Shopify Plus in 2024: Everything You Need To Know

Drawing on nearly a decade of working with Shopify Plus brands - written by Rebecca Worsley  

I’ve been working on Shopify Plus stores for about seven years now. The agency was founded in 2017, and Rainy City became an official Shopify Plus partner in 2022.

During this time, myself and the team have really seen Shopify Plus grow and change. Using this experience, I want to share what I consider to be the most helpful things to know about Shopify Plus in 2024. 

5 useful and important things to know about Shopify Plus

Scan through, or dig a bit deeper into each topic. 

#1. Shopify Plus has more advanced features and capabilities than Shopify.

Shopify Plus is a beefed-up version of Shopify. While the other Shopify plans are great for small to medium-sized businesses who are establishing and growing their online presence, Shopify Plus is built to accommodate those complex, high-volume, and fast-growing e-commerce operations. Because of this, Shopify Plus comes with a lot of exclusive features designed specifically for the needs of large and growing online stores.

When you log into the backend of Shopify Plus, you’ll find that it retains the familiar, user-friendly interface of Shopify’s standard plans. I think it's great that when you upgrade to Shopify Plus, you can manage larger operations without facing a steep learning curve. It’s an ideal setup for teams who want to scale up seamlessly from Shopify.

➡️ Read more: What is Shopify Plus? A Simple Definition

#2. Kylie Cosmetics, Carhartt, Bombas, Gymshark, Heinz, Lindt.

These are some big brands you've likely heard of. They all use Shopify Plus to run their e-commerce operations, trusting it as the platform to handle massive scalability and complex, high-volume sales. 

➡️ Read more: Who’s Using Shopify Plus? Examples of Brands on Shopify Plus  

#3. Shopify Plus is not for everyone. 

It was launched back in 2014 specifically for medium to large enterprises experiencing rapid growth, and needing more from their e-commerce platform. If you're curious whether Shopify Plus could be the right fit for your business - feel free to get in touch and speak to our team about your current setup and growth goals.

➡️ Read more: What Size & Type Of Businesses Is Shopify Plus Best Suited For?

#4. Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 USD/month for a 3 year term or $2,500 USD/month for a 1 year term. 

These are the base monthly fees for the platform but Shopify Plus merchants will also have to pay credit card transaction fees, as well as fees for third-party apps if you are using certain apps for features like subscription services or loyalty programmes. 

➡️ Read more: A Breakdown of Shopify Plus Pricing and Transaction Fees   

#5. One exclusive Shopify Plus feature I’ve seen countless brands love is Checkout Extensibility 

Checkout Extensibility is fantastic. It gives brands on Shopify Plus the opportunity to really enhance and optimise their checkout with fully customisable options. For instance, you can create specific discounts, shipping, and payment options that aren't available on the standard Shopify plans.

Below are seven other Shopify Plus features that I’ve seen e-commerce brands thrive and benefit from over the years. 

7 features that I think are the biggest benefits of Shopify Plus 

#1. Shopify B2B for making wholesale simple

If your business includes a B2B or wholesale component, Shopify Plus's B2B module is pretty fantastic. Unlike traditional setups where you might need a separate storefront or different login credentials, Shopify B2B integrates directly into your existing Shopify environment. This integration simplifies management by allowing you to handle B2B sales with the same ease as your direct-to-consumer transactions.

#2. The advanced multichannel and omnichannel functions

Let's say you run a luxury watch business. Shopify Plus is able to synchronise inventory and sales across all the places you sell - whether that’s your online store, physical boutique, and pop-up locations - all in real-time. So for example, if you sell one watch, the stock levels update instantly everywhere. This kind of integration prevents overselling and guarantees a smooth shopping experience for your customers, no matter where they are making their purchase.

#3. The ability to automate tasks with Shopify Flow and Launchpad

Shopify Flow and Launchpad are advanced automation tools built into Shopify Plus. Their main purpose is to help teams with the daily admin and operations of e-commerce stores, and automate tasks around busy sales and event periods. Both give businesses a lot of different options for automations - so the tricky part will be deciding on what is really the most important for your team. Some of the automated functions include:

• automating inventory alerts
• triggering marketing emails based on different customer behaviours
• changing the product pricing at the start and end of a sales event
• gathering data about the success of the event
• scheduling creative and theme customisation to oncrease visibility of proucst included in your event.

This can make a massive difference at busy times like Black Friday Cyber Monday. 

#4. Being able to sell internationally without being overwhelmed 

As your business grows, it’s likely you’ll start selling in different countries. A lot of complexities come with global trade but Shopify Plus is great at making sure the process is manageable for you, not maddening. It makes the global expansion of your online business a lot less daunting. Whether it’s dealing with multiple currencies or adjusting tax rates per country, Shopify Plus gives you all the powerful tools for handling international sales smoothly.

This also means you can take advantage of expansion stores. Shopify Plus lets you set up to nine separate stores, perfect for tailoring your online presence to different regions or markets. It's another great feature for customising your product range, marketing tactics, and customer service to meet the specific needs of various locales, all managed from one place! 

#5. You'll have an account manager and a 24/7 support team who will help with minor development work

Shopify prides itself in being easy to use, but no matter how user-friendly a platform is, there’s always a chance you or someone in the team will need some help. 

Shopify Plus wants to ensure you’re never stuck, offering 24/7 priority support. Whether it’s a minor query or a major issue, you’ll have round the clock access to the Shopify Plus support team. And of course, when you partner with us at Rainy City, you also get an extra layer of support. We're here to lend a friendly hand whenever you need it, making sure you're never left figuring things out on your own.

#6. Much faster speeds:

During major product launches, like a limited edition product drop or even busy sales periods, Shopify Plus can handle thousands of transactions per minute without any lag. This ensures that every customer's experience on your site is quick and smooth, reducing user drop off and cart abandonment.

#7. The ability to reliably handle massive amounts of traffic and sales: 

Consider the frenzy of Black Friday sales. Shopify Plus stores are built to scale up during these peak periods, supporting up to 8,000 orders per minute per store. This ensures that even on the busiest sale days, everything runs smoothly.

To put more numbers on the table, Shopify Plus boasts a 99.99% uptime guarantee. The platform can handle 4 million visitors per second and process thousands of orders per minute without a dip in site performance. Additionally, you get unlimited bandwidth and a whopping 200TB of storage capacity.

I also asked round to hear what our team values the most in Shopify Plus

Taimoor, our Development Lead:

"Shopify Plus is powerful. It gives users greater control over their store's backend, with extensive options for advanced customisation and optimisation. This is especially true for the checkout process. A key difference between Shopify Plus and other Shopify plans is that the infrastructure of Shopify Plus is specifically designed for brands experiencing a high volume of traffic. With its improved functions for multichannel and omnichannel selling, Shopify Plus is such a great solution for enterprise-scale solutions"

James, our Shopify Growth Expert

"I am a huge advocate of Shopify Plus. Brands are breaking down boarders, even more so now than ever before. Not to mention the demand put onto brands by consumers to always be delivering products quickly, no matter where they are in the world. This is why Shopify Plus is incredible for brands achieving recognition around the world, in multiple different languages. Offering a seamless e-commerce experience from browsing to them receiving their product on the other side of the world is something that has quickly become the norm thanks to Shopify Plus". 

If you are interested in fully understanding just how different Shopify Plus is to Shopify, we've listed out the 11 main differences between Shopify Plus and Shopify. 

We also find this Shopify Plus resource page really useful when it comes to understanding the bones of what you get when joining this enterprise platform. 

Explore Our Shopify Plus Case Studies

If you’re curious about how we've helped brands grow on Shopify Plus, take a look at our detailed case studies:

• Darts Corner: Discover how we helped this brand migrate from Visualsoft to Shopify Plus, resulting in a 120% increase in sales within 30 days and a 200% increase in conversion rate.

• Sparkle in Pink: Learn how our optimisations significantly enhanced this fashion brand’s performance on Shopify Plus, increasing their conversion rate by 15%.

• Mexicali Blues: See how we boosted the average order value by 16%, enhancing overall profitability for this vibrant brand on Shopify Plus.