For anyone reading that with an eCommerce website built on Shopify or Shopify Plus, here’s the good news: it’s one of the best eCommerce centric platforms in the industry.
Shopify makes it easy to manage a massive inventory, a wide range of customer accounts, and staff as well.
Since it is a SaaS platform, it is also templated, which makes it easy to make basic customizations to theme, appearance, and functionality.
Moreover, Shopify supports a wide group of professionals and experts known collectively as a Shopify ecosystem. Within this ecosystem there are specialists known as official Shopify Plus partners.
If you want to make changes to your Shopify store or generate new leads, working with an official partner might be your best bet.
Here are the main services offered by most official partners.
Digital Marketing
Many Shopify Plus partners specialize in digital marketing. Investing in digital marketing channels can bring your business new leads and generate additional sales revenue.
These partners may offer search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), social media management, email marketing, content marketing, and potentially even influencer marketing.
Migration
If you’re not currently on Shopify or Shopify Plus, you might seek a Shopify Plus partner that specializes in migration to get you off your current platform and onto a more scalable solution like Shopify.
Some open-source platforms like WordPress and Magento are much more resource intensive (and expensive) to manage and scale. SaaS platforms like Shopify Plus are much more merchant-friendly, in many ways.
Custom Design
Is there something you don’t like about your current Shopify Plus website? Shopify offers plenty of free themes, but making advanced customizations to a website is pretty prohibitive. You’ll need development experience, specifically with this platform.
There are Shopify Plus partners in the ecosystem that specialize in design, user experience, and conversion rate optimization, or CRO. Working with one of these specialists can help you improve the user experience and stimulate additional conversions and sales.
Custom Development
The same thing that makes Shopify and Shopify Plus so scalable also makes it a bit difficult to make custom development changes to the platform. It isn’t open-source.
Anytime you need to make some custom development tweaks to your website, such as theme customizations, API integrations, changes to improve accessibility, adjustments to improve site speed, or mobile optimization, you might need to lean on the skills of a developer.
App Development and Integration
Custom app development is another area in which you might need to call on the experience of a Shopify Plus partner.
There are currently more than 8000 apps compatible with Shopify that enable you to customize your online store, and fortunately the platform’s open API makes integrations relatively straightforward.
With that said, when there are times you want to go beyond the templated apps that are available, you’ll need to hire a developer for app development and integration experience.
eCommerce Consulting
Not sure what path to take your Shopify or Shopify Plus store down? No worries. Sometimes the solution is a multi-channel digital marketing solution, other times it’s a conversion rate optimization initiative, and other times it’s with a full-scale design refresh. Sometimes the solution is a combination.
How do you arrive at the solution, though? For that, you may need to partner with a Shopify Plus partner for their experience with eCommerce consulting. Together, you will find the answers.
Hiring a Shopify Plus Partner for Long-Term Success
Ready to get started steering your eCommerce website towards greater gains? If you’re looking to leverage the expertise of a Shopify Plus partner and don’t know where to start, start at the source. Reach out to your Shopify rep, let him or her know what issue you’re looking to solve, and the company may be able to set you up with a partner that is best suited to meet those needs.
