Multi-Channel Strategy: Running Multiple Stores
When it comes to e-commerce, there are many solutions that each seller can implement to establish digital stores and branding. Running multiple stores across different channels is an effective way to increase brand awareness and exposure, while also enabling to boost conversion rates. However, there are aspects that should be considered to ensure that extending across multiple channels does not have a negative impact on each store.
Why?
There are multiple reasons associated with selling on different channels. For instance, each channel has distinct features and appeal for customer demographics. Targeting the desired customer segments becomes easier when you can identify which is their preferred platform.
Marketplaces such as Amazon are product-driven, showcasing mass amounts of product listings, prioritising high-volume sellers and low prices. Sellers can add their offerings and become successful in a niche but are unable to showcase their brand to the same extent as individual stores, like Shopify. By combining two or more channels, there is a greater scope of customers that can be reached, offering more USPs that can lead to conversions.
For sellers offering multiple brands, or product sets which aren’t related, it can be beneficial to separate them into stores which are more suitable. Through this method, the chances of conversion are maximised as your listings will be suited to the desired target user.
Sellers which offer and ship products to international markets should be particularly aware of each of the channels. Cultural and current trends often influence the ways in which different locales will approach online shopping, and therefore it is worth researching which channels are popular within a region and the reasons why consumers have chosen them. This can also be the case within user sub-segments, such as gender, age, location or occupation affecting the shopping patterns of users within the same location.
The Challenges
As there is no individual solution or application for all businesses, each channel requires a different approach. Still, there are practices which can increase the chances for store success.
When using multiple stores to target different international markets or consumer segments, each store needs to be optimised individually to make content and offerings relevant to the target demographic. This involves targeting local keywords, creating country-specific offers, varying site design and creating locally relevant content that will appeal to the customer.
To assist with maintaining accurate inventory management, it is worth investing in a real-time inventory system. This will prevent overselling and decreasing the fulfilment errors, and ultimately ensure that customers don’t have a bad shopping experience. By centralising stock, it also helps you to keep track of all items without the use of multiple platforms.
Centralising order management is necessary for handling a large volume of purchases across stores. Features such as inventory syncing, automation rules for inventory distribution, and order aggregation and fulfilment can make a difference in the speed and accuracy of each order completed.
If you have any additional questions or want to find out which solutions can be tailored to help with fulfilling business requirements, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team.