There is a 126% year-over-year average growth for Shopify Plus merchants. According to Shopify’s financial report, its total revenue in the first quarter of 2019 was $320.5 million, a 50% increase from the first quarter of 2018. If you've been following the e-commerce trend, you would know that Shopify and their merchants have been outperforming their previous years ever since. Due to its indisputable scalability, straightforward administration, low sysadmin cost, outstanding flexibility, order management, and a host of other things, the demand for Shopify Plus has skyrocketed.

Several popular e-commerce businesses migrated to Shopify Plus in recent years solely because they needed a solution that could scale well. And Shopify Plus was their go-to platform because it didn't require any significant ongoing development, maintenance, or complex coding.

As one of the most dominant platforms in the e-commerce space, Shopify Plus has integrated with the majority of third-party systems that you could require from payment gateways to fulfillment, ERPs, and lots more. It also has several pre-built integrations that are available as modules.

If you are hosting a Magento 2 store for instance, before you start thinking about material projects you will require a BAU development retainer of at least £2,000 and a support retainer of at least £1,000 per month, that's on the average. Shopify requires very minimal ongoing development support, which dramatically cuts expenses. Most Shopify Plus businesses are presently paying $2,000 per month, which includes all hosting costs and account management assistance.

Due to the lower degree of complexity and lower cost of developers, the fees for Shopify Plus is often significantly lower than the average that other platform agencies charge when front-end adjustments are required.

Shopify Plus pricing is highly competitive, and it's one of the top reasons most big e-commerce merchants use it besides its code-free usage. In my opinion, other reasons include:

1. The backend is user friendly

2. It requires little to no technical knowhow

3. It doesn't require security patches, upgrades, or module upgrades and far less ongoing maintenance when compared to most e-commerce platforms.

4. Fully hosted, SaaS platform since server management and scalability is taken care of by Shopify

5. Time to market is shorter.

Being a fully hosted SaaS platform makes it the best option for merchants who wish to focus on trading and marketing rather than technical and maintenance issues.

Shopify Plus's target market is high-volume merchants in certain verticals where the catalog is likely to consist of simple, configurable products with a few front-end tweaks. Because of the way Shopify Plus is created, it's best suited to businesses that don't require a lot of customization and have a comparatively simple set-up.

SHOPIFY PLUS AND MID-LEVEL FUNCTIONALITIES

Here is a sample of some of the requirements listed in a table below, along with what’s needed to achieve a sufficient level of functionality with Shopify Plus.

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WHO IS SHOPIFY PLUS SUITABLE FOR?

Most agencies believe that Shopify Plus is best suited for merchants who generally meet the following criteria

1. In my opinion, Shopify Plus is best for merchants recording 1.3 million dollars in sales or have such sales projections. 

2. Best for B2C because Shopify isn't a strong suit for B2B both in terms of readily available modules and out of the box functionalities.

3. It is great for merchants trading in a single region or country and looking to expand to new countries. There are several examples of stores using Shopify Plus to operate in multiple areas, however, they're likely to be using a PIM or an ERP to handle their inventory, but there are likely to be numerous workarounds in place.

4. Shopify Plus is perfect for merchants who don't require storekeeping units larger than 30,000, back-end product customization, advanced product attributes, nor complex product types.

5. Shopify Plus is best suited for merchants whose stores don’t require complex coding. It is great for shops that want to focus on merchandising and growth rather than the technical side of things because it requires very little technical experience or knowledge in-house. This can save a lot of money and make trading a lot easier for merchants that are tired of the maintenance overhead that systems like Magento impose.

6. Since Shopify is a closed platform, you won't be able to make very complex customizations. Hence it is best for merchants who don't require core hacks.

7. Shopify is more difficult to customize than other platforms as it doesn't depend on custom processes and logic for things like customer administration, order management, merchandising, promotions, and so on will make things easier. So it is best for merchants in need of relatively simple trading processes

FINAL THOUGHTS

While Shopify Plus might not be the only or first choice of some merchants, it has established itself as an authority in the e-commerce market, particularly for large e-commerce stores.  It is ideal for those who need a fully hosted, dependable platform with minimal technical overhead and coding.

Shopify Plus has a lot of promise for a merchant that doesn't have a lot of complex customization or coding. Although not everything is ready-made, the Shopify app store has a myriad of modules, integrations with apps to meet almost every demand so you will have no use for coding.

Some of the functionalities of Shopify Plus apps can even be further extended to meet new needs - Chargezen is one of such examples of apps meeting multiple needs with a single integration. And importantly, Shopify is constantly adding new integrations monthly to keep them competitive and merchants happy without the need for codes.