There’s no denying the power of Shopify, with its clear driving force behind countless successful e-commerce brands. But what about Shopify Plus? Which brands need to make the switch, and when is it time to upgrade?
As we wrap up our second season of the Shopify Master Class, we asked the Shopify Plus Certified Partners to provide their perspectives on Shopify Plus enterprise-level plan and how to know when it’s time to take that next step for your business.
If you’ve been feeling constrained with your current storefront options and want to unlock new customization possibilities, checkout experiences, lower fees, and more bandwidth, then continue reading!
First up, what is Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus is an enterprise-level plan meant to target stores generating a large volume of sales. While this includes many major brands on Shopify, like Kylie Cosmetics, there are more mid-sized businesses that can benefit from its additional features and options.
1. The Revenue Question
Traditional wisdom says that it’s time to move up to Plus when you’ve passed the $1-2 million in annual revenue stage. It’s not necessarily about the revenue amount itself but the increased transaction capacity that the Plus plan has to offer. This in addition to the advanced customer support and tools. Not to mention the potential international implications of reaching these revenue levels—selling internationally in different currencies or on multiple storefronts would create a better customer experience and is something Shopify Plus makes simple.
2. Frustrations & Pain Points
If you’re routinely running into issues with regard to maintenance, customization, or aesthetics—then it may be time to upgrade. These technical constraints can be solved by the ability to customize checkout, provide bespoke personalized experience, or simply run more advanced promotions like tiered discounts.
3. In-House vs. External
If you’re looking to keep your brand running lean on the technical side, then you are definitely going to need to upgrade to Shopify Plus sooner rather than later. The 24/7 customer support impact alone for your team will be worth it, but it will also ensure that at your most critical times—nothing goes awry that can sidetrack your growth.
4. Automation & Efficiency
After a certain point, there are an increasing number of repetitive tasks that Shopify Plus can help with via Flow—creating efficiency within repeatable tasks and freeing up resources to tackle new problems. This also can apply to your tech stack—if you’ve had to create a bunch of workarounds or “it’ll do for nows”–then it’s time to upgrade to Shopify Plus. Those types of patches are where technology can start to break down and create more problems than it solves, which is the last thing you want when you’re trying to grow a business!
But what do our Shopify Master Class partners have to say about these points and what do each of them have to do with your tech stack?
Shopify Plus makes sense for merchants when they need access to features that aren’t available on other Shopify plans, including Shopify Scripts (which enables complex pricing rules), Shopify Audiences, or the ability to edit your checkout pages. In our experience, these needs often arise as a brand grows into the $1-2 million in annual revenue.
Tips for Shopify Plus Merchants
No matter what industry you’re in or the size of your brand, here are three key areas every Shopify Plus merchant (and Shopify merchants in general) should prioritize this year:
- Set up systems to collect and leverage zero-party data: Zero-party data is personal information your customers intentionally and willingly share with you, including their demographics, shopping preferences, pain points, or even contact info. With it, you can tailor your marketing toward each type of customer, driving better engagement and deeper relationships.
- Keep your code clean for page speed: It’s no secret page speed affects conversion rates, but it can also impact your SEO, Adwords cost, your bounce rate, and consumer trust. Every second that goes by without your site fully loading makes for a frustrating user experience. Here are 19 ways to improve your Shopify page speed.
- Make sure your website is accessible: Website accessibility involves strategically using design and code to make the content on your online store available for all users, whether they live with an impairment or not. It requires buy-in from every member of your digital team—from designers to developers to content creators. Here are 14 website accessibility best practices.
Offer for Justuno Users
Fuel Made is a Shopify agency specializing in Klaviyo email and SMS marketing, custom design and development on Shopify, and conversion rate optimization (CRO). Justuno users can book a free consultation with one of our experts and we’ll put together an Income Projection Report to establish how email can help your business capture an extra five or six figures of revenue this year.
We do not start working with you until we are both confident you’ll have a positive ROI from your investment with us.
We see two main motivators for upgrading plans: expanding business internationally and customization.
Shopify Plus is the next step for brands who need room to stretch their wings and create engaging onsite experiences that go outside the box. A truly personalized CX relies on not only the data to power it but the ability to leverage that data in what is being reflected on-site whether that be in onsite messaging, dynamic landing pages, or even headless storefronts.
Some of the key strategies we’ve seen clients implement once on Shopify Plus include:
Checkout page customizations via liquid.checkout files that unlock a world of possibilities to improve both conversion rates and AOV. Specifically when it comes to in-cart upsells/cross-sells; post-purchase opt-ins like SMS or Instagram handles; flash sale timers; etc.
Localized product recommendations, if you’re going international, being on Shopify Plus means you can show product recommendations in the proper currency. Without Shopify Plus, our platform can still help you, geo-target customers, by showing different countries (states & zip codes) different messaging, but it can’t dynamically switch currencies. Shopify Plus enables that extra element of personalization that shoppers are looking for.
Shopify Plus merchants on Justuno experience an average 25% lower CPA and an additional $112K in monthly revenue.
Start a free 14-day trial today and get started creating the ultimate conversion journey in just a few minutes.
As a Shopify Plus store owner, you need your e-commerce business to operate at a high level providing customers with the experience they expect. Luckily, all the tools needed to do this are readily available, with email marketing being a primary lever.
Email is the go-to marketing channel for pre-and post-purchase communications with customers and can be the source of increased sales. But sending the same-old-same-old messages won’t magically cause customers to click “complete order.” Making simple yet effective tweaks to your email marketing program can pay significant dividends to your business. Let’s explore three.
- Implement behavior-based workflows. In 2021, automated emails accounted for only 2.2% of email marketing sends but generated nearly 30% of all orders. The average conversion rate for these messages was 1.9% compared to 0.1% for scheduled promotional messages. And one-third of recipients who clicked on an automated message went on to make a purchase. Using your Shopify Plus data such as abandoned carts, purchase history, and website behavior will allow your brand to send high-performing automated messages that will increase sales without the manual workload.
- Optimize transactional messages. Order and shipping confirmation messages are hidden assets for brands. Order confirmation messages convert nearly 2300% better than promotional campaigns while shipping confirmation messages convert nearly 1400% better—and they’re improving. Conversion rates for order and shipping confirmation messages increased 24% and 53% year-over-year, respectively. Optimize these messages by including elements like product recommendations, upsells and cross-sells, and purchaser-only offers.
- Use Shopify Plus data to make your workflows more effective. Shopify Plus data can help you take already-powerful automated messages to the next level. Using data such as an abandoned cart total allows you to customize abandoned cart messages by offering a different series for those over and under a price threshold.
Purchase history can also help you personalize your automated messages. Knowing whether a shopper is a non, first-time returning, or loyal customer, you can personalize the message content, cadence, channels, and discounts offered. This strategy can apply to any email automation, especially browse abandonment, cart abandonment, and post-purchase messages.
By integrating their Shopify Plus store with a highly-rated Shopify Plus-certified email and SMS marketing platform like Omnisend, e-commerce brands can increase their sales and guide their customers along a more relevant path to purchase.
New Omnisend customers can use code JUSTUNO30X3 and receive 30% off their first 3 months. Good until 9/1/2022.
If you are wondering whether your brand is ready to take the next step and transition to Shopify Plus, there is really only one question to ask yourself: what will be the ROI on this. Regardless of which category your business falls into, you need to tackle this as any other investment opportunity — will the gains outweigh the costs?
Think of Shopify Plus as Shopify on steroids: same core functionality, but with many new features. Usually, small and medium businesses use Shopify, while growing, enterprise-level brands invest in Shopify Plus to enjoy all the benefits of a personal account manager, more in-depth analytics options, unlimited access to valuable resources and best-practice strategies, countless integrations, and more.
If you feel ready to expand and have the financial resources for it, Shopify Plus can be an amazing asset and truly move the needle for your brand’s exponential growth.
When it comes to your SMS marketing in tandem with Shopify Plus there are a few ways that upgrading can provide big wins:
- A more integrated tech stack—create more relevant, dynamic text marketing with less effort through integrations via Flow and other automation features.
- Customizable check-out—add SMS opt-ins directly to the checkout process using a tool like Justuno in tandem with SMSBump to build SMS lists efficiently.
Yotpo SMSBump provides the ultimate SMS marketing experience for both Shopify and Shopify Plus users. What’s more — we are the first multi-product eCommerce marketing platform to fully comply with Online Store 2.0, the latest update to Shopify that makes it easier for merchants to create storefronts.
Get started with SMS marketing and get 1,000 text messages free with Yotpo SMSBump. Just install the app on your Shopify store using this link and you’ll receive the bonus right away.
Loyalty often falls by the wayside in favor of acquisition activity that delivers seemingly more instantaneous returns. But what if we told you that your existing customers were the key to delivering sustainable e-commerce growth?
Your existing members – your Insider Customer Community as we like to call them – are significantly more valuable to you than the new customers you’re continually trying to acquire. Convince your Insiders to join your loyalty program and you will see them repeat purchase 47% more often than a non-member. You’ll also find they spend 40% more annually than a non-member, and have a 28% higher purchase frequency.
While loyalty marketing isn’t as difficult to deliver as you might think, it must be treated in the same way as any other marketing activity. It needs dedicated time, ownership, and measurement. And this is one of the key reasons that stores on Shopify Plus see such great results from their loyalty programs. The features that exist within the Plus platform, can be deployed efficiently and in an automated way, leaving you free to invest your time where it matters most.
Here are our top tips:
First of all, use Flow. Shopify Flow’s “trigger, action, condition” formula allows you to run numerous loyalty automations that help you to enroll more customers into your program, increasing their engagement, and reducing churn.
Secondly, set up Shopify Scripts. Scripts help you to drive more ROI from your loyalty program by reducing cart abandonment, increasing reward redemption, and delivering VIP experiences that drive repeat purchases.
And finally, deliver omnichannel experiences with Shopify POS. Increase program engagement by ensuring that loyalty program members are recognized and able to use their rewards, whether they are shopping online or in-store.
Download LoyaltyLion’s Ultimate Guide to Loyalty on Shopify Plus.
Most e-commerce thought leaders and brand owners will say that the golden threshold for when to migrate from Shopify to Shopify Plus is when you surpass the $1-2M annual revenue mark.
Other factors to consider are the upside as it pertains to the ability to scale – namely the ability to connect to key marketplaces such as eBay, Pinterest, etc., and improved functionality surrounding checkout that could improve conversion rates. In addition, Shopify Plus unlocks support for sales in 175 different countries, and in 21 languages.
If you’re a scaling brand with omnichannel and/or global ambitions – Shopify Plus could be a growth lever for your brand.
3 Shopify Plus Specific Tips For Merchants
1. Optimize Your Post Purchase Touchpoints
A post-purchase email campaign is a series of transactional email messages that aim to deepen customer relationships past the point of conversion. If done correctly, a post-purchase campaign can drive lifetime value (LTV) of a customer and improve both loyalty and engagement.
A customer is most receptive to your brand communication immediately after purchasing from you — take advantage of this opportunity! For current customers, these transactional emails expand to variations of “your order has shipped”, “thank you for your payment”, or “add product protection.” This is where Clyde comes in. By offering product protection in your post-purchase flows, you can increase brand loyalty while also driving incremental revenue – A win, win scenario. “At Clyde, our partners report open rates in excess of 78% when email subject lines are related to their warranty or protection plans.”
2. Reclaim Valuable Customers (and their data)
With Clyde Registration, you can reclaim customers who purchase through your retail channels like Amazon, Wal-Mart, etc, and seamlessly feed that information back to Klaviyo for retargeting (and revenue-driving) campaigns. In turn, this will enable you to offer high-margin protection plans to registering customers with our Extended Warranty product.
Make registering your products a cinch. Customers can register on your domain in seconds. Clyde’s registration flow is an experience that feels like online shopping — conversion-driving details, like a short form and auto-populating products, make getting started oh-so-easy.
3. Turn Your Customer Support into a Profit Center
With the new Clyde and Gorgias integration, you can uplevel support experiences with easy access to up-to-the-minute claims information. View and manage extended warranty claims, offer new protection plans, and even promote product registration — all within Gorgias.
Final Thoughts
These are just a few of the ways your tech stack could be improved upon by upgrading to Shopify Plus in addition to all of the great native features the plan has to offer. But ultimately, upgrading is something that you’ll have to decide on your own if it makes sense both cost and resource-wise.
Every brand is different, and no one knows your store like you do!
Thanks for tuning in to the Shopify Master Class (if you didn’t, make sure to sign up to get access to all 11 episodes) or check out the Shopify Master Class ebook instead! We hope you’ve been inspired to implement something new on your Shopify or Shopify Plus store!
