Shopify is a popular e-commerce platform that allows businesses all over the planet to welcome their customers to an online e-commerce store and grow.

Growth requires improvement, so you’ll need something bigger and stronger to handle more customers.

Shopify is one of the best e-commerce platforms for business growth as the hosted platform allows you to upgrade your online store to cater for more customers. At present, Shopify offers Basic, Advanced, and Pro.

‘Pro’ is Spotify’s premium service, and their most expensive as a result. It’s an option for big businesses to take advantage of powerful software.

So, should you upgrade to Shopify Plus or not? Is it the best enterprise e-commerce platform? Continue reading our guide to find out.

What is Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus is available on a one or three-year term starting at $2,300 (£1,760 as of October 2024) per month – charged annually – and is designed for large businesses.

Its standout features include:

• Custom reports and analytics
• 200 inventory locations
• Priority 24/7 phone support
• Localised global selling (50 markets)
• Unlimited staff accounts
• Fully customisable checkout with 40x capacity
• 200 Shopify POS Pro locations with Shopify Payments
• The ability to sell wholesale/B2B

Shopify Plus allows businesses to customise their checkout page with a drag-and-drop Shopify checkout editor and other apps from the Shopify app store.

Essentially, Shopify Plus gives businesses a faster, more secure website that can handle much more traffic and with greater support from Shopify itself.

Who is Shopify Plus for?

Shopify Plus is used for large businesses that are making millions in profit annually. High-volume businesses that have complex operational needs can benefit from upgrading to Shopify Plus as they can use the premium features such as unlimited staff accounts, 200 inventory locations and priority 24/7 phone support. Shopify Plus also has an unrestricted sales limit, making it perfect for large-scale businesses.

It is also suited to businesses that require higher API limits, better platform support, advanced customisation, and tools for scaling their business globally.

When should you upgrade your online store to Shopify Plus?

There are several reasons why you should upgrade your Shopify store to Shopify Plus. The first, for example, is if you are earning more than £6.5 million in revenue per year, you’re likely wasting too much money on transaction fees.

If a company’s annual sales are less than £1 million, only a couple of situations would warrant upgrading to Shopify Plus:

• The business needs a B2B feature that can’t be implemented elsewhere.
• The business requires multiple expansion stores.

Other reasons to upgrade to Shopify Plus include:

• If a business requires more control over its online store’s design and checkout experience.
• The need for higher API call limits and more in-depth integrations with different business systems.
• Automation to reduce the need for larger teams to complete manual tasks.
  
  

What are the main benefits of Shopify Plus?

There are plenty of reasons why Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the world, and they are:

24/7 support tickets

Shopify Plus provides a special team to offer support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When you’re running a multi-million-pound business, having an around-the-clock support team is vital if something goes wrong.

Customise the checkout experience

Shopify Plus offers you increased access to customisation of the checkout page for your customers.

You can offer a wide array of payment options, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Shopify Pay. This can help with increasing conversions, especially for mobile users.

Apply automatic discounts

By upgrading to Shopify Plus, you can also create dynamic sales and offer automatic discounts.

The Script Editor tool that’s exclusive only to the Plus level allows you to easily apply discounts to items at checkout.

Manage campaigns and new product releases with a scheduling tool

You can use a scheduling tool to automate events and major campaigns to allow you to efficiently run promotions and more.

With Shopify Plus, you have a lot more control to manage high-end product releases, discounts and campaigns from your admin console, including the start and end times.

Automate tasks

As your business grows, your time usually dwindles, which is why Shopify Plus is such an important tool.

With Shopify Flow, you can automate plenty of tasks such as order and product management, customer engagement, and more.

Tap into a global market

To grow your business, you must be able to reach customers in all different markets. With Shopify Plus, you can open expansion stores and reach specific global markets to increase your customer base.

Shopify Plus allows you to offer customers specific product information in their native language and sell in their currency.

Unlimited bandwidth

Shopify Plus is often the choice for many big businesses that need more bandwidth. It offers unlimited bandwidth and 200TB of storage, allowing your online store to handle large influxes of traffic, and up to 6,000 checkouts per minute.

What are the main disadvantages of Shopify Plus?

While Shopify Plus has many advantages, especially for large businesses, there are some downsides to consider before upgrading.

Content management

Content management options at Shopify Plus have limited capabilities compared to other systems like WordPress. It can have limited blogging functionality and a lack of controls over product page URL structure.

Search functionality

The search capabilities of Shopify Plus have some limitations and mostly rely on product names and descriptions to find results, lacking features like auto-correct and suggestions.

Platform lock-in

As an enterprise e-commerce platform, Shopify poses a lock-in risk. You do not have any access to the FTP or the database so if Shopify suffers any server or financial trouble, you will bear all of the risk.

Hire Paramount Digital to handle your Shopify SEO

Are you running out of time to manage your Shopify store? As your business grows, are you finding it tough to run your website?

Luckily for you, Paramount Digital is here to help.

We are an experienced team of digital marketers, designers and developers who can take the stress of managing your website off your hands. We can even work our magic and put it in front of more people on search engines and social media platforms to increase conversions and profits.

Sounds good, right? Contact us today by calling 01744 747474 or send an email to marketing@paramountdigital.co.uk.