What is Shopify Plus? #1 Enterprise Commerce Platform

Are you considering Shopify Plus? Perhaps you're in one of the following situations:

• Struggling with your current website platform and thinking about switching to something better.
• Already using a standard Shopify package (Advanced) and looking to upgrade to Shopify Plus for its additional features.
• Starting a new business and wanting to accelerate growth with powerful tools.

What Exactly is Shopify Plus?

In a nutshell, Shopify Plus is an e-commerce platform tailored for enterprise clients with annual gross merchandise volumes (GMV) starting from $1M, aiming for even faster growth. However, based on Meowcart's 8 years of deploying Shopify projects, Plus is best suited for brands with a volume of $5M+.

Shopify Plus is built with exclusive, powerful tools designed to rapidly and efficiently grow your business.

Global brands like Allbirds, Gymshark, Kylie Cosmetics, Redbull, Fashion Nova, and Fenty Beauty, as well as leading Vietnamese brands such as Vinamilk, SONY, Supersports, Crocs, Sulwhasoo, Havaianas, Triumph, Swee Lee, and MyKingdom, utilize Shopify Plus.

Pricing: How Much Does Shopify Plus Cost?

Years ago, Shopify did not officially announce the pricing (usage fee) of Shopify Plus and this was a mystery.

However, from 2022, the officially announced pricing of Shopify Plus is from $2000/month. This is the minimum number and is non-negotiable.

This is just the monthly subscription cost for Plus, you need to pay additional costs for 3rd party applications as well as website development costs on the Shopify Plus platform.

Reference: Shopify Plus deployment cost

If you are wondering why the cost is so high (or if you switched from Magento, this number is too normal), then the answer lies in the special features of Shopify Plus below.

Features of Shopify Plus

If we were to summarize the essence of Shopify Plus, it would be:

• Enhanced revenue at checkout through conversion rate optimization tools and promotions.
• Simplified operations with automation tools for daily tasks.
• Easy scaling and global expansion with Store Expansion features and B2B sales.

However, let's detail all the features Shopify Plus offers for a comprehensive overview.

Customize Shopify Plus Checkout

The checkout page is a hallmark of Shopify. As a regular Shopify user, you can't change or customize anything on this page, unless you're using Shopify Plus. No matter your traffic volume, your revenue depends on how many visitors convert and complete their orders, and the checkout page is your last chance to optimize this.

Image: Allbirds' checkout page is using Shopify

1. Full Control to Edit the Checkout Page with Shopify Plus:

• Change and customize the checkout page to reflect your brand identity.
• Add code snippets for tracking and conversion purposes.

 2. Shopify Scripts

Scripts are a powerful tool of Plus to increase conversion rates and average order value (AOV). They allow you to create code that operates exclusively on the checkout page, enabling promotional programs, shipping fee changes, or payment gateway adjustments. Below are some examples of scripts but you're free to create scripts based on your actual needs.

Custom Pricing:

• Discount y% for specified special products.
• Discount when purchasing X quantity or more.
• Discount x% when purchasing products A and B.
• Buy one get one free (BOGO).
• Discount when purchasing orders worth xx or more.
• Discount or free shipping for VIP customers.

Customize Shopify Shipping:

• Customize shipping fee for product A.
• Discount shipping fees for customers with addresses at...
• Hide shipping fees/change order of shipping methods.
• Free shipping for customers with tag "xyz".

Customize Shopify Payment:

• Hide other payment methods, and only show the most popular payment method in the country where the customer is shopping.
• Hide installment payment method for orders with value less than xx.
• Currently the buy now pay later option for orders with a value over xx.
• Change the priority order of payment methods.

Above is a script with the content Hide payment method OnePay - Installment for orders with a total value of less than 3 million VND..

3. Checkout App Extensions Shopify Plus 

Since late 2022, Shopify introduced Checkout App Extensions, a list of third-party apps that allow more robust customization of the checkout page, exclusive to Shopify Plus users.

Refference: Shopify Checkout Extension Apps

Popular tools you can add into Checkout page: 

• A/B Testing promotional methods
• Upsell
• Countdown Timer
• Reviews
• Free Gift
• BOGO
  
• Tiers Pricing (discount when reaching threshold)
• SMS Marketing
• Livechat

One-page Checkout for Shopify Plus 

One of the most anticipated features of Shopify Plus is the one-page checkout, where instead of the usual three steps (Information - Shipping - Payment), everything is consolidated into a single page.

Update: From October 2023, One-page checkout is open for all Shopify plans.

Screenshot: Shopify

This helps increase conversion rates by shortening checkout time as well as eliminating unnecessary information fields.

Shopify Flow

Before 2022, Flow was a feature only available to Plus customers, but now customers using lower packages like Advanced can activate this feature.

Flow enables a wide range of automation capabilities to cut repetitive work time from everyday tasks. Instead of spending hours every day on manual tasks, Flow completely saves you time and resources.

Image: Shopify Flow interface allows connection with many 3rd party applications

You can set up some automation flows such as:

• Notification when a product is low on stock.
• Cancel orders for orders labeled as high risk or fraud risk.
• Group customers based on amount spent.
• Tag orders with special products in the cart.
• Automatically add products to collections by product name.
• Send notification of accumulated points to loyal customers.
• Send a thank you email to customers who have placed orders.

The only limit to Flow is your imagination regarding possible scenarios in running a website with Shopify Plus.

Launchpad - Flash sale automation

Launchpad automates marketing campaigns like flash sales, a common practice among major Plus businesses for product launches or regular sales events.

Have you ever stayed up until midnight just to turn on flash sale mode for an event, and had to turn off the flash sale when it ended?

Do you want to change the interface for a special occasion like Black Friday and want the interface to return to the same when the program ends?

It's all automatable with Launchpad. Launchpad allows you to schedule product launches, change prices, adjust inventory, and even customize themes before special events. With Launchpad, you can:

• Schedule an appointment to launch new products/collections
• Apply discounts to products/collections for a certain period
• Schedule a theme publication for a special campaign
• Everything returns to the same after the program ends

Expansion Store

If you've successfully established your brand in one market and wish to replicate the model in other markets or countries, Shopify Plus' Expansion feature is ideal.

Shopify Plus's Expansion feature is especially suitable for:

• Businesses sell in many different markets.
• The business owns many different brands and wants to build a website for each brand.

Source: Shopi Shopa

This feature allows you to clone your store with themes, data, products, and apps in seconds.

For example, you have a store using Shopify Plus for the US market that took 3 months to build successfully. You want to clone a similar website for the European market.

Expansion Store lets you do that in an instant, with up to 9 stores on the same Shopify Plus account.

This is especially suitable for businesses that own many different brands and want to have separate websites for each brand.

Most importantly, you can manage all of these stores on the same interface, in a single place, and easily switch to another store with one click..

Combined with Markets, a new feature of Shopify allows you to choose the country/market you want to sell products in, easily customizing the language, currency, and domain name for each different market.

With Markets, you can:

• Change language/currency for each different market
• Set different shipping fees for each market
• Selling price changes vary depending on each market
• Tax rate settings vary by market
• Payment methods vary by market

Powerful Processing Speed

Source: Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus provides powerful processing speed for not only the website but also the Checkout page.

It is said that Shopify Plus's Checkout page has a much faster processing speed than usual, helping to increase conversion rates.

Imagine you are running ads and have a spike in traffic on special occasions like Black Friday or Lunar New Year, suddenly your website is congested or has an error, what will happen?

Shopify Plus can handle huge traffic volumes while maintaining speed and customer experience, and can handle over 10,000 orders per minute.

API Query Rate Limits for Large Clients

For large-scale customers, there will often be a need to connect API with third-party platforms related to CRM, ERP, CDP, WMS,... or self-developed internal software.

With regular Shopify plans, speed and API access usually have a certain limit of number of requests per second.

With Plus, the number of requests allowed is double that of regular packages, allowing query speeds and data to be synchronized quickly in real time. 

Shopify Plus Merchant Success 

Merchant Success is a trained team dedicated to assisting Plus clients, available 24/7. New Shopify Plus clients can also work with Shopify Launch Engineers for tech support and platform transition.

Is Shopify Plus Right for You?

With its higher cost, businesses with an annual GMV of $1M and above are encouraged to use Shopify Plus.

Reference: Shopify Plus vs Magento: Nền tảng nào dành cho doanh nghiệp năm 2023?

This premium service package is not only meaningful in terms of business growth but is also a good choice for you in optimizing costs for other services.

The features that come with the premium plan justify the somewhat hefty cost as they help you scale quickly while generating better ROI.

If you have $1M GMV and decide to start with Plus, Plus features can help you increase GMV by about 10-15% in the short term with CR and AOV conversion rate optimization.

Shopify Plus will be your optimal choice if:

• Your business has an annual GMV of $1M+
• The current website platform is unstable and lacks powerful features for you to scale up
• You are planning to grow dramatically and expand quickly into many different markets
• You are willing to pay monthly costs from $2000