Ultimate Guide to Creating and Managing Multiple Shopify Stores for Your Brand

By Roberto Senabre

If you are reading this, it is probably because you are considering creating new Shopify Stores to expand your business or to offer the right experience to customers in a different market, the problem is that you don’t know how and it is getting annoying.

Or maybe you have already gone through that step, but managing those stores has become a complete headache, and they are not working as you wanted them to.

In any case, you’ll find the help you were looking for in this article, answering all your questions and doubts and giving you the tools to make the best out of your Shopify Stores.

Reasons to open Multiple Stores

First of all, why? Do I really need to create multiple stores? Each case is different, but we have picked the two main reasons you must consider:

Expansion Store. If you have globally dispersed teams that independently manage operations depending on the market, selling cross-border using multiple stores is a good idea. You will be able to sell and get paid in different currencies and use different strategies, making everything easier and more effective.

For example, you’re selling only in Europe, but you get a lot of visitors from the US, so you create a new store with their currency, different products, and a specific strategy to get the most out of it.

Outlet Store. When some of your products are out of season, this is an excellent way to still make them profitable. You can create a new store with all these items, selling them at lower prices to reach a different kind of customer and keep your main store updated with your last collections.

For example, the yellow shirts season is over, so you put all those yellow shirts in your Shopify Outlet Store.

Advantages and Disadvantages of opening multiple stores

Creating multiple Shopify stores is not the only way to create personalized experiences and sell in other countries. Since September 2022, you can also do it with Shopify Markets.

So you must consider these good and bad points about creating multiple stores before making any decision.

Now, imagine that you are an international brand with a huge secondary market but with a different currency, and you want to receive all the payments of that secondary market in the local currency, so when Shopify pays you, you will be avoiding fees for currency conversion by opening Multiple Shopify Stores, if you had Shopify Markets you could only get paid in one currency.

Having a store just for that market will simplify all the operations. Besides, if you have independent teams, they will only have access to their markets.

But this can also be a disadvantage because if you don’t have independent teams, you would be duplicating operations, as you must manage your operations as many times as stores you have.

FAQ

Now, you probably have some crucial questions about opening new Shopify stores. Let’s answer them.

How many Shopify stores can I have?

It depends on the plan you have and on your needs.

For example, you can have up to 10 stores with Shopify Plus, but only one with the other plans (Basic, Shopify, or Advanced Shopify).

In this last scenario, if you want to open more stores, you must create new accounts for every store and pay a new plan per account.

How can I open multiple stores?

Shopify Plus

With this plan, you can have up to 10 stores (your main store + 9 expansion stores). For additional ones, you will have to pay an additional fee ($250/month per store).

To create an Expansion Store in your Shopify Plus account, simply log in and click on the "Create Expansion Store" button. If you want to explore the specifics of Shopify Expansion stores in more detail, we recommend reading our dedicated article on the topic.

It is essential to know that if you have multiple brands under the same company, you will need a separate Shopify Plus contract per brand.

Basic and Advanced Plans

As we said before, If you have any other plans, you must create a new paid account for each new store. However, you can register all your stores under one email address, and with the help of some apps that you can check below, managing them will be easier.

So go to the Shopify website, click the “Get Started” button, and create your new store as you did with your main one.

How much does it Cost to Open Multiple Shopify Stores?

Depending on the plan you have with Shopify and your kind of business, it can be very different.

Let’s start with Shopify Plus, which has a starting price of $2,000/month or a personalized fee based on commissions (for higher volume business). This plan allows you to have 9 expansion stores besides your main one. If you need to open even more than 10 stores, you can do it for an additional $250/month fee.

Now, If you have any of the other plans: Basic Shopify ($36/month), Shopify ($105/month), or Advanced Shopify ($384/month), as we said before, you will have to create a new account for each new store, and in each one of them, you will have to get a new plan.

And don’t forget that if you have stores with different plans, you will also have to pay for some of the apps in all your stores.

For example, if you have one store with Advanced Shopify ($384/month) and you create a new one with Basic Shopify ($36/month), you will pay a total of $420 per month.

Apps to manage multiple stores efficiently

So having multiple expansion stores can be messy, that’s why these apps are the perfect tools to manage. Let’s take a look!

Orbe

We start with an app that will provide you with the best geolocation experience for all your users.

Because you can have Multiple Shopify Expansion Stores for each important market, but if the user doesn’t get redirected properly to that store, all the money and effort that requires will be lost. The worst of it is that you have that experience, and that potential client wasn’t able to find it.

Orbe will synchronize automatically with your Shopify Markets configuration and will connect all your Expansion Stores, recommending (with a customizable popup) the right experience to your users depending on their IP address, respecting the data protection laws and with SEO features that will make your online positioning more efficient.

Summing up, Orbe is essential to expand your business and not lose international customers.

For connecting stores, you can get Orbe for $49 per month for a maximum of five stores. In case you want more stores, you have to contact the team through the Live Chat.

Try It for free with the 7-Day Free Trial in the Shopify App Store

Learn more

Global-E

Another helpful tool for your expanding business, Global-e will eliminate all the trouble and stress of selling cross-border.

It will cover all your needs to expand your brand worldwide in a simple way through one integration and will provide a fully managed solution with an analysis of the best market practices for each country.

Global-e will make End-to-end Operations much easier, covering all your international logistics and dealing with Regulations and Import Procedures, which is useful if you sell in many markets and don’t have local teams.

You should contact them through their web to learn how it can boost all your international sales.

Learn more

Translate & Adapt

If your users can’t understand your store, you will end up losing a client. That’s why it is essential to make sure that your store is in the right language in each market.

Free and developed by Shopify, this app will automatically translate your Shopify Store up to two languages for free, and manually, as many translations as you need.

They provide a side-by-side editor that will make it easier to compare and review your translations. It can also be used to adjust content between markets that speak the same language.

Learn more

Pluglin

This app will also help you translate your stores, so you can give the best experience to the user and save a lot of time. Pluglin will allow you to translate automatically (through AI) your store to any language with an easy setup.

You don’t need to know translation or programming. All the content and design that you have in Shopify Store will be automatically translated, and It will keep all the features of your store localized to the new languages.

You will have access to a Control Panel, which will help you control and manage all the translations comfortably. You can also demand professional translations through the app for an additional fee.

Besides their Free plan, you can choose between another three, from $9.99/month up to $49.99/month.

Learn more

ReturnGo

When you have multiple stores in different markets, dealing with the post-purchased operations gets harder. This app will help you with that, allowing you to manage the refunds of all your stores with just one tool.

You will give all your users a nice experience in a return portal, simplifying product exchanges, gift returns, and order cancellations. You can also customize your return and exchange policy rules, eligibility conditions, resolutions, and return reasons, optimizing your returns workflow.

With four different plans, you can get the app from $17/month up to $850/month.

Learn more

Multifeeds for Google Shopping

Google Shopping is essential for any store, and you must make sure that your user sees the right products in their markets.

Multifeeds for Google Shoping will help you to send your products to Google Shopping. You will also be able to personalize any detail and synchronization with all the data of your store: products, taxes, etc.

You will need to install the app on each store and pay for a separate subscription for each one.

For example, if you have one store for the US Market and another one for the EU Market, the app will help you to make sure that your US Market products will appear in Google Shopping US and the EU Market products in Google Shopping EU.

It also supports Shopify Markets and most Shopify translation apps.

The pricing goes from Free up to $75.95/month.

Learn more

Multistore Sync

You will probably have specific products for each market, but some of them will be the same in all your stores, and the more stores you have, the more products you have to synchronize.

That’s why this app will save you a lot of time synchronizing your inventory, products, and collections automatically.

The app creates an intuitive process of making sure that your products are the same in every store you have, automatically updating your inventory in all your stores and locations when there is a new order, refund, cancellation, or restock.

It has four different pricing plans, from free (25 products per connected store) up to $49.99/month (5,000 products per connected store).

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Gorgias

Customer support will always be essential to offer users a good experience and have more chances to make that client buy again in your store. But if you have multiple stores, giving an excellent service is much more difficult.

Gorgias will help you with that, unifying all support conversations, centralizing every order, every conversation, and even every social media comment and DM, all in one customer ticket view.

You can also view, edit, and cancel Shopify orders without leaving the Gorgias customer view and provide instant answers to make to be more efficient.

The app has a 7-Day free trial and four different pricing plans, starting at $10/month up to $900/month.

Learn more

Our goal is that you now have a better understanding of how to create and manage multiple Shopify stores, and that you're equipped with the necessary tips and tools to expand your business effectively.

If you require additional assistance with your Shopify store, please feel free to explore some of the related articles!

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