Multiple Shopify Stores – How to Successfully Run Multiple Shopify Stores / Shops

Interested in running multiple Shopify stores? In this article we’ll briefly cover how to successfully run multiple Shopify stores / shops. The classical case being when you want to expand to more countries and serve them well optimised content and pricing in their own currency.

More and more merchants on Shopify are opting to run Shopify Multiple Stores at the same time. Although this practice seems complicated to execute, it’s actually rather straightforward once set up properly by a Shopify expert – and there are plenty of benefits for a business that decides to run multiple stores (i.e. more sales).

Who Would Want to Run Multiple Shopify Stores?

It may seem strange to run more than one Shopify store but an excellent example of this being put to good use is for merchants that are already running a successful Shopify store and wish to branch out to other locations and broaden their customer base.  Yes – you can use one of the apps to provide a translation of your store & yes – you can display a currency picker.  But any of us who have worked through these solutions will know that: 1 – all multilingual apps for shopify are crap and bad for SEO and 2 – currency pickers are a waste of time if the customer gets to checkout.

So – classically people who want to run multiple Shopify stores are those who want to expand to different geographic regions and not take the short, cheap and nasty route that customers don’t like.  But there are also other cases like wholesale stores etc.

Can You Run Multiple Shopify Stores Easily?

Running multiple shops is fairly easy and straightforward but the hardest part is setting everything up to begin with.  You should have a Shopify partner who is an officially recognised expert in development and who has done this before.  We can help and have done dozens of times for some big brands.  Just ask.  Here I’ll just give an overview:

There are numerous steps that you have to go through before you can launch stores in other languages and regions, and since there are so many steps, there is a wider margin for human error which can lead to disastrous results such as incorrect redirects/SEO tags which can impact sales.  Many of the steps are unique but these are the main ones:

• Store cloning – copying your store to a new domain – best done in a development account where we can create a private app for local development.
• Setting up of subdomains/new domains – structure is very important here for SEO.
• Correct redirection between stores (e.g. popup or javascript redirect)
• Stock/inventory synchronisation (yes – we can do that)
• Theme file synchronising (one update over all stores is possible)
• Hreflang tags (for SEO)
• Translation and localisation (for customers)

Luckily, expert Shopify developers are well-versed in executing this initial setup, so they are much quicker and more accurate in cloning the store, thanks to a combination of program tools and manual bulk actions within the platform.  You would be unwise to do this alone.

Even though this might sound rather straightforward to more tech-savvy merchants, this is just a fraction of things that have to be done to run Shopify Multiple Stores. You might wish to do this yourself, but if you want to save time and reduce the risk for errors, it’s best to find a professional Shopify developer to take care of it.

Once all of these are set up and your additional stores are live, it’s smooth sailing.  Everything can be setup so that your precious time isn’t wasted and everything can be updated from one single place.

Get a Quote for Setting Up Multiple Shopify Stores

We support many clients who run multiple Shopify stores including Shopify Plus and make sure everything works optimally. We have successfully set up multiple clones of the same store for more than 10 clients, and have completed over 50 cloned Shopify installations.

We can even help you get tiered discounts for your Shopify stores through our development accounts.

Our Shopify developers will be happy to inspect your shop in detail and give you a quote. Depending on the complexity of the initial setup, costs may vary, so contact us today and take that first step towards running Shopify Multiple Stores.

If you are a Shopify Plus merchant or have sales over $1m US per year we can offer some additional options for multiple currencies and multi-site setup.  You have more options at your fingertips.