Selling items online is more challenging than when doing it traditionally. Online selling requires something exceptional from you, considering that you have to attract customers to your store and create revenue. But, that is not all you require to start an online enterprise.
First, you need to choose the ideal eCommerce platform for your business. Thereafter, you’ll address the challenges of SEO, omnichannel integrations, conversion optimization, customer engagement, customer retention, and long-term growth.
What does this imply? You need to think about the platform and choose the one that aligns with your business model and objectives. Shopify development is exciting because you will find benefits such as customizability, security, and scalability.
That’s not all. Today, Shopify hosts millions of stores on its platform and the number keeps increasing each day. Besides having a fantastic set of features, Shopify maintains its quest to get better at the edge of your online enterprise.
For example, in 2014, Shopify launched a new version, Shopify Plus, that travels beyond the typical benefits Shopify offers to develop eCommerce. As we welcome a new decade, it is time for you to embrace a more modern innovation in the online shopping space.
You may ask, “Why should Shopify Plus be your first choice for e-commerce development in this new era?” Well, here is why.
1. Shopify Plus Has Unlimited Customization Options
The first item you’ll note about Shopify is its wide range of themes ready for use as they appear. Much better are the customization options it possesses, which allow you to make a theme look like your own. Its newest version, Shopify Plus takes the customizability a notch higher if you’re interested in creating a better appearance and functionality using Shopify design and development.
One unique feature of Shopify Plus is the highly responsive themes that make the mobile experience sleek. Besides, the Shopify Plus platform comes with a “Sections” feature that uses a drag-and-drop editor, making customizations easier. A move to Shopify Plus, therefore, looks like the wisest step to take today.
2. Shopify Plus Has Excellent Functionality
Shopify Plus may possess plenty of customization options, but this is not limited to its exciting capabilities. Most businesses have admired Shopify. More interesting is its Shopify Plus version which possesses all you need to run an online store. The Shopify Plus platform streamlines order processing by removing obstacles, which means that your store continues to run smoothly. Every vital item from orders, apps, reports, and customer records is visible to you on the dashboard. With a few clicks, you can handle settings, process orders, and add products to your store.
3. Shopify Plus Has Outstanding Scalability
The design of Shopify Plus is such that it can meet the requirements of a more significant enterprise and an always-growing e-Commerce brand. For this reason, Shopify ensures that you get unlimited scalability. It is also a fully-hosted SaaS platform that has powerful servers that can handle millions of hits every second alongside thousands of orders every minute. Shopify assures 99.99% lightning speed performance and uptime. In addition, it offers an unlimited bandwidth of up to 200 TB. Suppose you are looking to scale upwards fast, then this is the platform that makes it easy for you.
4. Shopify Plus Has Unlimited Integrations
If you talk about a platform that integrates easily with others, Shopify Plus is the deal. It has a huge app marketplace where you can get Shopify Plus apps to stretch the shopping experiences at your store. The apps provide you with added advantages such as inventory control, marketing, and promotions as well as operations. Shopify Plus is what you need if you want to increase the opportunities available for Your Business.
5. Shopify Plus Has a Customizable Checkout Page
When using a typical Shopify platform, you are limited to improving the customer’s shopping experience through customization. The platform has a range of visual customizations in its checkout but lacks customization capability for a Standard Shopify account.
On the other side, Shopify Plus offers you a chance to customize the usual two-page checkout to a one-page or three-page checkout. Hence, allowing you to create an entirely branded checkout experience for customers. Moreover, you get to do A/B testing of the checkout and improve conversions.
6. Shopify Plus Comes with a Mobile Store Builder
A recent survey by pixelunion.net shows four out of every five Americans are online shoppers. Interestingly, more than half of these shoppers purchase stuff online using a mobile device. The mobile shopping trend is increasing with mobile gaining ground as a first-choice selling channel.
What does this mean for your online business plan?
You need to develop a store that guarantees incredible mobile responsiveness. Usually, you would want to outsource a Shopify expert to help you make your site more mobile responsive. Moreover, you would want to create something that offers a better user experience that is not limited to specific mobile devices.
However, Shopify Plus gets the Shopify experts out of the picture by offering you an easy-to-use Mobile Store Builder. This tool helps you with the development of native Android or iOS apps without any coding or technical know-how.
7. Shopify Plus Has An Easy Opportunity to Globalize Your Business
If you need to take your online business internationally in this new decade and beyond, Shopify Plus will do that for you. How? Shopify Plus offers you up to nine subdomains to run nine more stores at no extra charge.
What these stores bring is a more personalized experience where you have access to different languages, currencies, and seasonal trends related to individual local markets. The guarantee is that there is a higher chance of converting customers into sales if you manage to connect with your targeted audience at a more personalized level.
8. Shopify Plus Has Easier Wholesale Management
Handling B2B has been a challenge for eCommerce domains, unlike when you are doing the typical B2C (regular online shop). One thing is that the expectations of the customers are different—the look and feel of your online store have to be different as well.
Luckily, Shopify Plus offers you a specialized wholesale site, where you can launch a B2B site separate from your existing Shopify account. This platform allows you to enable features standard for wholesale business such as discounts for bulk sales, customer pricing per buyer, and shipping guidelines. Moreover, you can add wholesale-only items to your store, review and edit them before invoicing orders.
9. Shopify Plus Has Exciting Promotional Tools
Choosing Shopify Plus as the host for your store gives you VIP access to Launchpad – a promotional instrument useful for planning and automating every activity required to execute marketing campaigns. With the Launchpad tool, you can do things such as product launches and flash sales. Moreover, the tool allows you to schedule bulk changes to your store so that any alterations align simultaneously with a given campaign from its start to its end. Furthermore, the tool allows you to monitor and manage campaigns and create invitations online.
10. Shopify Plus Allows Automation of Operations.
As your business grows, processes like order and inventory management become more complex. The solution is to automate the process of keeping tabs on the two processes. Using Shopify Plus’s Flow feature, you can automate the management of orders, customers, and inventory as well as integrating your store with several necessary tools.
Shopify & Shopify Plus: Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is Shopify Plus?
This is an above-standard Shopify eCommerce platform created specifically for more significant and growing online stores and brands. Shopify is hosted; hence one of the things that make it stand out among its peers.
2. What Makes Shopify Different from Shopify Plus?
The apparent difference between these two is the capabilities they have. Shopify Plus comes with more features and flexibility than the standard Shopify. For example, having Shopify Plus favors growth. Therefore, if you had already started using it when your business was small, scaling your business will be much easier.
3. When is it Right to Upgrade to Shopify Plus?
A particular number of reasons should prompt you to upgrade your store to Shopify Plus, as follows:
- When you realize tasks have become very repetitive, hence a need to save on that time and focus on other avenues of growth further.
- When you cross the million-dollar mark in your revenue.
- When you feel it’s time to make your e-Commerce business more international.
- When it becomes more challenging running your wholesale online shop.
- When you need to create a better checkout experience for your customers.
- When your online store reaches approximately 2 million in online annual revenue
4. How do I upgrade to Shopify Plus?
Well, Shopify is pretty straightforward; our best recommendation is to seek the services of an expert. Why? Some technical aspects are only understood by a Shopify expert and need to be taken care of professionally.
To get started, contact Seibert Consulting Group (SCG) at 760-205-5251 or hello@seibertconsulting.com. We are ready to leverage the features of the Shopify Plus platform to your advantage.
