8 Misconceptions About Shopify Plus and The Reality

8 Shopify Plus Misconceptions and THE Real Picture

Shopify Plus is a highly trusted eCommerce platform across the globe. This particular Shopify variant is designed to cater to large-scale enterprises. Business owners rely on the platform’s offerings to build, manage, scale, and promote their online commerce. If we only talk about Shopify Plus – there are currently 7000+ brands on it, and overall, approximately 10,978 checkouts happen every minute. By the time you’ll complete reading this piece of content, there will be over 65,868 orders placed from the websites that run on Shopify. Sounds outrageous, ain’t it?

It comes to us as no surprise that people have misconceptions about Shopify Plus. When one platform offers different plan variants to cater to varying sizes of business, confusion is normal. Shopify comes with 4 plans where features differ as per their pricing. Shopify basic, Shopify, Shopify Advanced, and Shopify Plus are the four plans that this managed SaaS platform offers. The first three plans are for SMBs, and Shopify Plus is designed for Enterprise-grade solutions for high-volume merchants and large businesses.

eCommerce is a highly competitive marketplace where solution providers battle to win the feature game. While Shopify is the least complex eCommerce platform there is, there are certain misconceptions about its Shopify Plus plan. Today we are going to bust some prevailing myths about Shopify Plus for you. Let’s see the kinds of myths that are there.

#1: Shopify Plus and Shopify Core are the same

#2: Shopify Plus is an expensive eCommerce platform

#3: Shopify Plus restricts you from having your desired customizations

#4: Integrating complex backend systems is not possible

#5: Shopify Plus isn’t ready for enterprise-level sales

#6: Multi-currency functionality is not available with Shopify Plus

#7: Shopify Plus doesn’t work well with multi-lingual and multi-region, global businesses

#8: Shopify Plus is not an SEO-compliant platform

For putting it out there, none of these is true!

Shopify Plus is a super-capable platform for enterprise-level businesses. Let’s debunk these common Shopify Plus myths one by one.

#1: Shopify Plus and Shopify Core are the same

Merchants often confuse other versions of Shopify and Shopify Plus to be the same, but they are not! Shopify Plus is extensively designed to powering global enterprises, while other Shopify versions are geared towards supporting SMBs. It is obvious to receive high-end services when you pay for Plus. Here are a few perks included in Shopify Plus that aren’t available in other core plans:

Smarter technology infrastructure: Shopify Plus comes with robust APIs and webhooks that makes it more flexible to integrate. Complex integration goes hand in hand with the infrastructure to support large-scale businesses.
Cutting-edge front-end design that is focused on exceptional customer experience (CX): Shopify Plus platform is structured to build a quick and cost-effective eCommerce website centered on CX. Shopify Plus merchants can utilize formerly earmarked budget for front-end development and reinvest it in strongarming back-end technology, and strategic integration.
A solid partners’ network: Shopify Plus unsurprisingly attracts the best in the industry. Shopify merchants can rest comfortably knowing that any Plus Partner they select is fully verified and approved by stringent standards set by Shopify Plus itself.

#2: Shopify Plus is an expensive eCommerce platform

Merchants often refrain from making a move to Shopify Plus because they think it’s too costly.

For the enterprise-level businesses, Shopify Plus pays for itself and works out much cheaper, in the long run, reducing the TCO. Plus might sound like an expensive choice, but we need to understand the cost is a one-time fee with no hidden charges.

For example, Shopify Plus is PCI-DSS by default, which saves merchants thousands of dollars every year on store security. The platform also comes with built-in tools such as Shopify Flow and Launchpad, which help merchants automate operational tasks, saving them time, manpower, and money. If we calculate the licensing and developer fees, the cost somewhere increases when you decide to go with any other platform.

#3: Shopify Plus restricts you from having your desired customizations

Shopify Plus, being a managed platform, is seen as a restricted option when it comes to customization. Merchants see it as non-flexible and limited for customization platform, which is untrue in many ways.

The platform has a lot of liberty as far as customization capabilities are concerned. For example, a Plus exclusive feature like Shopify Scripts allows its users to fully customize checkout page experiences for their consumers. Moreover, with full JavaScript and CSS control, retailers can fully adapt the platform to suit their desired needs and preferences. In one of our previous blogs, 7 Reasons Why Businesses Trust Shopify Plus, we have compiled a list of 20 brands that use this platform for their online business. Check them out to understand how each of those brands sells different products and has a completely customized storefront.

#4: Integrating complex backend systems is not possible

People are reluctant to choose Shopify as their eCommerce platform due to a myth of not being able to integrate the oh-so-important, complex backend support. Well, to put it out there, it’s FALSE. Shopify Plus has a different approach to integration than others but that doesn’t signify it can’t! And to streamline your store management, you can easily have a lot of software suites or tools integrated into the backend.

By leveraging RESTful API on Shopify, you can integrate tools like CRM, ERP, 3PL, and many others into the store’s backend and manage a seamless operation.
Using that same API, you can generate custom code and use them to edit product information. Or, you can use GraphQL for more customization and beautifications.
For multi-channel sales, you can display your product in over 20 different sales channels using Shopify’s native integration capability. Get POS to offer omnichannel sales flexibility, build conversational commerce platforms using chat interfaces, and also benefit from social platforms and mobile applications.
You have a robust functionality of meta fields with Shopify Plus. You can take advantage of the ShopifyFD tool that allows custom adaptations such as affiliate links, hover features, and more.

There are numerous ways you can leverage to integrate with the backend system and extend the functionality of your store.

#5: Shopify Plus isn’t ready for enterprise-level sales

The 100 variant limit that Shopify Plus has might sound like restricting your product-array, but if you look closely at the specification – it is about having 100 variants to a single product. So if you are a business with 100 products, that each has 100 variants, you’re still within the native Plus variant limits. But that is not it. Shopify Plus is a platform with a powerful partner industry, which makes third-party integrations easy to exceed that set limit.

Moreover, Shopify Plus is extensively designed to house enterprise-level brands with exclusive features like Launchpad and Flow to help out high growth brands, providing them with robust tools and resources to simplify work processes and offload time-consuming tasks. These Plus-only features allow increased efficiency and productivity.

#6: Multi-currency functionality is not available with Shopify Plus

Large organizations have their footprints on multiple territories. A pain-point for many of them might be of multi-currency functionality and ease of use. Shopify Plus, when we say is a variant specially designed for enterprise-level solutions, can’t miss out on such an imperative point, and it hasn’t! Shopify has multi-currency conversion at a market rate built-in natively. It also has a multi-currency settlement built-in natively called ‘Settle and Collect’.

#7: Shopify Plus doesn’t work well with multi-lingual and multi-region, global businesses

Most businesses that run on Shopify Plus to handle their global eCommerce store will have an ERP in place to support their operations. An ERP is an essential binding source that acts as the glue that holds the source of truth for data syncing of Products, Customers, Orders, Shipments from all your international stores. By leveraging Shopify’s robust APIs to connect your ERP, Shopify Plus allows your global business to run successfully.

#8: Shopify Plus is not an SEO compliant platform

SEO is always a pressing concern for every business owner. Organic search traffic is paramount to ensuring long-term health for any store. Shopify addresses poor performances in search engine rankings. Shopify has built-in SEO features to help established merchants avoid the critical concern of long-lasting downtown in organic traffic. Shopify can handle many SEO loopholes by improving site mapping, page loading speeds, and readable URLs.

On top of it, there is no magic bullet approach when you are replied upon automated business outcomes. It needs efforts and diligence from you to bring a consistent result in search engine optimization. Building a Shopify page is no different than building any other page. You need keyword research to draw from and a keyword strategy to follow. So make sure you:

Create an XML sitemap and submit it to Google and Bing
Check for 404/500 errors, duplicate content, or any crawling errors
Don’t overuse H1 Tag
Write page titles within 70 characters
Write meta descriptions within 150 characters
Ensure targeted keyword is in your URL, Title, Meta, and body copy
Add descriptive ALT tags and filenames to your visuals
Avoid duplicate content, i.e., don’t use product descriptions from manufacturers
Ensure your store is mobile-friendly
Ensure your page load times are quick

Conclusion

Ultimately, if you are looking for a power-house solution to backup your eCommerce business or have reached a glass ceiling in your current platform and want to migrate, Shopify Plus is a great choice. All the prevailing misconceptions about Shopify Plus are debunked here, and if you still have doubts about the platforms’ capacity, then you might want to look at Kylie Cosmetics – a billion-dollar brand with over 200K daily visitors that’s built on Shopify Plus.

If you are an existing Shopify Plus merchant looking for support, want to migrate to Shopify Plus, or have an eCommerce business idea to manifest using Shopify Plus – we’re the people you turn to. Connect with Krish TechnoLabs’ Shopify Plus experts today!

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Minal Joshi is a content marketer at Krish with a flair for eCommerce and Digital Commerce aspects. She is a MarTech fanatic with a knack of writing with which, she helps brands to curate, create, & commence digital brand positioning. Sharing insights via articles, case studies, eBooks, Infographics, and other forms of content creation is what she lives for. Being an ardent traveler, when not writing, you'll find her sipping coffee into the mountains or petting a stray.

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