Has your small Shopify business grown to the enterprise level? If so, then it’s time to consider upgrading to Shopify Plus. If you weren’t aware, Shopify Plus is a more premium version of the core Shopify experience.
Where Shopify is for medium-sized businesses, Shopify Plus is for the enterprise level.
You’ll enjoy the same user-friendly editor and features as Shopify but with access to a lot more.
Shopify Plus has new features, integrations, support options, and much more. If you’re wondering, “What are the advantages of Shopify Plus?” Then you’ve come to the right place. Stick around to learn about all the perks of upgrading to Shopify Plus.
Access to Automation Tools
If your Shopify business has grown past a certain level, maintaining it can be challenging. The core Shopify experience is perfect for small entrepreneurs and medium-sized businesses. Yet, for enterprise-level companies, it’s pretty limited.
Shopify Flow
For one, the need for automation tools becomes prevalent at the enterprise level. Luckily, Shopify Plus includes access to Shopify Flow.
It’s an app that only Shopify Plus account holders can use. With it, you can automate:
- Tasks
- Campaigns
- Processes within your store
- Functions of your apps
Flow comes with an intuitive visual workflow builder. It makes creating custom automation processes completely effortless. There’s also a vast library of automation templates to get you started. Even if you’ve never worked with automation software before, you won’t have any trouble getting used to Flow.
Here are a few examples of what you can automate using Shopify Flow:
- Automatically create a support ticket whenever you receive a negative review
- Auto-track negative reviews on a spreadsheet
- Initiate a nurture campaign for every pre-order purchase
- Add free gifts to orders over $100
- Automatically tag orders to have specific shipping requirements
- Hide and show certain products based on inventory level
These are just a few of the ways that you can save yourself time with Shopify Flow. If you find that you’re spending way too much time managing your store’s needs, it’s time for an upgrade.
In addition to Shopify Flow, Plus users also gain access to Alvara AvaTax. It will automatically handle your international sales tax calculations. It contains information from over 12,000 separate taxing jurisdictions around the globe.
Unlimited Staff Accounts
Another advantage of Shopify Plus is the ability to use as many staff accounts as you want. If your store has a large team working on it, then Shopify Plus is the way to go. You’ll be able to create a staff account for as many team members as your demands dictate.
In addition, you can add new permission settings. Of course, some actions are still only available for the store owner. Yet, Shopify Plus affords a lot more flexibility for staff permissions. For comparison, the most premium standard Shopify account only allows 15 staff accounts.
That’s not enough if you’re running an enterprise-level business on a global scale.
If you’ve grown far beyond the need for only 15 staff accounts, it’s time to make the jump to Shopify Plus. The advantages certainly don’t stop there, though.
Lower Transaction Fees
Another huge perk of switching to Shopify Plus is the lower transaction fees. If you weren’t aware, transaction fees are one of the biggest reasons to upgrade. It’s prevalent for users on the Standard or Shopify Plan to upgrade to Advanced to reduce costs.
That’s because the higher the volume that you sell, the more transaction fees will affect you.
Here’s a quick comparison of the transaction fees from each Shopify plan available:
- Basic Shopify: 2.0% per transaction
- Shopify Plan: 1.0% per transaction
- Shopify Advanced: 0.5% per transaction
- Shopify Plus: 0.15% per transaction
As you can see, Shopify Plus has the lowest transaction fees by far. Higher transaction fees aren’t that big of a deal for a smaller business. That all changes once you start doing around $1 million in sales.
Unless you want to pay $20,000 in transaction fees, you need a Shopify Plus account. That way, all you have to pay is $1,500 in fees. Your total savings will be $18,500 in costs by upgrading to Shopify Plus, making it well worth it. That’s especially true if you don’t qualify to use Shopify Payments.
If you can use Shopify Payments, you definitely should. That’s because, for both the Advanced and Shopify Plus plans, you enjoy 0% transaction fees.
Increased API limits (A Whopping 500% More)
If you have a Shopify Plus account, you get a massive increase in your API limits. What’s that? Here’s a simple definition:
- An API is an application programming interface. That’s a fancy way of saying that it sends responses and receives requests in return. It’s what allows integration between systems, such as your store and a third-party app.
The core Shopify plans have limitations on their APIs. That doesn’t make much of a difference for smaller businesses. If you have an enterprise-level store, you’ll likely become frustrated with the limitations.
That’s why Shopify Plus is so helpful for larger companies. You’ll enjoy a 500% increase in your API limit. That translates into much faster API call rates.
So what does that mean for your Shopify store?
It means that you can do a lot more with ERP and app integration.
You had to be careful about how many apps you integrated with your store on one of the other plans. That’s because it’s pretty easy to reach your API limits from using just a few apps. As a result, your store’s loading speed drops, and bounce rates see a significant drop.
With Shopify Plus, you can easily integrate multiple apps without coming close to approaching your API limits.
You can also set up connections in real-time without any issues.
If your store is seeing extensive growth and uses many apps, it’s time to consider upgrading. With Shopify Plus, you also gain access to some exclusive APIs. These include:
- Discounts
- Gift cards
- Adjustments
- Single sign-on/multipass
As you can see, you can do a lot more with APIs and ERP on Shopify Plus than the other plans. In general, the more apps you can use on your site without slowing it down, the better. You can download apps to help with inventory management, accounting, customer service, and more.
High Traffic Volume Management with Launchpad
Another app exclusive to Shopify Plus is Launchpad. It’s meant to handle all your high traffic volume when launching a new product. It’s got all the tools that you need to execute a successful product launch, flash sale, or new campaign.
With Launchpad, you can plan and automate all your product launching activities.
You can schedule a wide variety of events, theme changes, special pricing events, and more.
If you really want to build up hype for an event or product launch, you can lock your store for a set period. A customizable message will display, letting your customers know when your new product launches.
Moreover, you’ll have access to data analytics to track the success of your launches. The analytics dashboard is intuitive and very easy to read and understand. That way, you can start leveraging the data to your advantage.
A Dedicated Success Manager
An advantage that you won’t get with any other plan is your success manager. Shopify will provide you with a dedicated manager in charge of ensuring your success. It’s their goal to make sure that you have the best launch possible for your store.
Your success manager will provide you with bi-monthly updates on the latest features and updates. They can communicate with you via phone calls and emails. Your manager will pay special attention to time-sensitive issues, such as new launches.
It’s beneficial to have someone working around the clock to ensure your success.
Beyond the success manager, your store will have powerful discounting features. You can set up free shipping, free gifts, tiered pricing, and more. These are all exclusive features of the Shopify Plus platform. They’re meant to help you have the most successful store launch possible.
The Script Editor
If you’re savvy with code, then you’ll love access to the Script Editor. Now you can write customized scripts hosted by Shopify. That way, you can incorporate custom lines of code for your branding and products. You can also use custom code to create personalized customer experiences. You can offer automated custom pricing, shipping, promotions, and more.
The Script Editor is a fully-integrated solution as well. It scales with Shopify’s existing servers. That way, there’s no need to worry about support or maintenance headaches. That especially comes in handy during high traffic times.
Final Takeaways
What are the advantages of Shopify Plus? There are almost too many to count. We’ve covered the most prominent benefits in this article, but they’re by no means all of them. Shopify Plus offers lower transaction fees, a custom Script Editor, higher API limits, and much, much more. If your business has grown to the enterprise level, the standard Shopify plans won’t cut it anymore. Upgrading to Shopify Plus is a must for larger e-commerce stores.
For more great content to help you develop your Shopify strategies, check out the rest of the merchant posts on the site. If you want to see a list of our top recommended Shopify apps visit this link here.
