Shopify sellers don’t have to sell through just one storefront. You can instead use multiple storefronts in order to diversify your brand.
However, managing multiple Shopify shops comes with its own set challenges. For some merchants, managing two stores can seem overwhelming and complicated.
We don’t want to make you feel this way. This shouldn’t stop you from growing your business.
This post will explain why you should be selling in multiple stores and the challenges involved. We’ll also discuss best practices for being successful.
Why you should sell on multiple Shopify Stores
Not everyone is able to sell on multiple Shopify shops. Some people might prefer to sell through one shopfront.
Merchants can still benefit from selling in multiple stores. This can allow you to expand your business and provide better service for your customers.
Here are some reasons merchants might sell to multiple Shopify shops:
International Sales / Localized Marketing
Multi-store online shopping is a great option for merchants selling across the globe. You can create separate stores to cater to each region’s specific needs and differences. This is also known as localized Marketing. You can change the language, currency and website design depending on the market.
Example Each region should be treated as an individual market. Each market will require you to tailor your marketing strategy to suit their needs. You can see how Nike has tailored their website for different regions at nike.com (US) and nike.com (France).
Managing Outlet Brands or Off-Price
As a way to expand their business, some luxury sellers also create outlet or off-price brands. These off-priced versions of their brands appeal to a new audience. This allows them to reach more people with different budgets. This strategy can be tricky but it has worked well for some brands.
Example: Have a look at Nordstrom or Nordstrom Rack. Nordstrom Rack, Nordstrom’s off-price retail section, is a division of Nordstrom. It is quite different to appeal to a high-end buyer and a more price-sensitive customer. It would be a mistake to combine these messages on one site. This could lead to a brand being severely undervalued. Nordstrom has two sites that cater to each of these messages.
Selling to Different Buyers
Different buyer groups could refer to adult and child, or the difference between. It is possible to use different websites for each buyer group that you wish to appeal to. This works best if you sell different products to each buyer group.
Example Fabletics. Their first venture was to sell affordable athletic apparel to women via a monthly subscription. Then they added fabkids to the service. However, the clothes for kids are not necessarily athletic and are more everyday wear. They now have two sites for each brand, instead of one.
You don’t have to shop at every storefront if you find yourself in one of these situations. It’s worth at least considering the potential benefits.
Challenges in Managing Multiple Online Shops
Although it is easy to set up multiple Shopify shops, managing them can be complicated. You will have to manage separate online shops, which means you will need separate accounts, orders and inventory data. These problems can be overwhelming so you need to be ready to handle them.
- Orders Each site will have its own order management system. This can be complicated when you have to deal with fulfillment and return processing.
- Inventory You’ll need to update your inventory as customers return and buy products from both sites.
- Products: Product information can become messy if it is not arranged in the same way across different sites.
- System integration: It is more difficult to integrate with other systems such as an ERP or POS.
Multiple storefronts mean multiple sales data sets to manage. It can be difficult to keep all this information straight, but it is essential for managing your business.
How can you maintain a 360-degree view across all of your customers? How can you reduce inventory when identical items are sold in two different stores?
It is not a good idea to separate data from different stores. If you do, it will be difficult to manage your data for very long. Instead, focus on centralizing all your data and creating business processes that can be applied across all sales channels.
Know what obstacles you will face before you embark on this venture. If you need it, only use multiple stores. You can decide if it is the best strategy. Then plan how to handle the complexities.
Best Practices to Manage Multiple Shopify Online Stores
Although managing multiple Shopify shops can be difficult, it doesn’t have to stop you from expanding your business. These best-practices will make managing multiple Shopify shops easier.
1. Optimize Every Site Specifically
Shopify stores that target different customers or brands should have different product information and copy.
Consider the different keywords that each target market might be looking for. It is important to use the same language your customers use. To test different copy versions to determine which one converts better, you can use A/B testing software.
Take a look at our post Shopify SEO Best practices.
2. Centralize Order Management
Fulfilling orders from different sites is one of the biggest challenges in managing multiple stores. You can manage your orders more efficiently if you centralize the places you fulfil orders. It is important to maintain consistency in fulfillment and returns as well as customer service and dropship processes.
Pushing order data to a centralized system capable of managing all orders across all sites is the best way. To automate fulfillment processes, you can use a dedicated order management system.
Master Product Information in a Product Information System. (PIM).
Chances are, your product information may be different across Shopify stores. Re-structuring product information on each store takes more work and time.
Merchants can have a lot of problems managing product information if it isn’t handled correctly. Data becomes messy and inaccurate. Shopify’s import product features won’t suffice.
Merchants should have a central place where they can store and manage all product data. You can then cleanse and standardize all your data from this one location to make it available to other Shopify stores as required.
This is the Product Information Management (PIM), application. Learn more reasons merchants require a PIM.
Real-time Inventory Update
When you sell products through multiple customers touch points, it is crucial that your inventory update in real-time. This is especially important if you are selling the same product on different stores. Real-time inventory update will ensure you don’t oversell your products.
Centralizing inventory management is the best way to have real-time inventory. This allows you to track inventory regardless of where it is sold.
You don’t have to tell customers that they can’t send a product because you don’t have it.
Use eCommerce System Integration Software
You’ll find that many of these best practices are based on centralizing your data management. This includes your customers, orders, inventory and customers. You can easily manage all of your Shopify stores by centralizing your data using the same processes.
An online merchant like you can use a system integration platform like what nChannel offers. A data integration platform allows you to control the flow of your data, regardless of where it is coming from.
This solution will allow you to scale your business to multiple Shopify shops, as well as additional sales channels such brick & mortar stores and marketplaces.
Find out more problems that Shopify customers face when managing multiple Shopify store accounts and how to avoid them.
Multiple Shopify Stores From One Account
Multiple Shopify shops can help business owners increase sales and diversify their customer base. Shopify allows you one account to link your store. If you have to log in to multiple accounts to manage multiple stores, it can become quite cumbersome. Shopify doesn’t allow you to create multiple stores from one account. Let’s take a look at the options available to merchants and how we can simplify this.
How do I manage multiple Shopify shops?
It is easier to sell products under one store and one Shopify account, depending on what products you are selling. This is common for single brands as well as merchants who only want to have one storefront. You will need separate Shopify accounts if you sell different products or brands that require their own stores.
Shopify has simplified their account authentication in 2019/2020, which was a big help. Although you can use the same login credentials, you will be able access multiple stores and eventually multiple plans using them. These can be accessed during the login process, where you can choose the storefront.
Tip: It’s often easier to log in directly to Shopify if you have multiple stores than it is to log in through one storefront.
Why multiple Shopify Stores
So why do you need multiple shops? One scenario could be that you need to sell products worldwide . In this case, you will need to adapt your store to different countries in order to meet their needs. You might sell products from different countries, with their language and currency. This can impact the design and appearance of your store.
Your online store might need to adapt to suit different customers. One store might be B2B focused, while the other may sell to B2C customers.
Two different prices could be offered for the same item. You might not be able to sell the most expensive items in the same store if you have the highest-priced products. You can have another store to offer the lowest-priced products, which allows you to target a different audience and expand your reach.
It is possible to manage separate accounts and stores in certain cases.
Multiple accounts with redirection
An ERP or Fulfilment setup is required if you have multiple accounts. This allows you to connect multiple Shopify accounts into one place where you can fulfill orders and track inventory. To sync inventory, you can also use an app. You could use a geolocation-redirect app to handle redirections.
Multi-currency Single Account
Shopify, on the other hand is more focused on cross-border trade. Multi-currency support is available right out of the box with Shopify Payments. Their official app also provides geolocation for free. Finally, make sure you have the correct tax/shipping setup.
Good news! Shopify has just launched Shopify Markets. This allows you to create multiple stores with different “markets”, allowing you to choose multiple currencies and language checkouts based on your core audience.
Multiple stores on one account
A storefront experience can be created on one Shopify. You only pay for one plan, but can create the illusion that you have multiple stores. Amazon, for instance, does this well with vendors.
You may be creating a marketplace for vendors or just doing this for yourself. You can use the app if you only need one storefront for your products. An App such as Shogun, Gem Pages can be installed to create multiple storefront templates. You can then set up navigation to link each one.
Logos can be used in navigation to help you distinguish the storefronts. Ocado is a store that excels at this. Although they do link to other domains, you don’t need to. You don’t have to link to all collections. You could also have an Electric Scooter-themed storefront, Pet Shop, or Clothing Store. You can simply create a collection and link to it.
Shopify only allows certain types and types of vendor reselling. Webkul have a vendor marketplace plugin here.
