Introducing the Shopify Plus Blog

Hi *|FNAME|* I'm Tommy Walker, the editor of the new Shopify Plus blog. You're getting this email because you're a different breed of Shopify customer. You're smart, you're successful, and you've proven you know what it takes to drive revenue. So how can we help you take off to the next level? We wanted to create a blog that was dedicated specifically to helping you overcome the challenges that high-growth stores face. I'm going to make the assumption that you already have an idea of "what" works, but I want to help you understand "why" because I believe it's only once you know that, that you're able to truly innovate and do something people truly remember. If you don't want to receive messages from the Shopify Plus blog, or you're just not ready, that's cool, you can unsubscribe here and come back anytime you like. But if you're looking to get deeper knowledge into buyer psychology, advanced strategy, and learn from other high-growth ecommerce stores, buckle up, because we've got a lot in store for you. Also, if you have any questions, or would like to have us cover something to help you overcome a problem, just shoot me an email at editor@shopifyplus.com and I'll be sure to get back to you. I hope you like our first article, please leave a comment letting us know what you think. All the bestTommy WalkerEditor - Shopify Plus Blog

by Tommy Walker

It started as a simple idea...

“Make Commerce Better.” That’s Shopify’s goal. But then something happened. We realized there was another group of customers who needed better commerce capabilities and a better commerce experience; enterprise customers.

So we adapted our goal to “Make Commerce Better for Everyone”, and created Shopify Plus.

Shopify Plus gives enterprise merchants the best of Shopify but more:

A highly-scalable, totally reliable SaaS based ecommerce platform
99.98% uptime
No transaction fees, no bandwidth limitations and unlimited Products
Exclusive APIs to help extend and customize platform capabilities
The ability to customize your checkout and let it live on your domain
Priority customer support and
Dedicated white-glove account management

At first, businesses who had grown using Shopify, like Dodocase, Black Milk Clothing and Best Made Company signed on to Plus, but something else happened…

World renowned brands such as Tesla, General Electric, Reddit, NPR, Redbull and Wikipedia heard about Shopify Plus and signed on too.

Their reasons for coming to Shopify Plus are simple:

Traditional enterprise ecommerce solutions are difficult to use without I.T. support.
It takes too long to make and deploy simple changes.
Traditional enterprise solutions are way too expensive to own and operate.

In other words, they want to build their businesses, not waste time fighting with their ecommerce software.

Maybe this is because according to Statista.com ecommerce is projected to reach $491.5 Billion in the U.S alone by 2018. That’s a 193.73% increase from just 5 years ago.

Image via Statista.com

In the rapidly developing ecommerce space the ability for large merchants to make changes and move quickly is no longer just a “nice-to-have”; it has become a matter of survival.

This is so important that Forrester research has gone so far as to say “In the 21st century, successful companies will rise and fall based on their software.”

In a larger context, what’s interesting is how the rise of ecommerce signals of change in the overall way we shop.

In January 2014, The Wall Street Journal published research from retail foot-traffic tracker ShopperTrak, that show a dramatic downward decline of holiday foot traffic from 2010 - 2013.

The article also includes quotes from the CFO of Urban Outfitters and the CEO of Best Buy, both with negative outlooks on whether foot-traffic will ever return to physical retail spaces now that online shopping has become so accessible.

While we’ll save the full discussion of the decline of foot-traffic in physical retail for another day, what I will say is this…

At least in a physical location, if you want to move a banner, you don’t have to contact 5 developers, 3 executives, a creative team and home office, only to wait three weeks then risk having the entire building collapse once the banner moves from one side of the table to the other.

Unfortunately, that scenario is all too familiar for any enterprise-level ecommerce retailer using legacy software.

Along with the need to rapidly adapt to ever changing demands, enterprise merchants need to ensure they are always available to their customers. It can be devastating when a self-hosted ecommerce solution is unable to handle moments of explosive success.

“BestBuy.com has experienced record levels of website traffic. This has affected site performance and we have temporarily taken the site down in response. We are taking measures to restore full performance of the site as quickly as possible.”

-BestBuy, Black Friday, 2014

For Best Buy, and plenty others, your ecommerce store going down (or being substantially slow) can lead to millions in lost revenue, along with a massive negative impact on your reputation.

According to surveys by Gomez.com and Akamai.com, for an ecommerce site that makes $100,000 per day, a 1 second page delay could potentially cost you $2.5 million in lost sales every year. What do you think that looks like when the entire site crashes?

According to a 2012 study by WorldPay that asked 19,000 consumers and 153 retail decision makers why people abandon their shopping carts:

24% of people will abandon because the website crashed
21% abandon because the process was taking too long
15% abandon due to website timeout

Image via Statista.com

This customer loss is truly unfortunate, because it is mostly preventable.

In 2014 Shopify merchants processed over $3.7 Billion in orders worldwide, with 99.98% server uptime.

Consider this tweet from Bold Commerce, one of Shopify Plus’s agency partners:

Moved client from Magento to @Shopify. Sales already UP 20%, costs DOWN 80% & they estimate 40 extra hrs free/ month http://t.co/0Bz7ZoOXnY
— BOLD Commerce (@bold_commerce) May 26, 2015

This is mostly because Bold is an amazing agency, and partly because Shopify Plus was built to provide merchants the tools and support they need to succeed.

What Can You Expect From The Shopify Plus Blog?

We’re taking the same white-glove approach and “Simple yet powerful” design ethos that is built into Shopify Plus to write heavily-researched, yet easy to understand essays to solve enterprise level problems.

We’ll dive into case studies, behavioral economics, buyer psychology, and industry data, so we’re not just asking “what works?” but have a better understanding of “why?”.

The goal isn’t just to analyze existing tactics and strategies, but to deconstruct them so you can make improvements or create something entirely new. Because that’s how leaders create what everyone else wants to mimic.

You will influence what we publish. We want to solve real problems, not just ones we think you have.

Consider the Shopify Plus blog as your external research resource. If you have a marketing/business growth related question, please feel free to email us here.

But above all else, expect that the Shopify Plus blog will be a blog that is worth your time.

We want to help you grow your business as we grow ours.