One of the biggest questions about Shopify over the past decade is its ability to support enterprise business. Shopify answered some of these questions with the release of Shopify Plus in 2014. In the intervening years it has certainly proved it can support businesses scaling at hyperspeed, with the likes of Gymshark going from a backroom operation to an internationally renowned brand.
However, there has still been some hesitancy for huge brands to hand over control of their tech stack to a SaaS solution that has a history of focusing on delivering value for the masses instead of focusing on edge case solutions.
Almost 10 years after the release of Shopify Plus, and at the dawn of a brand new year, the Canadian ecommerce giant has taken another leap forward in its efforts to support the enterprise end of the scale with the release of Commerce Components.
What is Commerce Components by Shopify?
Shopify has described Commerce Components as ‘the modern composable stack for enterprise retail’, but what does that really mean?
Shopify has developed over 30 modular components. Businesses can pick and choose which ones they want and how they want to use them.
These components are distributed across 6 categories:
1 - Storefront Components include; Headless API, Headless SDK, Low-code Storefronts, Headless Hostings with Oxygen, Content, and Storefront Search
2 - Cart and Checkout Components include; Cart, Checkout Platform, Payments Platform, Tax Platform, Fraud Protection
3 - Core Commerce Components include; Product Catalogue, Custom Data Models, Cross-border Selling, Subscriptions, Customer Data, Discounts, Functions Extensibility, B2B
4 - Data and Compliance Components include; Data Analysis, Marketing Insights, Card Data and Vaulting, Security and Compliance
5 - Shipping and Logistics Components include; Fulfilment, Order Management, Inventory, Returns, Shipping Labels API
6 - Omnichannel Components include; Point of Sale (POS), Social Commerce, Chat & Support.
The categories and components represent all of the core support any brand needs to provide its customers with the best possible experience and ensure the business has everything it needs to manage the front and back end of its ecommerce category.
Shopify powers ~10% of all US ecommerce, so these components have already been pressure tested in the real world and have been proven to work. This is the first time that Shopify has allowed brands to use these components in any combination they choose and to integrate them with their existing services.
Who is Commerce Components for?
Commerce Components definitely isn’t for everyone, in fact, it is specifically for enterprise retail. Shopify has been very clear that the solution is only on offer for retailers generating >£500M revenue. It’s likely to work best for retailers that are managing multiple brands, selling online and offline and have large teams. This will probably feel like a departure from the norm for most existing merchants, but this is a big leap forward for Shopify in terms of competing with other solutions for enterprise brands.
How Much Does Commerce Components Cost?
There is no public pricing available for this solution, but Shopify has said that the pricing will be usage-based and also depend on the number of components that a retailer is planning to use. Like any project of this scale, we would always recommend going through a thorough discovery phase to fully understand the needs of the retailer and tailor pricing based on those requirements.
How Does Commerce Components Differ from Shopify Plus?
Historically, when businesses opted to use Shopify, they were pretty much all in. There was a time when it was an option to simply have a Shopify buy button on a site, but for the most part, on signing up to Shopify, the whole store was built within their ecosystem.
As companies grew Shopify Plus became a more viable option to access additional features and make changes to the checkout, but moving to Shopify Plus was more often than not a financial decision rather than a requirement for the added functionality.
The main differences between Plus and Components are:
1 - Plus is an all-in-one solution for digital-first brands, whereas Commerce Components is a selection of modules that enterprise retailers can use to build custom experiences and seamlessly integrate into their commerce stack.
2 - Plus has a standard pricing model of 0.4% variable fee, with 0.15% discount when using Shopify Payments and a minimum $2,000 USD/month. Commerce Components has tailored pricing depending on the retailer requirements.
3 - Plus merchants get support from a Success Manager and launch support, whereas Commerce Component retailers will get access to Shopify Professional Services, enterprise-level SLAs and a dedicated account team.
4 - Shopify Plus features and functionality is already well-defined with more advancements will come in 2023, but Commerce Components comes ready with no API limits, 40,000 checkouts per min/store, and increased product variant limits as well as a new, expanded feature set, new ways of customising a storefront, and new third party technology partnerships.
Who is using Commerce Components?
There are already a number of brands utilising shopify in this way:
- Mattel
- JB Hifi
- Glossier
- Coty
- Steve Madden
- Spanx
- Staples
No doubt this list will increase rapidly as enterprise retailers look to refine their online presence, create connected experiences between in-store and online, and bring down the cost and maintenance of legacy tech stack.
Conclusion on Commerce Components
As more enterprise retailers take ecommerce more seriously, they often find themselves in a position where they have to build a large technology infrastructure on legacy systems in order to maintain their presence. This adds significant cost and also takes away from their core expertise as product creators and retailers.
Components puts Shopify in the mix in the enterprise market and allows retailers to utilise a technology stack that is built for commerce but also able to integrate into the wider business - with significantly less effort than it would usually take.
This solution gives retailers the flexibility they need while giving them access to a range of world-class tools, and enabling them to take a lean approach to ecommerce development.
If you are a retailer looking at digital transformation and considering Commerce Components by Shopify as a solution, get in touch with our team to start the conversation today.
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