Pixafy achieved Shopify Plus Partner status in 2016, becoming one of just a handful of ecommerce development agencies to earn the moniker. In the years since, we have helped retail businesses of all sizes develop, deploy and maintain powerful digital shopping experiences that meet customers’ needs and therefore lay the foundation for revenue growth. That said, there are countless firms out there that can coordinate and execute Shopify builds. Why should online retailers work with a shop like Pixafy to create Shopify Plus instances?
One of our marketing managers put it best when she said: “The Shopify Plus platform offers apps and management tools that empower organizations to be successful with ecommerce, letting them focus time and resources on growing their business without having to worry about the infrastructure behind it.”
Of the five available Shopify products, Shopify Plus boasts the most robust feature set, as well as extensive customization and automation capabilities, making it the ideal choice for sellers that want to cultivate online footprints that draw clicks yet require little upkeep or manual back end work. And who better to design and install such a site than a Shopify Plus Partner like Pixafy.
Understanding Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is a popular enterprise-level solution built on Shopify, a leading ecommerce platform serving more than 800,000 retailers worldwide. Shopify Plus features some key attributes, which include:
- A hosted cloud platform that supports websites, apps and other online assets, and makes them available to customers around the clock.
- A content delivery network that provides robust connectivity and data delivery for customers, ensuring that sites built using Shopify Plus have quick loading times and maintain optimal performance at all times to facilitate seamless customer experiences.
- A robust management and support system running in the background that supports system updates and changes, all without disrupting availability.
- A scalable infrastructure model that ensures sites can handle everything from flash sales and special promotions to seasonal purchasing spikes and major events such as Black Friday.
- A back end capable of supporting shopping across multiple channels, allowing customers to make purchases on the web, via their mobile devices and in stores.
- A commitment to responsive design to ensure customer websites work seamlessly on all device types.
These are the core capabilities that underpin the Shopify Plus platform, but there are a few other features that deserve more attention.
Exclusive Shopify Plus features
A few standout features associated with Shopify Plus include:
- Customizable checkout and subscriptions: Ecommerce or social commerce experiences should reflect retailers’ brands through every customer interaction. This is why sellers that have shoppers hop into generic checkouts after spending time on websites that have been carefully designed often see adverse sales impacts. Customizable checkout and subscription systems ensure that retailers assert their brands throughout all facets of the digital shopping experience.
- Globalization: Shopify Plus offers sellers the freedom to create clones of their online stores and then easily localize those websites to new international markets. Two of these clones can be made for free, making it much easier to embrace globalization and reach a wide range of customers. This functionality includes language editor tools that make translation and similar functions much easier to handle, simplifying the transition to foreign marketplaces.
- Avalara tax automation: Dealing with taxes is an incredibly time-consuming and complex process for retailers, but automating processes surrounding these tasks is possible. This includes providing insight into regulatory requirements that impact retail locations. It also allows for automated tax calculations for purchases, ensuring sellers maintain compliance and do not run into situations where they accidentally charge customers incorrect amounts for purchases.
Unpacking the B2C affect
Shopify’s hosted cloud commerce platform is particularly adept at handling a high volume of transactions and ensuring quality site performance. This also includes providing high levels of availability. Shopify offers:
- 99.99% uptime.
- The ability to handle 8,000 orders per minute.
- Capacity for 1.5 million hits per minute.
All of this adds up to performance that is right in line with the B2C industry’s needs. Shopify’s social and mobile commerce excellence also comes into play here, as the platform is designed for flexibility over a wide range of devices and shopping channels, giving B2C organizations the malleability needed to reach a diverse array of customers. Shopify also provides a great deal of content alongside the platform, making it easier for retail businesses to fine-tune their online strategies and maximize their site values.
Adding it all up
This a huge set of features and capabilities, but what it boils down to is a technically advanced ecommerce platform that is flexible and scalable enough to meet the needs of modern sellers. This is particularly notable in the rapid time-to-market for sites built on the Shopify Plus solution. Most enterprise platforms can take almost a year to get up and running, while Shopify Plus only requires a couple of months, depending on the configuration. These features have experienced rapid adoption as a result.
Shopify Plus is a feature-rich, enterprise-level platform built for the future of commerce, not just the needs of today, and we help our customers get the most out of their commerce experience built around what Shopify has to offer
Here at Pixafy, we use our Shopify Plus Partner status to collaborate with other ecommerce leaders in the Shopify Partner ecosystem and provide clients with top-of-the-line, end-to-end services. As a result, retailers that work with us routinely build out sites with robust feature sets that facilitate easy day-to-day site management and long-term innovation.
Are your ready to build an ecommerce website that sets your retail business up for success? Connect with the team here at Pixafy to learn more about our Shopify Plus development services, as well as our marketing and web support options.
