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Shopify Plus

4 min readUpdated

Why Shopify Plus suits high-growth brands

Why fast-growing brands choose Shopify Plus over Magento and WooCommerce, from scale and running costs to automation, security and support, with brand examples.

By Paal SobergFounder, Think Commerce

A green seedling growing from soil in sunlight, with flowers blurred in the background

Shopify Plus suits high-growth brands because it takes the platform off your plate. Shopify runs the hosting, security and updates, so traffic spikes and new markets don’t mean more servers or more IT staff. Hosting, security and maintenance are included instead of billed separately. And you get automation, checkout tools and priority support built for larger stores.

Below, we compare Shopify Plus with Magento and WooCommerce on five points, then look at four well-known brands that grew on it. This article was first published in July 2024.

Shopify Plus compared with other ecommerce platforms

1. Scalability

Shopify Plus grows with your business. Whether you face a sudden rush of traffic or launch in a new market, your store stays fast and available. The platform can handle thousands of transactions per minute.

Magento and WooCommerce often need extensive server management and tuning to cope with more traffic. That raises maintenance costs and risks downtime at peak times.

2. Cost

Shopify Plus costs more each month than the standard Shopify plans, but it often costs less over time. You don’t pay separately for hosting, security or maintenance, so those costs don’t grow with your traffic.

Magento usually needs a large investment in hosting, security and development, and those costs rise as you scale. Over the long term, that can make it the more expensive choice for a fast-growing brand. If you are on Magento today, our Magento to Shopify Plus migration guide sets out the steps.

3. Advanced features and customisation

When this article was first published in July 2024, Shopify Plus included these tools for larger, faster-moving stores:

  • Shopify Flow to automate routine tasks
  • Launchpad to schedule sales and product launches
  • Shopify Scripts to customise the checkout
  • a dedicated API for more complex integrations and customisation

Magento offers a high degree of customisation, but it usually takes extensive development work and technical skill. Shopify Plus balances ease of use with deep customisation, so non-technical staff can still run the store day to day. For a worked example, see how we moved Majema from Magento 2 to Shopify Plus, starting with a checkout proof of concept.

4. Reliability and security

Shopify Plus offers 99.99% uptime and PCI DSS Level 1 compliance. Shopify applies security updates and maintenance for you, so your team can focus on growth rather than IT.

On WooCommerce and Magento, uptime and security are your job. That usually means dedicated people or a hosting partner to apply patches and keep the site up during busy periods.

5. Dedicated support

Growing brands need fast, expert help when something breaks. Shopify Plus includes 24/7 priority support and access to a dedicated account contact.

Other platforms may offer support too, but it often costs extra or lacks that dedicated contact.

High-growth brands that grew on Shopify Plus

Gymshark

Gymshark, the fitness apparel brand, is one of the best-known Shopify Plus stories. It moved to Shopify Plus to handle rapid growth and global expansion.

  • Sales growth: Gymshark’s sales grew by 200% after the move to Shopify Plus.
  • Black Friday: the brand took over US$1 million in sales within 90 minutes on Black Friday.
  • Global reach: Shopify Plus helped Gymshark open new markets with localised stores and multiple currencies.

Kylie Cosmetics

Kylie Cosmetics, founded by Kylie Jenner, used Shopify Plus to grow into a global beauty brand.

  • Traffic spikes: the platform handled heavy traffic during product launches, so millions of customers could still shop.
  • Customisation: Shopify Plus let the brand build a highly customised storefront that matched its luxury image.
  • Rapid growth: Shopify Plus scaled with Kylie Cosmetics as it passed US$600 million in sales within a few years.

Allbirds

Allbirds, the sustainable footwear brand, chose Shopify Plus to sell its shoes worldwide.

  • International expansion: Shopify Plus gave Allbirds one platform to run operations across several countries.
  • Efficient operations: automation and custom scripts streamlined day-to-day work.
  • Customer engagement: the platform’s flexibility let Allbirds try new marketing ideas and build customer loyalty.

Heinz

Heinz, the food brand, turned to Shopify Plus to sell direct to consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Fast launch: Heinz launched its direct-to-consumer store in a few days.
  • More direct sales: the new store let Heinz sell to customers directly and talk to them more.
  • Better checkout: a simple interface and a smooth checkout gave Heinz’s customers a better experience.

Is Shopify Plus right for your brand?

Scale, lower running costs, built-in automation, reliability and dedicated support are why Shopify Plus works for growing brands. Gymshark, Kylie Cosmetics, Allbirds and Heinz show what that looks like at the top end.

If you are weighing up the move, see how we build and run Shopify Plus stores and how we handle a migration to Shopify from another platform. Then tell us about your store and we will tell you whether Plus makes sense for you.

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