SHOPIFY: What's the difference between Commerce Components and Shopify Plus?
Paul Drecksler
15,000+ E-commerce Professionals Read My Weekly Newsletter - Shopifreaks.com is the Internet's highest rated weekly roundup of the top e-commerce news stories that impact your business.
This is an excerpt from the 103rd Edition of the Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter . Subscribe free at www.shopifreaks.com
Shopify is going after the enterprise e-commerce market even harder with the?launch?of their new offering, Commerce Components.
The new service will allow retailers to access specific Shopify components such as their checkout and APIs, and integrate with their preferred CRMs, 3PLs, and other back-office services, without having to utilize Shopify's entire platform to power their stores.?
Wasn't there already Shopify Plus for enterprise clients?
Yes, Shopify Plus has been around since 2014 and has historically catered to higher volume stores that demanded additional features above and beyond what the standard Shopify plans offered such as:
Shopify is now positioning Commerce Components as a step above Plus for large, global retailers with a GMV of $500M and upwards.?
Arpan Podduturi, VP for Product at Shopify,?told Modern Retail?that Commerce Components will give businesses?“access to only the components of Shopify that they need, with the ability to leave behind what they don’t. It’s optimized for retailers who prefer to use individual components of Shopify in an à la carte way — integrating those components with the rest of their commerce stack.”
So what's the difference between Shopify Plus and Commerce Components?
领英推荐
Rick Watson?said?on LinkedIn,?“If they were smart, they would just say they introduced “Checkout as a Service.”
Although Commerce Components is offering a little more than just checkout, he definitely summed it up nicely.?
Shopify's offering is getting complicated
If Shopify were to re-launch today with all their existing features, would they still tier them into?Basic, Shopify, Advanced, Shopify Plus, and Commerce Components? There's got to be a better way.
To be frank, some of the lower tier plans feel like they're being left behind in regards to what most e-commerce developers would consider to be basic features. It's almost as if Shopify Plus needs to be cut down the middle — with half its features going to basic Shopify plans and the other half pushed toward Commerce Components.?
Or alternatively, transition into offering Shopify Plus features a-la-carte to their own merchants. For example, do I really need to pay $2000 a month to customize my checkout as a Shopify merchant when I don't need the account manager or exclusive apps? Limitations like that have been a bone of contention for store owners with Shopify for many years.?
Earlier this year, Shopify?launched?Shopify Taxes as an add-on service, and I asked,?“Does this set the stage for new incremental fees within Shopify? Will every new feature upgrade come with new transaction fees on top of it?”
On one hand, it can make merchants feel like they're being nickel-and-dimed for every feature they need. But on the other hand, I'd love to see a more flexible way for Shopify merchants to grow within their ecosystem without having to jump from $19 to $49 to $299 to $2000 per month.?
If Shopify merchants could subscribe to Plus features a-la-carte like Enterprise clients can now do on the new Commerce Components, I think that Shopify would see a huge increase to their subscription revenue, and merchants would be able to better incrementally grow within their ecosystem.
What are your thoughts?