Unlock Enterprise Growth with Shopify Plus Features

Scaling an e-commerce business comes with its own set of growing pains, particularly when it comes to website performance. Issues such as crashes during peak traffic and insufficient automation can disrupt operations, impact efficiency, and ultimately impact both brand reputation and revenue. 

This is where Shopify Plus proves invaluable. By integrating Shopify Plus features into your e-commerce operations, you can overcome these challenges and unlock your business’s full potential.

What is Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus is a comprehensive e-commerce solution built for high-growth businesses and large enterprises. It offers a robust platform with enhanced features to cater to your specific needs, including:

• Speed and performance optimisation: Ensure a seamless shopping experience for your customers, even during peak traffic.
• High-capacity handling: Reduce the risk of website crashes and slowdowns, even during flash sales or major product launches.
• Advanced automation tools: Streamline your operations, from order fulfilment to marketing campaigns, freeing up your team to focus on strategic initiatives.

Shopify Plus Key Features

Some of the key features you can find in Shopify Plus that can help you drive enterprise growth include:

1. Scalability and Performance

Shopify Plus was developed to handle the demands of high-growth businesses. With unlimited product listings, bandwidth, and storage, you can expand your online catalogue without worrying about limitations.

Site speed and reliability are crucial for large enterprises or growing medium-sized businesses, where a seamless and premium user experience is paramount. Shopify Plus's robust infrastructure ensures your e-commerce website remains fast and responsive, even during peak traffic, minimising bounce rates and maximising conversions.

Furthermore, Shopify Plus provides a unified platform for omnichannel growth. Whether you're selling direct-to-consumer (D2C), business-to-business (B2B), or retail stores, Shopify Plus seamlessly integrates all your sales channels for a cohesive brand experience.

2. Lower Transaction Fees

Shopify Plus offers competitive transaction fees, especially for high-volume merchants. When you use Shopify Payments as your primary payment gateway, you can significantly reduce transaction fees compared to using third-party payment gateways.

However, if you choose to go for a third-party payment gateway, you may have to pay processor fees plus 0.20% per transaction to Shopify for security reasons and compliance costs.

3. Checkout Extensibility

Checkout Extensibility is a powerful feature exclusive to Shopify Plus that gives you unprecedented control over your checkout process. This means you can create a truly bespoke checkout experience that aligns perfectly with your e-commerce business's operations. 

Key advantages of Checkout Extensibility:

• Advanced branding: Shopify Plus comes with a branding API that enables you to match the look and feel of your checkout page to match your e-commerce website.
• Enhanced payment flexibility: Offer a wider range of payment options for your customers. Customise based on their location, cart value or other criteria.
• Loyalty customisations: Integrate your loyalty programme directly into the checkout process, making it easy for customers to earn and redeem rewards.
• Post-purchase checkout extensions: Utilise post-purchase upselling, loyalty sign-ups, and surveys to further engage customers and drive repeat business.

4. Advanced E-commerce Automation

Shopify Plus offers a suite of powerful automation tools to streamline your operations and free up your team's time. These include the following:

a. Shopify Function

If your Shopify Plus store currently relies on Shopify Scripts, it’s essential to migrate these to Shopify Function, the next-generation tool for backend customisation. 

Shopify Function offers you a flexible and powerful way to personalise your store's backend logic. This innovation enables you to tailor functionalities specifically to your business needs without relying on third-party applications or complex coding. 

Some of the features that you integrate into your e-commerce website using Shopify Functions include:

• Custom discounts: Create unique discount offers based on customer segments, purchase history, or specific products.
• Dynamic shipping rates: Offer real-time shipping rates based on location, order value, or product weight.
• Payment method controls: Control which payment methods are available based on customer location or order characteristics.
• Product bundling: Encourage larger orders by offering product bundles and special pricing.

b. Launchpad

Launchpad is your command centre for scheduling and managing events like flash sales, product releases, and seasonal campaigns. This tool is especially beneficial for retail businesses that frequently run promotions during key shopping periods, such as 12.12 sales, Christmas, Chinese New Year, and more.

Key features of Launchpad:

• Product releases and inventory updates: Schedule product launches and inventory updates in advance, ensuring a smooth and coordinated release.
• Discount application: Automatically apply discounts to specific products or collections during your campaigns.
• Campaign theme design: Transform the look and feel of your store during specific campaigns to create a unique shopping experience.
• Automatic change reversions: Schedule your store to revert back to its original settings after a campaign ends, saving you time and effort.
• Real-time analytics dashboard: Track the real-time results of your seasonal campaigns so you can make more informed decisions about future strategies.

c. Shopify Flow

Another feature you can integrate into your Shopify Plus plan is the Shopify Flow, which helps you automate tasks and processes within your store and across apps. This is an event-based feature that allows you to create automated workflows within your e-commerce website. With Shopify Flow, you can monitor your store for events and create automated sequences of actions from certain responses. 

Some of the functions you can automate include:

• Inventory alerts: Receive notifications when stock levels are low, preventing stockouts and lost sales.
• Customer segmentation for marketing: Automatically segment customers based on purchase behaviour, demographics, or other criteria for targeted marketing campaigns.
• Post-purchase engagement: Trigger automated emails or SMS messages to thank customers for their purchases, provide order updates, or offer exclusive deals.
• Loyalty programme: Enrol customers in your loyalty programme, award points for purchases, and automate reward redemptions.

5. Shopify POS Pro

For large enterprises managing complex retail operations, Shopify POS Pro is a centralised platform that helps streamline in-store and online sales processes. With features for omnichannel selling, smart inventory management, and data analytics, you can ensure a seamless shopping experience for your customers while gaining sales insights across channels.

Key advantages of POS Pro:

• Unified sales, data, and customer experience: Manage your orders, products, inventory, and customer data all in one place so you can always stay updated on growing business trends. This centralised system gives you a clear blueprint of your operations and helps you identify growth opportunities.
• Multi-store management: Easily manage inventory, staff, and sales across multiple physical locations from a single platform.
• Fully synced customer profiles: Access detailed customer profiles, including purchase history, loyalty status, and preferences, to empower sales teams with personalised recommendations that enhance the shopping experience.
• Integrated loyalty programmes: Should your store have a loyalty programme, this allows you or your sales representative to see whether your customer has points accumulated that they can use for their purchase.
• Hassle-free returns and exchanges: Process returns and exchanges seamlessly, whether the original purchase was made online or in-store.
• Delivery and in-store pickup: Offer flexible fulfilment options to cater to your customers' preferences, such as in-store pickup and local delivery.
• Advanced inventory management: Track inventory levels in real-time across all locations, preventing stockouts and ensuring accurate fulfilment.

6. Custom Wholesale Experiences

Meeting the unique demands of B2B businesses requires a tailored approach that is distinct from serving D2C customers. Shopify Plus addresses this with solutions designed specifically for B2B operations, catering to wholesale buyers with ease.

With Shopify Plus, you can streamline complex workflows by centralising analytics, product catalogues, and order management on a single platform. This eliminates the need for multiple stores, reduces operational overhead, and enables businesses to focus on delivering exceptional experiences to their wholesale clients.

7. Cross-border Expansion

Unlock global growth with Shopify Plus's powerful internationalisation features, enabling your business to expand its reach to international markets. Shopify Plus simplifies managing regional storefronts, allowing you to create distinct shopping experiences for each market from a single platform.

Key features for seamless global expansion include:

• Local global selling: Launch region-specific stores with localised content, pricing, and payment options, ensuring your customers feel at home regardless of their location.
• Multi-currency support: Display prices in your customers' local currencies, making it easier for them to complete purchases without confusion.
• Language translation: Translate your store content into multiple languages to engage a diverse, global audience and improve their shopping experience.
• International domains: Use country-specific domains to provide a more personalised and localised shopping experience for each market.
• Automated duties and import taxes: Shopify Plus simplifies the complex process of calculating duties and taxes, providing customers with a clear, upfront cost during checkout for a transparent global shopping experience.

What is the Monthly Cost of a Shopify Plus Plan?

A Shopify Plus plan starts at US$2,500 per month for a one-year term, with discounted pricing of US$2,300 per month for a three-year commitment. What makes Shopify Plus a cost-efficient investment for your e-commerce business is its comprehensive ecosystem. With all essential functionalities integrated into the platform, you can reduce reliance on third-party applications, streamline operations, and focus on scaling your business without added complexity.