Why enterprise fashion brands are moving from on prem solutions to Shopify Plus.

Fashion retail continues to dominate the eCommerce space – both in growth and the competitive nature of the industry. Accounting for an average of one in five online transactions, it’s the second biggest vertical for growth, experiencing double digit success for a third year running. When you take into account the total size of the industry ($22 billion!) setting yourself up for success matters. Your eCommerce solution should reduce technical complexity and streamline your multi channel selling strategy, while adequately servicing the needs of your customer and your business. This is how cloud software has opened up eCommerce capability for everyone – a nimble solution packed full of enterprise features without all the headaches.

Technical complexity be gone!
In the age of breakneck tech advancement, it can be overwhelming to take your business online when you don’t know where to start. On premises solutions are a great option if you have an in house tech team ready to tackle the challenges (and costs) that come with setting up your infrastructure and system requirements. But this isn’t a viable option for every mid-market retailer. Shopify takes the headache away by managing everything in the background – it’s ready to go when you are. All you need to do is configure your storefront then open a browser to start trading  – your whole store backend runs over the internet. The specialised technical competencies that require great care and attention are handled for you so you can focus on making your product shine.

But what happens in the long run?
In short – a lot less hassle. Where on prem solutions require consideration for ongoing costs associated with licensing, hardware maintenance, data storage, security and backups, Shopify does everything for you on a subscription based model. You only need to manage that one cost.

And let’s talk upgrades for a minute. With on prem solutions, your team is responsible for those too. If you’re heavily customised, this can be very costly and require some functionality rejigging to make sure everything plays nicely together. Shopify wins here again; they’ll manage all your upgrades and make sure your customisations are carried over to the new version of the software. You’ll never have to sacrifice functionality or the latest tech for budget.

Ready, set, SELL!
Customers are demanding a whole lot more in today’s market. They want choice, convenience, a competitive price point and confidence in your brand. This means your product needs to stack up against your competitors while being available in a variety of ways and at all times. Sale events are more important than ever, so stability is a crucial component to winning your audience. While Christmas is still the leading sales period of the year, local and international sale events are a huge opportunity to showcase what you do best and engage with your customer, turning that one time shopper into a brand loyal ambassador.

On prem solutions require heavier customisation to achieve these goals successfully and if something goes wrong, heavier involvement from your team to resolve. Got someone in mind to scale your infrastructure to support sale traffic? Need to integrate a connector to make that new channel viable for your brand? Yeah, you need to think about that. But not with Shopify! Instantly scale to suit sale demand and rest assured that your site will remain stable under stress. This is a crucial way to win the trust of your customer. They need to feel confident shopping with you. Want to offer click and collect? Or maybe marketplace integration? You don’t need a module for that because Shopify supports it natively.

So on-Prem or SAAS?
Whether you decide to buy or build, it’s important to note that the traditional trend for on-prem solutions is rapidly changing – and not just amongst mid-market retailers. More and more multi-million dollar brands are increasingly turning to cloud-based platforms to take advantage of some serious SAAS benefits that are not easily accessible with an on-prem solution. If technical agility is the goal (and it should be) then consider a simpler way with cloud based software.

Want to learn more? Let’s talk!