What if Shopify Components Were About Keeping Shopify Plus Customers Longer Instead of Attracting New Enterprises?

It strikes me that while Shopify has put a stake in the ground about components in the Enterprise, part of this could be an "anchoring signal" in the market while it figures out where it will really be successful.

I imagine if you contacted 100 Enterprises (above $500M - let's use their number) and said "let's adopt Shopify", you wouldn't get many serious meetings (except due to brand power). Then if you continued the conversation and said "well we have a few components here, any of these look good?" you still might not move the needle in any serious way.

The point is, the market always bats last, and sales teams - and by this I mean Shopify sales teams - will go where the money is. After chasing Enterprise accounts for a few years, my bet is for the Shopify reps to return to what they know and love -- growing mid-market merchants. That sweet $20M - $250M segment where most people feel multi-tenant SaaS is the best fit.

To me, the money is in these Shopify Plus accounts that are looking at the Shopify solution as someone who is not laser-focused on them.

The upper-tier of Shopify Plus brands sees investments in fulfillment as a waste, same for creators, influencers, etc. They need more flexibility, but full headless" seems just as silly too.

And in this, we have an opening that Shopify is not yet exploiting.

Maybe not in 2023 but perhaps in 2024 you will see some movement here. You have Plus, which is useful up to a certain point... am I to believe that Shopify believes its Plus solution is totally valid from $5M up to $500M, and then Components is viable above that?

This seems like a segmentation built by a 5-year-old.

What's missing? Components for Shopify Plus. An App Marketplace that works not just for bolt-ons to the Shopify platform, but for true connectivity with best-in-breed Front-End (DXC?), PIM, OMS, WMS solutions (not just ERP). At this point, Shopify can start to lead its own approach to architecture rather than be reactive to it.

I submit this "Components for Shopify Plus" as the tier the company is missing here, and I'm a little bit flummoxed why we aren't here yet.

After all, with Plus growing 2x as fast as the rest of the business, losing the top 5% of Plus customers is the existential risk to Shopify at this point.

This would be like a Goldilocks strategy for the upper mid-market.

- Shopify Plus: too cold.

- Shopify Components: too hot.

- Components for Shopify Plus: just right.

Even if Shopify corporate doesn't embrace this approach, expect to see enterprising sales reps at Shopify take some swings here.