The multi-storefront advantage: How to scale your ecommerce business

This post explores what a multi-storefront is, why it's needed, and when it can benefit your business.

What is a multi-storefront for ecommerce?

Multi-storefront ecommerce enables businesses to manage multiple sales channels – different websites, marketplaces, or even physical locations. The goal of a multi-storefront is to increase the reach of your business and sell your products or services in multiple places through a single ecommerce backend.

What are the typical use cases for multi-storefront?

Multi-storefronts allow online stores to use multiple websites across several domains. Each storefront can have different catalogs, products, brands and customers that all come from a single ecommerce backend. There are several scenarios in which a multi-storefront can be beneficial for an ecommerce business. Some examples include:

Use Case #1: Running multiple product lines

By creating separate online stores for each product line or brand, businesses can target different customer segments more effectively. A clothing brand with multiple product lines, such as sportswear, casual wear, and formal wear, can create separate online stores for each product line. This approach can help increase sales and revenue for each product line and improve brand image. By targeting different audiences differently – using different branding, messaging, and pricing – customers get an improved experience.

Use Case #2: Selling in multiple regions or languages

By creating separate online stores for each region or language, businesses can make it easier for customers in these markets to find their products using their language and purchase them using local payment and shipping options. This can help increase sales and revenue in each region or language, as well as improve the customer experience. 

Use Case #3: Running both B2B and B2C sales

Many businesses sell products to both consumers and other businesses, and a multi-storefront can help them create separate online stores for each sales channel. This allows businesses to target each audience more effectively, which can help increase sales and revenue for both B2B and B2C sales channels.

Use Case #4: Selling products through multiple sales channels

By using a multi-storefront, businesses can sell through different channels and manage them in one place. This makes it easier for them to track inventory, process orders, and more, helping increase efficiency and reduce costs.

What are the benefits of multi-storefront commerce?

Growing your brand internationally no longer requires launching a separate backend for each market. Building a presence in new regions or customer segments – or launching unique brands can be managed from a single backend, resulting in a number of benefits:

Reduced maintenance costs

By eliminating the need to manually admin each store and copy product information between stores. Running a multi-storefront ecommerce store, brands can vastly streamline their operations and increase time to market when launching in new regions.

Increased reach

Using marketplaces as additional storefronts for your brand can help you build reach by attracting a large number of customers already using the marketplace, providing sellers with greater visibility and the potential for more sales.

Increased flexibility and scalability

With a multi-storefront, businesses can easily add or remove sales channels as needed without having to rebuild their entire ecommerce platform. This allows businesses to quickly adapt to changes in the market or customer demand. Additionally, a multi-storefront can also help businesses expand their reach by allowing them to sell their products or services in multiple places at once.

Simplified localization

By creating separate online stores for different regions or languages, businesses can make it easier for customers to find products in their preferred language or region. From growing sales in new regions with localized storefronts, managing multiple brands, or customizing your offer for a new customer segment – you can do it all from a single dashboard.

With multi-storefront, you can show different versions of the store customers around the globe using different:

• Themes

• Widgets

• Scripts

• Social links 

• Product pages

• Product descriptions

• Local currencies

• Transactional emails

• Newsletters

• Pricing with localized price lists

• Shipping methods

• Create unique product filtering options and apply custom templates

We explore different personalization strategies and techniques in another article on the blog.

Increased revenue and conversion rates

By expanding the reach and improving the customer experience, businesses can attract more customers and increase sales. Separate online stores for different product lines or brands allow businesses to target different customer segments more effectively without cheapening the brand – which can help increase revenue and conversion rates.

Conclusion

A multi-storefront for ecommerce can help a brand to expand its reach and improve its online presence, allowing for separate online stores for different regions or languages, or sales channels, allowing them to reach new customers and improve their sales. 

Multi-storefronts are increasingly gaining popularity as this approach translates into increased flexibility, scalability, and improved customer experience – and ultimately offers a boost to revenue and conversion rates. 

To get a taste of how Centra can help your business implement a multi-storeftont strategy, book a demo.