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Shopify VS Shopify Plus: What Is A Best Fit For You.

Shopify or Shopify Plus which one for you ?

Written By

Ash Ome

Published on

September 7, 2018

If you’re in the eCommerce business, you already know that in recent few years eCommerce has changed a lot. Today’s online is flooded with lots of eCommerce websites. And there are several eCommerce platforms to choose from for starting eCommerce business right away. Some of them are Self-hosted system; some of them are Cloud-based aka SASS ( Software As Service). Among all of them, Shopify has created a different eCommerce ecosystem. According to statics, today’s 55 percent eCommerce stores are using Shopify as their eCommerce software and rest 45 percent are using Magento, Woocommerce, Drupal Commerce, Prestashop, and other self-owned software. Most businesses are using Shopify for their usability and true securities. So we assume that you want to use Shopify. Shopify has two different platforms, one is for small businesses who are starting, which is Shopify, and one is for enterprise level eCommerce ventures. So which one for you? You’ll get a clear answer after finish reading this article. Actually, some key features of Shopify Plus stand alone from Shopify and any other platforms. We will break every part to show you Shopify or Shopify Plus, which one is suitable for you. Ok So let’s begin Shopify VS Shopify Plus battle.

Shopify 

Shopify is an eCommerce store software which was born by a passionate software developer Tobi Lütke which he really wrote for their online snowboard store. Shopify was created to take the online store to the next level nowadays where it is. You can rarely integrate every needed system with Shopify, and the most interesting thing is Shopify is very easy to use. All most everybody can set up an online store with some clicks by Shopify. There are more than three sales channels to sell your products other than your store. Oh, I forgot! About the sales channel? With Sales Channel, you can sell your products not only on your web store but also on Facebook, Twitter & on Pinterest. You can also sale your unique products on Amazon, Houzz, and on Etsy. You can even sell on your Non-Shopify site, may that site would be a blog, may that would an old school HTML coded site, you can sell your products also on that with Shopify Buy Button integration.

For Whom Shopify?

Shopify is the solution which gives you a robust eCommerce ecosystem. With Shopify, you’ll get all the features and tools to kickstart your business with a fully functional advanced eCommerce store. There are over 1500 apps in Shopify’s apps marketplace to expand any kinds of functionalities at any time. There are also several tools to scale with your business when your store grows.

Statics says that Shopify empowers more than 3,25,000 online stores and the platform processed over 24 billion in total transactions.

Shopify has a dedicated theme marketplace where you would find pixel perfect and user-friendly template to get started with your website. As Shopify has a vast ecosystem of designers and developers every, Shopify theme is well developed and clean coded which will help you to get rank quickly on search engines.

Shopify is mostly used by small eCommerce startups and mid-level eCommerce stores. Most of them are drop shippers or enthusiast marketers and passionate designers. In recent few years, we saw that some crowdfunding ideas also used Shopify. Another type of store is a single product store who sell only a single product; this type of store owners also use Shopify.

Shopify Plus 

Sound similar, huh?! Yeah, we know that you’re thinking what the hell I am talking about? Ok! If Shopify is a grenade in the eCommerce software industry, then Shopify Plus is a missile. Shopify Plus is dedicated only for enterprise-level eCommerce business. Shopify Plus developed to make enterprise level eCommerce more simpler, reliable, and scalable to keep you ahead of every shitty buyer behavior. No matter if you make millions in a year, in a month or in a day Shopify Plus can handle that with its robust eCommerce ecosystem.

Here is a video from real Shopify Plus Store, No other eCommerce software could handle that traffic crush and the sales crush!

For Whom Shopify Plus?

As Shopify Plus was born to solve problems of enterprise level eCommerce, there are too many reasons to choose Shopify Plus over any other eCommerce software. Shopify Plus not only powers enterprise level eCommerce stores with its powerful features but also it reduces the headache of technology-related problems and saves money over that.

Many enterprise creates its own software and systems or uses a self-hosted eCommerce platform to solve their internal problems and make integration with various software. In a result, they have to hire a dedicated team to manage all of these tech things. But the matter of sorrow that when it is not a regular day, when you get a traffic spike or in a festive season when you get a massive spark on sales, your store and system may crash without any prior notice if you don’t take any preparation before these days to handle the spark. Here Shopify comes with the solution with their Shopify Plus, which is able to handle these incidents where you will have no more headache.

It’s ideal for big ventures, enterprise level eCommerce business, wholesalers who want to move to more robust and reliable software.

Some companies who are using Shopify Plus

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Shopify VS Shopify Plus: Key Differences

As Shopify is mostly used by small and mid-level eCommerce store and Shopify Plus is designed for enterprise-level business there are some significant differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus. Shopify Plus is mainly an extended version of Shopify which is capable of handle enterprise headaches. Here we will compare Shopify’s top plan Advanced Shopify Plan to Shopify Plus, which comes with a lot of features. One thing keeps in mind that Shopify Plus packed with all of those basic Shopify features already as it is an extended version of Shopify. There are lots of similarities, but we will only show the difference between them.

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Shopify is becoming the synonym of eCommerce

Shopify Cart Script

In Shopify Plus you can write and deploy complex scripts to run any kinds of promotions like “Buy one get one free (BOGO),”” Giving discounts on certain products in certain zones” etc. With the complex scripting system, you can also target specific customers segments to run special promotions or retargeting. You can also offer promotions that could be straightly applied to the cart. All of these features are not available in Shopify (General), in Shopify, you can achieve few of them with some third-party applications, and some of them are not totally possible.

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An example of powerful marketing “Buy One Get One Free (BOGO)” with Shopify cart script

Clone or Multi-Store

In Shopify, it’s not possible to get more than one store under one account. But in Shopify Plus you can create two additional clone stores which will allow you to create multi-store to internationalization, wholesaling and regional supporting. Even you can sync orders, inventory, and customer data across your stores.

Dedicated Managers

If you’re in Shopify Plus, you will get Dedicated Launch managers, Merchant Success Managers, and 24×7 Priority Support.

Dedicated Launch who will support you during your launch periods on your launch needs and will serve you technical contacts for migration and development coordination.

Merchant Success Managers will help you to use the proper wealth and resources of yours. They will be your advisor with your every step of the way and give you the right directions from billing to development themes to sales channels.

The 24×7 Support team will give you the priority, and they will provide you any kinds of supports with expertise on the Shopify Plus.

Dedicated APIs

With Shopify Plus, you will get dedicated APIs access to integrate more complex software integrations with your existing systems like ERP, CRM, etc. Integration with back-end systems need greater APIs throughput, and every Shopify Plus account holder will get up to the 5x greater throughput of APIs. Only Shopify Plus clients will get access to greatest API accesses like Gift Card APIs to allow gift card migration and synchronization, they will also get Sign-On & Multipass API for login migration.

Customized Checkout page

Shopify account holder has not to access on their checkout page, and that checkout page is separately hosted in another location sparely from their Shopify store. But with Shopify Plus you will have to get your own branded checkout page on your own domain, and you will have access to create custom and responsive layout. Only Shopify Plus you can offer consistency branded experience on the checkout page and entire purchase process where you’ve no access in General Shopify account.

Lower Transaction Fees

With general Shopify account, you have to pay 0.5 to 2 percent transactions fees depending on your Shopify Plan. But in Shopify Plus there is a little transaction fee which is lower than 0.2% depending on your store’s revenue earning, that’s mean you’re independent to credit card processing.

Shopify Plus Pricing: How much does it cost?

As we are working with this industry for quite a few years, here I’m outlining the cost of Shopify Plus based on our experience. So let’s see how much it will cost you for a mid-level Shopify Plus build.

Note: What I mean by A mid-level Shopify Plus Store is; having around 1,000 products or SKUs, single currency or/and single warehouse, two straight forward integrations, a handful of third-party apps and a custom designed storefront.

Keep in mind that the projected pricing figures are based on the first year with Shopify Plus and purely based on our personal experience.

Average build cost for a Shopify Plus Store in my experience is $88,000 where Shopify Plus subscription starts at as low as $2000 a month.

Here is the breakdown of that.

  1. Shopify Plus Subscription for a year is $24,000+
  2. BAU Development cost, in my opinion, is $38,000.
  3. Third party apps cost on averages $3000.
  4. The payment processing fee is as low as 0.15%.

The first year Shopify Plus costs you $148000

Three years Shopify Plus costs of ownership are

$2670000

Conclusion: There is too many commerce software out there, which is suitable for you to depend on your business perspective. Shopify wants you to make successful as you can be on the platform without any plenty. If you’ve any question, please drop us a message we would love to answer that.

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