Both Shopify and Shopify Plus are similar tools for ecommerce, designed for different sizes and types of businesses. Shopify is geared towards small to medium-sized businesses, while Shopify Plus was built with large businesses, corporations, and B2B operations in mind.
There is some overlap between the two, but generally one will meet your needs better than the other.
Shopify is often touted as an easy, effective way to build an eCommerce business. The ability to offer online and offline sales with the Shopify POS system is just one way Shopify revolutionized the way small and medium-sized companies do business online.
Shopify has an intuitive backend and a plethora of free tools, features, and even e-commerce classes.
Shopify Plus, on the other hand, was built for companies that were too big for Shopify’s platform to work as intended. The introduction of Shopify Plus into the Shopify family has made it possible for large players spanning almost every industry to utilize Shopify’s robust platform.
Let’s take a look at the most important differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus.
Shopify Plus comes with its own personalized support team
The most notable difference between the two products is that Shopify Plus has a dedicated, personalized support team whereas Shopify does not.
Shopify Plus provides your company with your own solutions engineer, who is available to answer any questions you may have and troubleshoot technical problems. Your Shopify Plus solutions engineer can also help you integrate components you might be having trouble with.
Shopify assigns each Shopify Plus account a launch engineer, who is responsible for helping you migrate to Shopify Plus as well as educating you about the new tools you have now.
If you can’t tell from these services, Shopify Plus comes at a higher premium than Shopify, but for larger companies, the increased sales numbers are well worth it.
Overview Dashboard is only available on Shopify Plus
Overview Dashboard is a premium feature that is only available to companies on Spotify Plus.
This specialized analytics tool shows you important information at a glance, and allows you to include multiple Shopify stores.
Information included in your overview dashboard includes sales data, orders, online visitor data, and sales channel comparisons.
Plus, you can compare datasets from any date range, helping you quickly evaluate what’s working well and what needs improvement.
For many businesses, this feature in itself makes the price tag on Shopify Plus well worth the investment.
By making your metrics and analytics more intuitive, the overview dashboard is a way to make your overall workflow more efficient by saving you time and allowing you to focus on marketing and sales strategies.
Shopify Plus gives you more customization options
The more unique and professional a company website looks, the more consumers will innately trust the brand.
The Shopify Plus storefront has more customization options than Shopify, and allows you to create unique UX strategies. In addition, UX strategies can be changed at the coding level with Liquid, a templating language created by Shopify and written in Ruby.
Liquid is intuitive and easier to learn than other programming languages and is a favorite among new and experienced web developers.
From your front page to your customer’s checkout experience, the ability to create a unique, branded ecommerce page is invaluable when it comes to building trust with your customer base.
Shopify Plus was designed with creative control in mind.
Brand aesthetics may not reach their full potential when limited to a small number of templates and color schemes. Customers are less likely to trust a brand that appears to be a cookie-cutter version of many other similar competitors.
The ability to completely customize your customer experience will increase your overall sales and improve your brand reputation.
Shopify Plus gives you unlimited staff accounts
Another great advantage of Shopify Plus is giving every member of your company a staff account for your business.
Shopify limits employees’ accounts to a certain number based on the plan level you choose for your business.
This is especially important if you expect or experience major growth in your company so you don’t get stuck in an inefficient system.
Shopify Plus was built with growth and liquidity in mind, so if you have five staff members today and 50 tomorrow, their system can handle it gracefully.
Not only is there the option for individual accounts with exclusive access, but it also allows for an extra layer of security. Permissions can be set for different levels of access, preventing employees from making any drastic changes that could affect the functionality of your site – whether inadvertently or not.