When to upgrade to Shopify Plus 2021

Being a successful Shopify Merchant can bring new challenges when it comes to leveraging your merchandise internationally, scaling down your costs of sales, and further regionalizing/personalizing your checkout for increased conversion. So what are the triggers to start considering Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus Triggers

Lower Transaction Fees: When you are approaching your £1M in sales, reviewing your transaction cost, average basket value, and comparing it to what Shopify Plus could offer you might be worth a look.

Multilingual Stores: When requiring additional languages and regional stores, Shopify Plus will give you scalability without having to start new Shopify Stores which can add up to your cost of doing business

Personalized Checkout: The ability to personalize your checkout is a big plus, carrying forward your branding, allowing chat assistance throughout the process with your personal touch will assist in conversions.

Script Editor: Shopify Plus also provides you with a Script Editor – allowing you to run custom code without having to obtain Shopify Apps, saving on the cost of sales, as well as fine-tuning your store to your exact needs.

24/7 Support: With International stores, your business runs 24/7, therefore, support needs to keep up with your pace. Shopify Support will give you that peace of mind, as well as ensure you have unlimited bandwidth to keep scaling your business.

Main Shopify Plus Benefits

Shopify Organizational Admin: This gives you access to all your stores from one location, and allows you to delegate to unlimited staff accounts in your organization to manage them.

Shopify Plus Apps: these are not regular Shopify Apps, these Shopify Plus Apps are designed for high-growth businesses that require tools for the rapid scaling of business demand. Apps like the Wholesale Channel, Shopify Flow, Launchpad, Script Editor, Transporter App, and Bulk Account Inviter are included.

Liquid.checkout Access: For that personalized checkout, you get access directly to manage, edit, and fine-tune the customer experience with your developer in mind.

More API Calls: To ensure that your eCommerce Infrastructure is operating on all cylinders, you get additional API functionality to connect to off-cloud secure services and servers for integrating with Shopify Custom Apps. Three areas are accessible for Shopify Plus account holders: GiftCard, Multipass, and User are the additional areas.

Internationalization: Up to 9 additional stores for your global expansion, with physical locations being separate for better regionalization.

Shopify Academy Access: To train your staff and partners, this is extremely useful to ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the tools of your infrastructure.

Wholesale Store: For your B2B business model, this is extremely useful, providing your business partners password-protected access to a store with wholesale pricing.

Shopify POS Pro is offered for free for those that have a brick-and-mortar store.

You can add up to 100 Shopify Themes to the account – giving you plenty of room to work with so as to fine-tune your store to your exact specification and requirements.

Free financial integration with Tax Services from Avalara AvaTax. A great way to export your financial information for your accountant to crunch those numbers.

90-day Migration with the Shopify Plus team – to ensure your success, Shopify is there to ensure your continued growth goes without a hitch. Their 24/7 support is more than a chatbox, it's real business partners that look out for your business.

Payment Gateways and costs

For your regular Shopify Payment Gateways, there are some choice plans which most likely applied to your Shopify Account. A small Recap on Shopify Payment Gateway options and coverage are linked below.

https://www.thegenielab.com/blogs/articles/shopify-payment-gateways-countries

Basic Credit Card Processing fees with Shopify Payment Gateway:

BASIC = 2.9% + 30¢

SHOPIFY = 2.6% + 30¢

ADVANCED SHOPIFY = 2.4% + 30¢

SHOPIFY PLUS

Third Party = Third Party Processor costs + Shopify 0.15% per transaction (covers security costs). Note: Shopify Payments waives the “per transaction fee” for interconnecting gateways

Shopify Payments Processing = 2.15% + 30¢ per transaction (Amex/Intl CC = Add 1%)

Shopify Monthly Fee = $2,000USD/Month or 0.25% of Sales

There are some maths to be done between your current Shopify Plan and the Shopify Plus Plan. Depending on your average basket value, frequency of transaction, international cards/Amex, and if you have a negotiated rate with a Credit Card Processor provider. Running the numbers will give you what’s more advantageous on the cost front.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

On the Cost front, Shopify Plus is reasonably well outlined on what can be expected. As per the previous section, 3 calculations will give you your cost scenario:

1. Current Costs based on current traffic volume (Suggesting to do it over a year). Don’t forget to include all your Shopify Plan costs and various Apps.

2. The same scenario on Traffic volume (including per average basket costs) to calculate the Shopify Payments Processor scenario + Monthly Shopify Fee + Any Apps you might require.

3. Same as item 2, with a 3rd Party Payment Gateway and its costs, include the 0.15% as an additional cost – Same on the monthly fees.

Your Cost Benefit will stand out and also give you an indication of when it might be a good viable time to get onto Shopify Plus.

As for the Benefits which are covered above on the features and internationalization gives you a clear picture if your strategy aligns with their offering.

Conclusion

We hope that this Shopify Plus article clarifies how Shopify Plus is positioned, and how it may make sense to consider it. If you need assistance or have questions on Shopify Plus, feel free to contact us at wish@thegenielab.com since we have done several Shopify Plus projects, and are quite familiar with the transitions.

Related Shopify Plus articles:

Integrations with Shopify Plus for your eCommerce business: https://www.thegenielab.com/blogs/articles/integrations-with-shopify-plus-for-your-ecommerce-business

Migrating to Shopify Plus: https://www.thegenielab.com/blogs/articles/migrating-to-shopify-plus

Shopify Development for Shopify Plus: https://www.thegenielab.com/blogs/articles/shopify-development-for-shopify-plus

Shopify Plus for Black Friday Sales: https://www.thegenielab.com/blogs/articles/shopify-plus-for-black-friday-sales