Shopify Plus vs Shopify: Which One Is Best For Your Company?

Having an appealing, user-friendly eCommerce store has not remained an option anymore for retail businesses since customers today prefer online shopping for every usual need. Hence, millions of businesses, such as John Jacobs, Tesla, and even the entertainment giant Netflix, are leveraging Shopify to build a robust eCommerce store and bring their dreams to reality. Shopify eCommerce development offers various features and functionalities, allowing businesses to develop an eCommerce store with basic to medium-level functionality. 

But imagine a scenario where your online store becomes successful and requires advanced features to grow as your business scales. Here, the Shopify platform you chose earlier might lack compatibility. So, in that case, should you switch the platform? No. Instead, you can opt for Shopify Plus development. The latter offers an extensive suite of advanced solutions required to fulfill the needs of growing businesses and enterprises (having an existing store but now wanting to extend its functionality), enabling them to build a fully customized, feature-rich eCommerce store. 

With over 4.6 million eCommerce websites, Shopify itself is the ideal option for most requirements; however, the Shopify Plus plan takes this platform to a whole new level. To understand how, in this blog, we will explain each of them and discuss some factors for a detailed comparative analysis of Shopify Plus vs Shopify to help you make an informed decision.

What is Shopify? A Detailed Overview

Shopify is a SaaS-based platform that offers a wide range of features to build an eCommerce website for small and medium-sized businesses that create interactive shopping experiences. The best part is that Shopify does not limit businesses to online stores; instead, it connects brick-and-mortar stores with point-of-sale (POS) functionality.

Businesses that invest in Shopify eCommerce development get a one-stop solution to manage and optimize their products, inventory, shopping cart, shipping, and payment processing—basically, all their eCommerce operations. 

The platform offers international and B2B commerce capabilities, various built-in tools to analyze store performance and promote products across all channels, and a dedicated marketplace to integrate third-party business applications required to extend the store’s functionality. This enables entrepreneurs and medium-scale businesses to build appealing online stores and deliver seamless shopping experiences that enables them to establish and grow their online presence.

What is Shopify Plus? A Detailed Overview

Shopify Plus is an extended version of the basic Shopify platform suitable for high-volume and fast-growing businesses. It is an enterprise eCommerce solution that comes with a comprehensive suite of features, such as a centralized dashboard for product and inventory management, advanced tools for social commerce, optimization options, and detailed reporting. These tools entitle businesses with scalability, flexibility, and customization capabilities. 

Since today’s customers prefer personalization over a usual shopping experience, Shopify Plus offers support and extensive customization functionality that allows enterprises to personalize every aspect of a customer’s buying journey. This enables them to create unique and tailored online storefronts that align with their brand identity and customer preferences. 

Furthermore, with Shopify Plus development, enterprises can quickly scale their online store simultaneously as their business grows. They get the platform to handle peak traffic scenarios without compromising on performance.

If you wish to migrate your existing store to Shopify Plus or invest in Shopify Plus development from scratch, you can get assistance from an expert Shopify development company. The company will handle the entire development process, ensuring it resonates with your brand.

Shopify Plus vs Shopify: A Comparative Analysis to Help You Choose the Right Platform

When comparing Shopify Plus vs. Shopify, businesses must consider various factors to help them make an informed decision. Let’s discuss these factors in detail.

• Customization and Control

One of the key parameters in Shopify Plus vs Shopify is the level of customization and control that each of them offers. Shopify offers limited access to the code and comes with a theme editor that provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface for customizing pre-built themes. 

On the contrary, Shopify Plus development offers complete control over your online with unmatched flexibility with APIs, external tools, and applications. It also provides a liquid theme where one can fully customize the look and feel of the store to align with the brand messaging. 

Suitability: Shopify is suitable for businesses seeking a balance between ease of use and customization within predefined parameters. Whereas Shopify Plus suits businesses requiring complete control over every online store aspect, including unique designs, complex workflows, and custom integrations.

• Centralized Dashboard for Multi-Store Management

For businesses that run multiple stores, Shopify might lack features to manage them all, as it will require you to have separate subscriptions and independent management. In this case, Shopify Plus would be a better option as it provides a centralized dashboard to manage and optimize all stores from a single source of truth. 

Suitability: While Shopify is best for businesses managing a small number of individual stores with distinct branding and product offerings, Shopify Plus suits those managing multiple stores that can be clubbed under a single entity while ensuring that each brand’s distinct requirements are maintained.

• Business Size

One of the significant differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus is that each is suitable for a particular business size. 

Suitability: While Shopify is well suited for small and medium-sized businesses, Shopify Plus’s capabilities align with the complex requirements of growing businesses and large-scale enterprises. Hence, it is better to choose the one based on the company’s capital size when making the decision.

Moreover, you can also check out our blog on Tips to Scale your eCommerce business with Shopify and learn how this platform can assist in eCommerce website development and help boost your sales and ROI.

• Analytics and Reporting

Another major difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus is the access to analytics and reporting options. Standard Shopify gives access to a dashboard that can track top products, referrals, sales, and basic landing page performance. On the counterpart, the Plus plan offers more tools for deeper trend analysis and real-time insights into user behavior and store performance. For example, with Shopify Plus, you can access and implement current market trends into your business strategy before your competitors. This will give you a competitive advantage and help boost your sales.

Suitability: Shopify would be ideal for businesses needing basic data to understand overall performance and identify trends. However, the Plus plan would suit those requiring detailed data analysis to tailor marketing strategies, optimize customer journeys, and make data-driven decisions.

• Additional Integrations

To automate more processes, make them efficient, and extend the functionality of your Shopify store, you will need access to more tools and APIs, which are available only on the Shopify Plus plan. These APIs are necessary to ensure your online store can easily interact with other third-party software.

Although Shopify’s standard plans include access to some tools and APIs, Shopify Plus provides more freedom to integrate APIs, third-party tools and software, and other services as the business requires.

Shopify Plus offers solutions that include:

• GiftCard: It is an API resource that lets one create, update, and delete gift cards as an alternative payment method. Each card has a unique code that the customers can redeem during checkout.
• Multipass: It is a login tool for store owners with a separate website and a store on Shopify. Multipass login redirects users from the original website to the Shopify store and seamlessly logs them in with the same email address, synchronizing customer databases.
• User: It is an API resource that provides authentication control for your store. With this tool, merchants can manage staff accounts from the admin panel and give unlimited access only to authorized staff members. This gives you greater control over parts of your online store, while you can decide on access controls and add or delete users.

Suitability: Shopify Plus would be best for businesses that need to connect more platforms and build a highly complex online store with custom functionalities.

• Comprehensive Checkout Control

While Shopify limits businesses with minimal control and personalization, Shopify Plus allows them to take comprehensive control of the checkout process. With assistance from an expert Shopify development company, they can build a tailored checkout process, ensuring it appeals to customers and keeps your brand positioning intact.

Comprehensive checkout control is one of the significant features of Shopify Plus. It helps streamline the payment process while offering customers different payment options and shipping rates based on conditions such as cart value or location.

Suitability: Shopify is suitable for small businesses with a basic checkout process, while Shopify Plus is the ideal option for organizations that require a fully customized checkout process.

Shopify Plus vs Shopify: Which One Should You Use?

Now that we have an overview of both platforms, the dilemma question is: Shopify Plus vs Shopify, which one is right for your business? Ultimately, the decision between Shopify Plus and Shopify depends on factors such as specific requirements, budget, business size, and growth projections. 

If you need a simple drag-and-drop store creator to help you get started fast, Shopify ecommerce development is the best option. However, you can choose Shopify Plus development if you need advanced features, more scalability, and customization for your store.

Hence, it is essential to carefully evaluate your options and choose the platform that best aligns with your business goals and objectives. In addition, you can consult a professional partner offering Shopify development services that can help you choose the right platform and handle the overall development process.

You can also check out our blog on Top eCommerce Websites Built on Shopify to discover how this platform is helping millions of businesses worldwide by transforming their eCommerce stores.

Conclusion

While millions of businesses choose Shopify to build a robust eCommerce website, Shopify Plus development offers extended functionality. If you are stuck in the dilemma of Shopify Plus vs. Shopify, as an experienced Shopify development company, we recommend examining all the features to pick the option that best suits your requirements. You can also book a consultation with our Shopify experts at Successive Digital, who will help you select the right option and handle the development and deployment process. 

Ready to transform your eCommerce business? Let’s connect!