Shopify Plus: The Fast-Track Composable Alternative
BUILDING BLOCKS V ADVANCED SHOP IN A BOX
If you’re weighing up your next eCommerce move you may have narrowed it down to two serious routes: an advanced shop in a box solution and a from scratch building blocks solution. From a purely technical perspective there isn’t a wrong decision, just one that is right for your business. Think of it like this: Building block solutions are LEGO - flexible, fully composable and limitlessly configurable - but you need to get the job done. Advanced shop in a box solutions are like Airfix - precision engineered, designed for speed and built to fly right out of the box. Building blocks with guardrails.
WHATS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BLOCKS & BOX
Both are excellent routes - both can scale - we can do both.
It’s not just what you’re building, it’s how you want to build it.
You asked us - If you’re planning your route then this might be useful. Shopify Plus, Shopify’s advanced shop in a box, customisable tech stack offering. Not fully composable in the traditional sense but close enough to matter. Launched in 2006, with 19 years under its belt Shopify is very good at what it does. Shopify Plus has been designed as an enterprise level solution to remove development friction. Development is of course still required but it is streamlined within the pre-existing Shopify architecture.
With from scratch building block platforms, you build the architecture. So hosting, CDN, compliance, deployment pipeline and so on are all built, tested, maintained and monitored by you (or an experienced dev team). Just like LEGO - limitlessly flexible. Shopify Plus has a lot of this covered for you. Things like PCI DSS Level 1 compliance is included, so your team doesn't need to worry about it. They also promise 99.99% uptime, a powerful CDN, global scaling and preconfigured caching. With an advanced shop in a box you’re not giving up performance or scale, you would be outsourcing the heavy lifting.
Shopify Plus ships with plenty of checkout customisations, all safely deployable via apps. It’s not a fully composable building block solution, but that’s the point. Not all businesses need to be fully composable. Shopify Plus merchants can:
Modify discount logic
Control payment methods by country or customer tag
Add validations, upsells and shipping rules.
It’s also pretty good at user management, search and multi-store management. Unlimited staff accounts, granular permissions and audit trails that keep your compliance team happy - if you're migrating from basic role control, this is a noticeable upgrade, especially for businesses growing fast across functions. Whether you're selling into the US, UK, EU, or running DTC + wholesale side by side, Shopify Plus supports multiple storefronts under a single agreement. One Contract - multiple brands or regions. Each store can have:
Its own catalog, domain, pricing, and language
Localised payment options and fulfilment settings
Separate front ends, shared backend reporting
It’s a smart alternative to running a separate instance per region or brand. Pair this with Managed Markets to become a viable global platform, not just a DTC starter kit. APIs is where Plus quietly flexes under the hood, a game changer if you’re syncing with an ERP, running a headless build on Hydrogen or Next.js, or integrating with multiple systems across inventory, shipping, or CX. It’s not infinite, but it’s fast and predictable - and if you’ve ever had to queue API calls during high-traffic events, you’ll feel the difference.
If you need total freedom and have a dev team to match = explore building blocks
If you need guardrails and have a smaller team = explore advanced shop in a box
There isn’t a wrong decision, just one that is right for your business.
Whatever your choice, Cabiri can do BOTH
If you need help planning your route - CALL US