Expanding your business from your local store to an international brand requires a lot of work.
And one big challenge that most business owners face is setting up the website(s) for it. The more your business grows, the harder it can get to cater to thousands of online visitors who speak different languages and pay in different currencies.
Shopify Plus is a great option to solve most of the issues that come with massive online stores. In this article, we’ll discuss one of its features which is multiple stores.
What is Shopify Plus? And What Are Multiple Stores In Shopify?
Shopify Plus is an eCommerce solution for enterprises.
It has advanced features that most other eCommerce CMS offer. But the best feature of Shopify Plus is that you can set up most of the store by yourself. You don’t need to download tons of software tools and hire expensive developers for it.
It’s a great option for businesses that are expanding or looking to expand internationally. The features you get here are much more than what you get in basic Shopify plans which are designed for small or medium-sized stores.
Multiple stores on Shopify Plus are exactly what the name suggests. It’s where you create more than one store from the same account and manage them conveniently.
Now, you might already know that you can create multiple stores anywhere – even on Shopify basic plans. But that requires multiple accounts and also doesn’t give you the multitude of other features you get in Shopify Plus.
Benefits of Shopify Plus Multiple Stores
Here are some of the advantages of setting up your eCommerce stores on Shopify Plus.
1. Branch Out and Sell Different Products
If you want to expand your business and sell vastly different products, then you might need to create multiple stores for it.
With Shopify Plus it’s a lot easier to create and manage enterprise level multiple storefronts. You can’t create more than one store in basic Shopify plans without also creating multiple accounts to manage those stores.
2. Translation Options
You can set up translation features in basic Shopify plans. But that will only change the language of the homepage and product pages at most. It will still show the default language in checkout pages and promotions.
When you set up multilingual stores with Shopify Plus, you get a store that has the same language on all the different pages thus offering a better user experience.
73% of users prefer to buy from a website that offers information in their local language. That shows you the importance of multilingual stores.
You can set up to 20 languages in stores with Shopify Plus plans. Each store will come with a custom URL as well. For example, your store in French will have the address www.yourstorename/fr.
3. Target Different Buyer Groups
Suppose you sell products for men and women or for kids and adults. If you have them in a single store, you’ll need to do the SEO for each target audience group on the same website.
And this can get harder to do as your store expands and you have more products.
A great way to manage products for different groups is to create multiple stores for each of them. It can help you rank better on SERPs for specific keywords and significantly improve the user experience as well.
4. Manage Multiple Price Points
Multiple stores can help you segment high-end products from low price products.
It can boost the user experience and help you manage the products conveniently. Having both kinds of products in the same store might affect your brand image.
You don’t want your customers to be confused as to who you serve. But having two different stores can help you create separate brand identities without having the two collide with each other.
5. Custom Checkout Pages
Shopify Plus users get access to Shopify scripts. Here, you can customize payment methods, checkout page layout and add unique sections. These can help you maximize sales during Black Friday or other major celebrations.
For example, you can add a script for a discount and adjust the discount percentage based on your parameters. You can use templates to create your scripts and make adjustments as required.
6. Accommodate Multiple Currencies
Although you can add plugins to your basic Shopify plans to accommodate currencies, it can get costly. But with Shopify Plus, you can do this much more accurately and for a better price since you get a lot of other features as well.
Showing the prices of products in local currencies can help improve the user experience.
7. Automated Workflows
Shopify flow and launchpad tools are exclusively available for Shopify Plus users. These can help you automate several tasks such as purchase tracking, emails, personalized product recommendations and customer segmentation.
Automation can save you a lot of time that would otherwise be spent doing mundane tasks. That can free you up to focus on growing your business rather than constantly working on your website.
As an enterprise business owner, this is nothing short of a gold mine even if you usually hire people to do these tasks.
8. Advanced Integrations
Many enterprise-level businesses work with multiple third-party apps. And in Shopify Plus, you can integrate them with your store.
That can improve your inventory and order management and allow you to offer a better experience. You can double your API call limit in Shopify Plus and you also get access to exclusive APIs that you don’t have in basic Shopify plans.
Some Challenges With Shopify Plus Multiple Stores
Setting up multiple stores on Shopify Plus comes with its challenges. Some of these include:
- Difficulties in managing inventory
- Adding products
- Processing orders
- Requires expertise to manage APIs, customers and users.
- The content management system is limited as compared to some other CMS such as WordPress.
You should contact a Shopify website development company if you need help in any of these areas.
Final Words
As the world of eCommerce is growing, so are the options for developing stores. Shopify leads the industry for small to medium-sized retail businesses. But now it’s also becoming a great option for enterprises due to its offers such as Shopify Plus plans.
If you’re ready to expand your business internationally and cater to different audiences, then Shopify Plus might be the way to go.
