Managing Multiple Shopify Stores | Latest Guidelines In 2024

In this article, we will introduce a deep analysis of running multiple Shopify stores, including the importance, instructions on setting up multiple Shopify stores. Furthermore, we have gathered 8 valuable apps to simplify the management of multiple Shopify stores and several tips on controlling multiple stores when running simultaneously.

Key Takeaways

• Shopify allows creating multiple stores under a single account; however, you need to purchase separate plans for each store you manage.
• There are 8 useful apps for managing multiple Shopify stores, including: Weglot, Langify, Gorgias, Reamaze, Syncio, Multify, Matrixify, 
• Tips on controlling different Shopify stores at the same time.

Can I have Multiple Shopify Stores?

Yes, you can have multiple Shopify stores using the same an email account. 

You can open multiple Shopify stores using the same email address; however, each store is controlled by a different account and can be accessed through a different admin. 

Once signed into your Shopify admin, you may switch between any Shopify stores connected to the same email address. Your Shopify stores that use the same email address are listed in the store switcher.

The Need for Multiple Shopify Stores

There are certain cases when you may want to consider running multiple Shopify stores simultaneously. Here are a few samples of those situations:

When you want to go global

When expanding internationally, you must have a solid understanding of the market you’re entering. You may reach those audiences by having a specific store for each nation.

When you want to target different segments of the audience

You should consider constructing separate storefronts for each consumer segment if your Shopify store sells a wide range of items. For instance, if you sell smart devices, you’ll want to create a store that caters to customers attracted by technological equipment.

When you want to get value from outlet shopping or other deals

Many business owners wish to offer deep discounts to get rid of the items in high inventory. However, such discount programs can devalue the brand. To attract more clients without compromising your brand, you can also establish a sub-brand on a distinct Shopify site as an outlet for lower-quality or more reasonably priced items.

Step-by-Step for setting up Multiple Shopify Stores

Below are the suggestions on crucial steps you need to take for setting up and running multiple Shopify stores at once:

Step 1: Create additional stores

Since Shopify does not have the “Create multiple stores” button so you have to add new stores manually. You will be able to find the list of stores you own under the store login screen, where you can switch between stores. 

Please note that multiple stores feature under the same plan is exclusive for Shopify Plus users only, so you may need to purchase separate Shopify plans for each store that you create.

To begin the creation of new Shopify stores, go to the Shopify login page → login to your Shopify account → click the “Create another store” button.

Step 2: Add more products → Store optimization

Once you have created an additional store, it’s time to add new products and optimize the store. You can add the same of different products in your new store (depending on the selling purpose). 

SEO is a critical part of every eCommerce business, and your multi-stores should be SEO-optimized to make it visible on Google or other search engines. Consider adding these SEO criteria to your store, including SEO content, meta information, sitemaps, robots.txt file.

Step 3:  Choose the theme you prefer

It is crucial to customer the layout and design of your Shopify store to attract customers. To do that, Shopify offers a wide range of free and paid themes that merchants can choose to customize the look of their storefront. 

Additionally, you may modify the theme and select colors that go with your brand using the Shopify theme editor. It’s crucial to keep in mind that the performance of your online business as a whole may be considerably impacted by its theme. Therefore, picking a Shopify theme that is SEO-friendly is essential. 

Step 4: Integrated 3rd-party service

For now, you might need to manually update the product information across all of your Shopify stores on a regular basis if you are setting up many stores for various locales.  To synchronize the information about the items across the stores, you could need a third-party solution like a Product Information Management (PIM) system. Jasper, Akeneo, Plytix, and other PIM-related software are some of the greatest examples.

Depending on the needs of your site, it is also crucial to link your store with various delivery partners and payment gateway service providers.

Step 5: Add another language to the site

You may need to set up separate languages for each of your businesses if you are expanding internationally with numerous Shopify stores. In the settings menu’s languages section, you may customize your Shopify store’s language preferences. When you log in to your dashboard, select “Settings” to add a new language to your Shopify website. Click the “Add a language” button and select the language you want to set up.

Step 6: Connect domain

Each of your numerous Shopify stores has to have its own unique domain. In addition to finding and buying a brand-new domain from the platform, you may transfer a name owned by a third party to Shopify. You can utilize the foreign domains if you’re setting up different stores for various nations.

Now you have finished the process of setting up a new Shopify store to add into your collection of multiple Shopify stores. If you are wondering about the detailed costs of opening these new Shopify stores, make your way to the below headings.

Fees for managing multiple Shopify stores

The total amount of fees for opening multiple Shopify stores depends on the number of stores you intend to create. For example, if you plan to open 4 new stores, you may need to spend a total of about $120 monthly on subscription fees (if each store run on the Shopify Basic plan – which costs $29/ month).

Remember that this is just the subscription fee, while other fees like themes, domain registration, apps haven’t been included. You may need to calculate your own variable costs for running each Shopify store.

Managing Multiple Shopify Stores

8 Best Apps To Help You Manage Multiple Shopify Stores

After setting up the multiple stores, merchants will need additional apps to help manage and control the stores’ operations effectively. Below are the collection of 8 best apps that can bring a huge support to your running multiple Shopify stores.

Translation Apps For Multi-Languages Store

Weglot

Pricing

• Free plan
• Starter plan: $15/ month
• Business plan: $29/ month
• Pro plan: $79/ month

Free trial lasts for 10 days

Key Features 

• Premium support available for all paid plans: high-quality support channels for all paid plans through email, live chat, phone.
• Changeable Translate button: you can customize the translate button as per your interest. 
• Automatic translation feature: Weglot automatically translates the store’s content into your customers’ language. Even the checkout language can be translated to support the payment process.
• Strong guidelines and help center: many topics are covered in the help center, like account, pricing, agency, WordPress, Shopify, and Wix. 
• Multilingual SEO optimization: your store will be automatically indexed by search engines and SEO optimized in multiple languages.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Reasonable Pricing Plans: There’s a free plan available, and even the most expensive plans only cost $79 per month. This makes it affordable for most users.
• Automatic Translation: This convenient option is great for online sellers who deal with customers in different languages.
• Free Trial: You can try it out for 10 days, and the first 2000 words translated are free. This allows you to see if it works for you without any risk.
• Simple Installation and Integration: It’s easy to set up and works well with sellers’ stores. This means less hassle for you and a quicker start to using the service.

Cons

• Low control on which content you want to translate.
• You can’t keep the translation once you cancel the subscription.

Langify

Pricing

• Basic plan: $17.50 per month

7-day free trial enable

Key Features

• Auto translation function: the content is translated and adjusted automatical for best results on clients’ experience.
• 24/7 support for paid plans: customers can use 24/7 support anytime they want if they move on with the paid plan.
• Significant SEO features: the app is integrated with various SEO features like meta description, headings setup, and keyword research to improve the store’s search engine. Also, the app helps keep the SEO properties active on-site to ensure people can find the store even when they search in a different language.
• Large language library: no limitation on the number of languages Langify can support.
• Multiple ways of Import/Export for translations: CSV, JSON, XLIFF, gettext

Pros and Cons

Pros

• 24/7 support available for all paid plans to assist clients anytime, anywhere.
• Free trial can last up to 7 days.
• Great SEO features.
• No limitation in the number of translated languages.

Cons

• Langify lacks the capability to translate products, notifications, and custom texts on the checkout page.

Customer Support Apps

Gorgias

Pricing

• Starter plan: $10/ month
• Basic plan: $60/ month
• Pro plan: $360/ month
• Advanced plan: $900/ month

7-day free trial allowed 

Key Features

• Central dashboard: manage all customers data and orders at one central dashboard for best quality.
• Automatical responses to simple requests with self-service chat: customers can instantly get the answers they want for simple inquiries.
• Orders’ management: refund, cancel, duplicate: Gorgias helps view, edit and refund a Shopify order directly within a few seconds.
• Time and efficiency analytics: measure the performance of support team with advanced statistics → improve customer experience.
• Ticketing system: make high-value-added tickets a priority.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• One central dashboard for all activities management.
• Self-service chat allows quick response to simple issues or requests.
• Good order management system.

Cons

• The difficulty of customized integrations is a challenge for merchants.

Reamaze

Pricing

• RE:AMAZE BASIC: $29/month
• RE:AMAZE PRO: $49/month
• RE:AMAZE PLUS: $69/month
• ENTERPRISE CUSTOM: $899/month

Up to 14-day free trial

Key Features

• Single inbox central dashboard: gathers email, social, SMS, voice conversations for all stores in a single inbox for better management 
• Automatical store’s latest updates: Automate common tasks and patterns with data and rules to save time and assist real-time management.
• Mass inbox to access every customer message: helps manage, modify, and create Shopify orders directly in customer support and chats
• FAQs tab for responding to users’ questions: build the online database to respond to customers’ common questions. Moreover, Reamaze uses AI to create replies, write FAQ articles, and build chatbots for supporting clients.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Automatic updates in real-time: data, rules, news.
• Huge inbox to access and respond to customers’ messages.
• The application of AI to create multiple support methods: replies, FAQ articles, chatbots.

Cons

• Users can’t use conditions in the chatbot or create a chatbot in multiple languages.

Multiple Store Admin Apps

Syncio

Pricing

• Starter: $19/month
• Traction: $29/month
• Growth: $39/month
• Pro: $69/month

14-day free trial period

Key Features

• Products sync among stores: inventory sync and real-time stock using SKU or barcode. This helps combine data like products, collections, orders, and clients. 
• Order management is available for monthly clients who pay $15 extra. 
• Product updates among multiple Shopify stores: easily automatical product updates among multiple Shopify stores.
• Capabilities of choosing what to sync and what to omit on each item: the option to customize what you want your clients to see and what not to, along with how it looks like. Sync & customize product fields such as description, price, tags, and images.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Sync products across multiple Shopify stores easily and quickly.
• Allow merchants to sync or omit what they want from each product.
• Brilliant customer support: fast and efficient.
• Up to 14 free-trial period.

Cons

• Additinal cost: order management available for an extra $15 per month.

Multify 

Pricing

• 1-2 STORES plan: $499/month
• 3-5 STORES plan: $599/month
• 6-10 STORES plan: $699/month  

Key Features

• Data sync: products, collections, orders, customers, customer service and reporting:
• Multi-admin analytics: you can view the stores’ latest statistics to see the development process, and how it can be improved. 
• Central dashboard for all operations: Manage your Shopify stores from a single, easy-to-use interface.
• Design and layout customization: customize your store to show clients what you want them to see and how it appears on-site.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Central dashboard for managing all activities at once.
• The freedom in design and layout customization.
• Impressive data synchronization.

Cons

• Expensive pricing plans: with the most expensive plan can cost $699 per month.

Store Copy Apps

Matrixify

Pricing

• Demo: Free
• Basic: $20/month
• Big: $50/month
• Enterprise: $200/month

Key Features

• Simple shop migration: within a few clicks, you can migrate data from different stores, different sources like Magento, WordPress, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Lightspeed 
• Data backup: the ability to backup and restore data quickly from the main database system.
• Import and export using various methods: Excel, Google Sheets, or CSV files 
• Schedule or auto-repeat reports: depending on users’ intent, they can schedule or auto-repeat imports for new files.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Data migration from different stores, different sources.
• Quick and efficient data backup, data restoration.
• Easily import or export data using Excel, Google Sheets, or CSV files.

Cons

• Free version is limited in functionality.
• Data export can be slow in some low-budget plans.

Store Copy – Rewind

Pricing

• UNLIMITED: $99/month

7-day free trial

Key Features

• Select a product for the whole store: easily create a copy of your store to act as a staging environment to test functions like custom code, themes. 
• Pick specific details of products for copying: You can copy a function of a desired product and add it to every other product.
• Quick and convenient store integration: allows merchants to set up a staging store quickly and integration functionality available.
• Apply changes to the live store at the fastest pace: Real-time update enables merchants to update the store fast and efficiently.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Real-time updates with all changes.
• The freedom to copy a specific product detail and add it to other products.
• Quick and reliable store integration.

Cons

• $99/ month may be the expensive costs for small businesses.

5 Tips on maintaining and managing multiple Shopify stores at once

Tip 1: Create and configure each of the stores

Shopify store owners should create and configure each store using the same process, same email address to keep the communication all in one spot.

Tip 2: Enhance the store’s search

For selling products to clients in different nations, you need to optimize each store to be relevant to your target customer segment. 

Different markets have different needs, so each store should focus on separate sales keywords and subjects. This means that you should use local keywords for each store to help people in that area find your store more efficiently. 

Also, you’ll want to use special words and phrases that people in that location actually use. Additionally, each store should have its own Google Analytics. That way, you can really understand what customers in that area like and want. Doing this lets you learn about the trends in each location and make your store even better.

Tip 3: Construct a system for real-time inventory management

If you’re running multiple stores, managing inventory can be a challenge. But with the help of Shopify-supported apps like Stock Sync, Hextom, Back In Stock, or Appikon, you can set up automatic updates for your inventory.

These apps help you track how much stock you have in real-time. This way, you can ensure you always have enough products for your customers. Using these apps, you can keep everything organized and ensure you meet your customers’ needs without extra stress.

Tip 4: Set up the Product Information Management System (PIMS)

A PIMS assists in managing product information in one centralized location for e-commerce operations. The system allocates, updates, and displays that information across all of your shops, resulting in consistent information that is updated in real-time, independent of how you show product information in each store.

Tip 5: Establish a central order management system

Centralizing your order management in one place makes it easy to control the activities of multiple stores, like purchases, returns, and refunds. The flow of information from multiple Shopify stores can be tracked easily with the help of order management systems like ShipHero since the app can help collect customers’ data and place them in order.

3 Reminders on running multiple Shopify stores

Emphasize on central theme of your stores

For running multiple Shopify stores selling the same type of products, you would want those stores to have a strong, cohesive theme, which can show the brand identity. 

For instance, with McDonald’s operations, although the items and layouts may be different, but the color schemes, image blocks, site navigation, are identical. This immediate brings customers the familiar of experiencing McDonald in their home nation, even when they are eating out at a foreign McDonald store.

Create a Help Desk to solve all clients’ issues

Help Desk covers every channel where you provide clients communication, support, service, and bring it all together in a management control center. It’s a necessary tool to assist online merchants gathers all important information at one place to manage, classify, control, and handle those data smoothly.

Adding and updating catalog items

If you sell only a few items across multiple stores, it is not too difficult to manage and control the situation. However, if you regularly launch new products, new catalogs to update the inventory, it can be more challenging for product management among multiple stores.

Make sure you can sync the data across multiple stores fast and efficiently so that with any new product or service released, all of the stores can display the information at instant. The new data should be customized appropriately so that it matches with each nation’s policy and current circumstances. 

Bottom line

It is critical for Shopify merchants to open and operate multiple stores at once if they want to develop their businesses to different customer segments, or when they want the businesses to go global. Whichever case it is, remember to follow our advice of setting multiple Shopify stores to begin the process smoothly, while choosing the appropriate apps can support your multiple stores management effectively.

Shopify Multiple Stores FAQs