used to optimise your store for conversions.

More APIs – As well as offering a whole host of new Shopify features, Shopify Plus provides increased API access, allowing you to connect with more third-party apps and further customise your store.

When should you upgrade to Shopify Plus?

The right time to upgrade to Shopify Plus varies from one business to the next. Shopify Plus is significantly pricier than the standard version, so you should ensure that your website has outgrown its CMS and that the additional features and functionalities will drive revenue growth before you decide to upgrade.

Shopify advises that most brands upgrade to Shopify Plus when monthly online sales exceed £65,000.

Other challenges that prompt large businesses and enterprises to transition to Shopify Plus include the following:

• They require additional stores under the same brand to reach global markets.
• They require more employee accounts.
• They require more specialist customisations.

If you’re unsure whether now is the right time to upgrade, contact our team here at Create8. We’re Shopify Partners specialising in Shopify web design, helping eCommerce businesses thrive and grow, so we’re in the perfect position to advise you!

What are the alternatives to Shopify Plus?

Selecting the right platform is one of the most critical decisions eCommerce business owners face. Making the wrong decision could result in an unnecessary waste of time and money and could see you migrating to another platform quickly.

Before upgrading to Shopify Plus, it’s wise to research alternative eCommerce platforms on the market, allowing you to make an informed choice about which platform best aligns with your business needs.

Adobe Commerce 

Adobe Commerce is an enterprise-level eCommerce platform powered by Magento. It offers advanced customisation, a robust selection of tools for running multiple stores and does not charge transaction fees. However, Shopify Plus is more user-friendly and affordable and offers more app integrations.

BigCommerce Enterprise 

BigCommerce Enterprise is the premium version of BigCommerce, designed for larger enterprise businesses. The platform offers a wide range of native functionalities, no transaction fees, advanced SEO optimisation, and the flexibility to add many more product options and variants than Shopify Plus. However, Shopify Plus provides a broader range of apps than BigCommerce Enterprise and features a cleaner and more intuitive back-end, making it simpler to pick up and manage. 

Salesforce Commerce Cloud 

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is popular with many high-street brands, including Adidas, Kate Spade, Lacoste, and Clarins. The Salesforce platform is known for its scalability and ability to accommodate global businesses with complex, multi-channel needs. Nevertheless, SFCC is comparatively costly, making Shopify Plus a more economical option for companies with less complicated requirements.

Is Shopify Plus right for my business?

Shopify Plus is a versatile platform that is constantly being improved and updated with new features (just look at everything included in the Shopify winter release!). Most businesses find that Shopify Plus does everything they need and more. However, enterprises with multiple websites, an international customer base, or complex needs should carefully consider which platform best meets their needs. 

Speak to our team  if you need more help or advice deciding which enterprise level platform is right for your business.

How to upgrade to Shopify Plus

If you’re considering upgrading to Shopify Plus, you should create a plan to ensure a smooth transition.

Before you upgrade, you need to assess your business needs and make sure that Shopify Plus is the best fit.

If you’re confident it is, speak with a Shopify expert. As Shopify Partners, the team here at Create8 can guide you through the upgrade. We can help you with Shopify web design, development, eCommerce content writing, customisation and more!

Next, you’ll need to migrate your store, including all of its data, products, and customers, to Shopify Plus. Shopify offers a dedicated team of experts to help you to complete the process safely and securely.

Once your store has been migrated and you’ve made any necessary changes, you’ll be ready for launch!

Upgrade to Shopify Plus with Create8

Think you’re ready to upgrade to Shopify Plus? Here at Create8, we’re Shopify Partners, and we can help to make the transition from Shopify to Shopify Plus seamless and painless. Contact us to find out more about our services.