What you may not know is that while it's well known for providing a simple, instant-on shop solutions for smaller businesses, Shopify has scaled into the Enterprise market and as of 2022 become the world's biggest single retail platform with a higher peak rate of users than Amazon.com
With over a million businesses using Shopify, it has become a trusted and reliable platform for online retailers of all sizes from Mom & Pop stores to $500m+ brands. So, how has it achieved this and started to aggressively take market share from traditional eCommerce providers like SAP Hybris, Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Adobe Commerce Cloud?
Just like Shopify Plus, it's actually quite simple:
Easy to Use
At SOON_, we don't agree with the sentiment that Enterprise software has to be ugly, complicated and hard to use. And neither to Shopify. One of the main reasons why Shopify has become so popular is because the interface is intuitive and straightforward, allowing content managers to deploy compelling campaigns, merchandising teams to create compelling collections, promotions and reasons to buy. Trading teams have access to powerful customised reporting and Shopify Flow (https://apps.shopify.com/flow) - an automation system that doesn't require any developers to manage.
Scalability
Many of our clients initially switch to Shopify Plus because of the scalability. Scaling platforms like Hybris, even in the era of pseudo-cloud offerings like Hybris Commerce Cloud is a non-trivial task. Shopify Plus is built in a different era, natively offering a scalable platform, allowing businesses to grow and expand their online presence easily. Because Shopify Plus is SaaS, you don't pay for traffic or for usage, your fee is based solely on your sales.
Customisation
Shopify Plus offers an extensive range of customisation options, allowing businesses to create a unique and personalised online store. Running in Headless mode, Shopify provides total control over the look and feel of the website as well as allowing us to tailor every aspect of the customer experience. Anything you can do on a website, you can do using this model of development. Additionally, Shopify Plus offers access to the same world-class marketplace of plugins and apps that allow businesses to add advanced functionality to their store instantly, such as social media integration, email marketing and 3D, VR or AR experiences.
Reliability and Security
Shopify is a highly reliable and secure platform, making it a trusted option for businesses. It offers 99.98% uptime as standard at no extra cost, ensuring that online stores are always accessible to customers. Additionally, Shopify is fully PCI-compliant, ensuring that customer payment data is securely stored and processed.
Mobile-Friendly
Unlike traditional platforms, Shopify has always existing in an era of mobile first experiences. This doesn't only mean a responsive, mobile-first customer experience (which is essential in 2023) but goes further with a mobile-first philosophy for features and design. Products like Shop Pay which come packed in, completely free with Shopify Plus have seen conversion to sale uplift of 12%+ in key markets like the US. Not only is this not available as standard on traditional eCommerce platforms, it is not available at all. Shop Pay is 100% exclusive to Shopify.
Scale and reach
Shopify Plus has built the epic global scale and reach that Enterprise looks for. To share some core stats; in 2022 Shopify accounted for over $314Bn in sales across the platform making it the largest single eCommerce platform in the world. 1.75m merchants in 175 Countries made sales in 21 languages. At peak, the Shopify infrastructure handled 11k checkouts per minute across Shopify and 1.16Bn visits per month. Shopify Inc. also accessed a $50.4Bn market cap bringing it in line with the dominant Enterprise platforms for the first time.
Support and Community
Shopify Plus customer can access dedicated, Enterprise 24/7 customer support available via phone, email, and live chat at no extra cost. The platform also offers an extensive knowledge base, with tutorials, guides, and FAQs that cover a wide range of topics. Additionally, Shopify has a thriving community of users and developers, with various forums and discussion groups available. This community provides a platform for users to share tips, tricks, and best practices.
With the number of businesses using Shopify continuing to grow, it's clear that the platform will remain the go-to option for e-commerce for years to come.
Looking to make the move to Shopify or just find out more?
Talk to SOON_ and find out more about how we can develop or upgrade your website to MACH standards. We are a highly experienced, UK based eCommerce partner working with market leading brands to develop their high converting retail platforms, ready for the uncertainty of the future. We plan, design, develop, support and optimise award-winning Shopify & Shopify Plus websites.
Focused on customer experience first, our websites are designed to solve your most pressing business goals with a full consultancy offering to support the process. If you're interested in a free, no-obligations chat about your requirements or any aspect of Shopify & Shopify Plus.
Looking for for a Shopify Plus Agency?
SOON_ have been developing compelling customer experiences for 10 Years. We can make it easy, simple and straightforward to upgrade or migrate to Shopify Plus. We're a market leading Shopify Plus agency with global reach, a proven track records and ambitious brands.