Overview
A common misconception is that Shopify is only suitable for small or medium-sized enterprises. As a result, large-sized businesses would shy away from using Shopify.
In 2014, Shopify launched a separate plan called Shopify Plus to aid hyper-growth enterprises to build an online store that provides a solution for all their business needs. Shopify Plus provides enterprises with an all-in-one solution that helps brands scale globally. Since then, several large-sized companies have begun using Shopify Plus for their businesses online, such as Gym Shark, The New York Times, Decathlon, and celebrity-owned companies such as Kylie Cosmetics by Kylie Jenner and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez.
Traditionally, it would take 1-1.5 years to launch an enterprise-level eCommerce platform. However, enterprises only need 3-8 months to launch a store with Shopify Plus. Shopify Plus also comes with no additional cost of legacy enterprise software.
Shopify Plus provides merchants to integrate future-proof features, such as including 3D media and augmented reality for products, which is not a feature that is available for stores on regular Shopify plans.
Pricing
Shopify Plus costs US$2,000 (HK$15,615) a month. The higher monthly subscription cost guarantees an uptime of 99.99% and higher sales:
- Shopify Plus stores have a checkout that is 60% faster than stores on regular Shopify plans
- Shopify Plus stores can increase their conversion with Shop Pay by up to 18%
- Create stores in multiple languages, and currencies
- Customise the checkout flow
- Provide customers with advanced discounts
Why Shopify Plus?
Dedicated Launch Engineer
All Shopify Plus merchants gain access to a dedicated launch engineer, who guides merchants in setting up their Shopify Plus online store. Launch engineers help merchants build a scalable solution that is future-proof.
Shopify organization admin
Although Shopify provides a great analytics dashboard for all merchants, Shopify Plus offers merchants an even more in-depth analytics dashboard that covers the following:
- Analytics overview for all stores together, as well as each store specifically;
- Shopify Flow management allows merchants to build, review, and edit workflows and transfer workflows from one store to another, without the use of any external third-party application;
- User management enables merchants to control store-level access and permissions for all users, across all stores;
- Store management lets merchants view and manage all their stores and filter them by store status or type.
The Shopify organization admin also lets merchants create and export professional reports.
Advanced Shopify Plus apps
Certain Shopify apps are exclusive to Shopify Plus merchants only:
- Shopify scripts and the Script Editor let developers add small code blocks in Ruby to create a personalised experience at the cart and checkout. Developers can use the Script to develop and apply discounts and personalise the shipping and payment options based on specific cart properties. The Script Editor also facilitates development by providing templates to write different types of scripts.
- Shopify Flow — Shopify Flow is an eCommerce automation platform that lets Shopify Plus merchants automate tasks and processes within stores across the entire organisation
Merchant Success Program
The Merchant Success Program is a robust all-in-one program that helps merchants gain the most out of their experience with Shopify Plus.
Unlimited staff accounts
With Shopify Advanced, merchants can only add up to 15 staff accounts. With Shopify Plus, merchants can have unlimited staff accounts to help grow and manage the business without the risk of additional costs.
Customisation of the checkout
Stores on Shopify have a default Shopify checkout layout, and developers do not have access to the checkout.liquid file to make code changes for the checkout process. Additionally, there is a limit on font options for the checkout.
Merchants on Shopify Plus gain access to the checkout.liquid template, which allows developers to customise the checkout for Shopify Plus merchants. Access to checkout.liquid helps merchants have a checkout user interface that matches their branding.
Expansion stores
One Shopify Plus plan comes with ten stores. In addition to the primary store, Shopify Plus allows merchants to create up to nine expansion stores at no additional cost.
Shopify Plus merchants can use expansion stores for separate physical locations or internationalisation. For example, Snag Tights, a British-owned clothing brand, uses Shopify Plus for internalisation. Snag Tights uses expansion stores to manage their inventory and ship products to different locations.
Shopify Plus Community
By subscribing to a Shopify Plus plan, merchants gain access to a Shopify Plus Community on Facebook with over 8,000 members. The community allows high-volume merchants to communicate and share strategies.
Shopify Plus Academy
Shopify Plus Academy is an online academy exclusive to Shopify Plus merchants that helps merchants grow their business by providing self-guided training in the following topics:
- Expanding into new markets
- Paid advertising
- Conversion optimization
- Remarketing
- Inventory and fulfilment
- Personalization
Upload up to 100 themes
With all three regular Shopify plans, merchants can only upload up to ten themes for their store. However, Shopify Plus allows merchants to upload and store up to 100 themes in their store’s admin panel so that they can:
- try and test out different themes
- keep different versions of their primary theme for seasonal changes
- save copies of different themes to make changes, and test out functionalities before publishing them to their live stores
The capability to upload up to 100 themes instead of 10 themes gives merchants the flexibility to make changes without deleting any existing theme.
Wholesale channel
For businesses expanding into the wholesale market, merchants can use their expansion stores to create a wholesale channel, a password-protected storefront. Like regular stores, customers can place orders on the wholesale store directly, and merchants can track orders placed under the Shopify organization admin.
Access to beta programs
Shopify Plus merchants also gain access to exclusive beta programs to shape the product roadmap of Shopify.
Shopify POS Pro
Shopify POS is a Shopify point of sale app that allows merchants to connect and sync their Shopify store across all sales channels, such as pop-up and retail stores. In addition, Shopify Plus merchants get access to Shopify POS Pro, which syncs every location in their organisation at no additional costs.
Brands on Shopify Plus
EYEWEAR by DAVID BECKHAM
Although EYEWEAR by DAVID BECKHAM does not sell any of their products online, the brand still uses Shopify Plus to use the Shopify POS to connect and sync their inventories across their retail stores, as well as use the Shopify organization admin to analyse data obtained from offline stores.
KKW Beauty, KKW Fragrance & SKIMS by Kim Kardashian West
Kim Kardashian West uses Shopify Plus for all of her brands: KKW Fragrance, KKW Beauty, and SKIMS. Kim Kardashian West launched KKW Beauty on Shopify Plus in 2017.
Upon expanding her businesses to sell Fragrance and shapewear, Kim Kardashian West used Shopify Plus’ expansion stores to create additional KKW Fragrance and SKIMS stores at no additional cost.
Kylie Swim by Kylie Jenner
After her successful launch of Kylie Cosmetics, Kylie Jenner followed her sister Kim’s footsteps into launching her own clothing brand. In 2021, Kylie Jenner launched her own swimwear line: Kylie Swim, which uses Shopify Plus.
Fenty Beauty by Rihanna
Initially built on Magento, Rihanna switched to Shopify Plus in 2021. With Shopify Plus, developers installed Global-e. Global-e is a platform that accelerates global e-commerce growth and is only available to Shopify Plus merchants. By integrating global-e, Rihanna provides a localised experience for over 200 countries.
