Shopify Plus Features and How to Leverage Them Effectively

What is Shopify Plus?

Have you heard of " Shopify," which has gained significant attention since the COVID-19 pandemic?
Shopify is a Canadian-based SaaS (Software as a Service) multi-channel commerce platform that makes it easy to create e-commerce sites. It's gaining attention in Japan due to its rapidly increasing adoption rate.

While Shopify offers various plans, " Shopify Plus " represents its top-tier offering. Unlike the standard Shopify plan, Shopify Plus remains relatively uncommon in Japan, with limited available information. Consequently, many may wonder, "What exactly is Shopify Plus?" or "How does it differ from the standard Shopify plan?"

In this series, Tamae Kanemoto of Dentsu Digital Inc., a Shopify Plus partner, will explain Shopify Plus from every angle. She will cover not only the benefits and features of Shopify Plus, but also how to proceed with requirements definition—a crucial step when launching an e-commerce site with Shopify Plus—and real-world case studies of sites launched using it.

Part 1 introduces what Shopify and Shopify Plus can do, plus the unique features and scalability exclusive to Shopify Plus.

Challenges to Overcome When Launching an E-Commerce Site

Before diving into Shopify Plus, from my experience working on numerous e-commerce site projects, I'll introduce some of the more challenging issues commonly encountered during launch.

■Integration with Warehouses and Fulfillment Centers Supporting E-commerce Operations
Essential to operating an e-commerce site is managing inventory and shipping operations at the warehouse. This involves not only figuring out how to integrate with the systems used for these operations—like OMS (Order Management Systems) and WMS (Warehouse Management Systems)—but also designing the optimal operational workflow.

■Integration with Core Systems Supporting the Business Foundation
Core systems like supply chain, accounting, sales management, and production management form the backbone of the business. Depending on operations, connecting the e-commerce site to these core systems may be necessary. Since core systems are often custom-developed for each company, building this integration mechanism is typically highly complex.

■Integration with External Tools like CDP, LINE, MA, and Analytics Tools
If you already use external services or tools for executing marketing initiatives or as data platforms, or plan to introduce them when launching your e-commerce site, you must consider how to integrate them with your proprietary e-commerce site.

■Integration and Expansion of Various Sales Channels
If you already have sales channels outside your own e-commerce site, such as Rakuten or other e-commerce malls, SNS, or offline stores, integration between your own e-commerce site and these sales channels is necessary. Furthermore, there is often a need to expand sales channels to grow the business and increase contact points.

■Handling High Traffic and Order Volumes
Sales of limited-edition or popular products can cause sudden spikes in traffic. Increased traffic often translates to more orders, necessitating infrastructure and system foundations prepared to handle this surge.

■Integration with Existing Member IDs
As marketing becomes more complex, deeper user understanding is required. Centralizing member IDs is key here. We frequently hear the challenge: "We want to enable existing member IDs to be used on our e-commerce site" to improve marketing quality.

Features and Capabilities of Both Shopify and Shopify Plus

As shown, launching an e-commerce site involves several challenging tasks. However, by understanding and leveraging the features and capabilities of Shopify and Shopify Plus, it is possible to overcome these challenges.

Here are several features offered by both Shopify and Shopify Plus, aligned with the challenges mentioned earlier.

• Simply install Shopify's public apps (※1) to add functionality tailored to your sales approach and operations
• A wide range of APIs are available to easily retrieve and integrate various data handled by e-commerce sites, such as product information and order details.
• Numerous tools with high affinity for Shopify exist (CDP, WMS, OMS, MA, chat tools, other marketing tools, etc.)
• Features for expanding sales channels (Rakuten, SNS, Google Shopping Ads, etc.) are available.
• Built on a robust and stable infrastructure with 99.8% uptime.

From these points, it's clear that even the standard Shopify plan allows not only launching an e-commerce site, but also customizing the front-end with features like subscription plans, loyalty points, and reviews. It also enables adding essential operational functions like member deletion and printing receipts/invoices, plus integration with various external systems.

※＝1 Apps are mechanisms that add functionality simply by installing them on Shopify. Published apps refer to apps sold in the Shopify App Store.

What features and scalability are exclusive to Shopify Plus?

Given the features and characteristics of Shopify and Shopify Plus, you might wonder: What are the criteria for choosing the top-tier plan, "Shopify Plus"?

The key point is " features and scalability exclusive to Shopify Plus."

Note that scalability refers to the ease of adding new features and improving performance. Upgrading to Shopify Plus also enhances certain features available in the standard Shopify plan, so please consider this when making your decision.

■Permission to use APIs for linking and centralizing management with existing member IDs
The API for connecting with customer management systems outside of Shopify is only available with Shopify Plus. Therefore, if you want to achieve the "centralization of customer IDs" mentioned earlier, you must choose Shopify Plus.

Using this API not only enables integration with your member management system but also allows users to log in to your e-commerce site with the same login ID they use for other services, significantly enhancing the user experience.

■Handling High Traffic and Order Volumes Through API Limit Removal and Speed Optimization
As mentioned earlier, Shopify's robust infrastructure provides stability capable of handling massive traffic and order volumes. Shopify Plus offers approximately double the API capacity and speed compared to the standard Shopify plan. What this means is that faster processing speeds for each function result in significantly quicker responses for site display, purchases, and other actions.

If you believe page display and processing speed significantly impact your e-commerce site's conversion rate (CVR), we recommend choosing Shopify Plus.

■Checkout Page Customization
Shopify refers to the page where customers enter shipping addresses and payment information as the "checkout page." With Shopify Plus, you can customize this checkout page.

For example,

• Adding custom input fields not found in the default setup, such as a name in katakana field or delivery date/time specifications
• Displaying recommended products for upsell purposes
• Adding custom content like progress bars or payment method options

are some examples.

However, while customization is possible, it is not recommended by Shopify, and both development and operation present significant challenges. Therefore, Dentsu Digital Inc. recommends keeping the default functionality as much as possible.

Things Shopify Plus Can't Achieve

We've covered Shopify Plus's features and strengths, including its extensibility. However, even with Shopify Plus, some things remain unachievable.

E-commerce sites differ from regular websites and are composed of various functions. Therefore, it is crucial to fully understand what cannot be achieved before considering implementation or solutions. Please use this information as a reference.

■The admin interface cannot be customized
Shopify Plus allows you to manage essential e-commerce functions like product management, customer management, order management, and page template editing through its admin interface. A key point to note about this admin interface is that the interface itself cannot be customized.

For example, you cannot change the wording of order statuses used to manage order information according to your e-commerce operations, or add new fields to coupon conditions.

If customization of the admin interface itself is required, you can either leverage Shopify Plus's extensibility to develop a custom app (※2) that integrates with Shopify for management, or adapt your e-commerce operations to fit the admin interface's specifications.

■Minimum Member Management Features
Shopify Plus includes member management functionality, but it only allows management of basic items like name, email address, and password. Furthermore, the basic functionality does not allow end users to edit key member information such as name or email address from their My Page; only shipping address information can be edited there.

This can be resolved by installing a public Shopify app or developing a custom app.

Furthermore, Shopify Plus offers mechanisms to integrate with external customer databases, allowing you to synchronize information stored there.

However, when implementing a public Shopify app, note that it stores e-commerce site data in an external infrastructure environment. This may pose security concerns, making implementation difficult in some cases.

■Available payment services are fixed
Payment processing is essential for e-commerce sites. However, the payment processors available on Shopify are predetermined, and this remains unchanged even when choosing Shopify Plus. If your existing e-commerce site already has a contract with a specific payment processor, there is a possibility that it cannot be used with Shopify Plus. Therefore, this point requires careful consideration. However, the available payment services and processors are regularly updated. Be sure to check the latest information when implementing Shopify Plus.

※＝2 Private apps developed exclusively for that e-commerce site

Dentsu Digital Inc.'s Approach to Shopify Plus

While benefits of Shopify Plus include " rapid e-commerce site launch " and "extensive mechanisms for expanding sales channels and integrating with external systems," Dentsu Digital Inc. believes its greatest advantage lies in the ability to " continually scale the e-commerce site alongside the growth of the e-commerce business."

The growth of an e-commerce business

• Phase 1: Establishing the e-commerce site foundation
• The phase of establishing an operational framework to grow the site and solve challenges
• Maximizing sales and profits

Shopify Plus features numerous mechanisms for implementing marketing initiatives and facilitates easy feature development. This enables the e-commerce site to be expanded

Shopify Plus offers numerous mechanisms for implementing marketing strategies and facilitates feature development. This allows you to expand and customize your e-commerce site in alignment with your business's growth phase.

Therefore, when launching an e-commerce site, we believe a key decision point is choosing between Shopify and Shopify Plus, or selecting another e-commerce platform. This choice should be made from a multifaceted perspective, considering the e-commerce business's goals and expansion plans, the operational framework, and compatibility with core systems and existing marketing tools.

At Dentsu Digital Inc., we provide not only consulting and feature development by members deeply familiar with Shopify Plus's characteristics and functions, but also various forms of support, including implementing data-driven marketing initiatives.

This time, we explained features unique to Shopify Plus that can solve e-commerce development challenges. Next time, we'll introduce how to proceed with the critical "requirements definition" phase when launching an e-commerce site using Shopify Plus.

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