BigCommerce Multi-Storefront provides merchants with the ability to manage multiple online stores under a single BigCommerce account, simplifying operations for merchants with diverse customer bases or product lines. This feature enables ecommerce brands to target different markets, sell products through distinct brands, or cater to various regions, all while maintaining centralized control of inventory, pricing, and product information.
The flexibility of the Multi-Storefront feature allows merchants to expand their reach and cater to niche markets without the complexity of managing separate backend systems for each store.
With this all-in-one solution, merchants can reduce overhead, streamline workflows, and focus on growing their business.
In this article, you’ll learn:
BigCommerce Multi-Storefront offers immense flexibility for brands that need to manage multiple sites from a single dashboard. Let’s explore some potential use cases where Multi-Storefront would be valuable:
Many businesses prioritize worldwide expansion, and BigCommerce Multi-Storefront makes the process easier by allowing merchants to adapt their storefronts for other locations. You may create individual stores for:
This is important for implementing personalization into your BigCommerce store. For example, if an ecommerce brand established in the United States wishes to grow into the UK, it can set up a UK-specific storefront with GBP pricing, regional shipping methods, and content customized to the UK market.
Localization is crucial for brands that serve customers from several locations, and BigCommerce Multi-Storefront enables you to develop region-specific storefronts.
For example, you may have one site targeted at consumers in New York City and another for customers in Los Angeles, with each store personalized to their local culture, preferences, currency, shipping and even weather conditions.
Large ecommerce businesses with several brands sometimes require different websites for each brand to retain their unique identities. Multi-Storefront allows these firms to have their own distinct storefronts while sharing a unified product inventory. This decreases operational complexity while preserving each brand’s own identity and marketing.
A company that owns many fashion labels, for example, may utilize BigCommerce Multi-Storefront to manage unique storefronts for each brand while utilizing the same backend for inventory and orders.
When launching a new product, many merchants want to develop a dedicated website to generate buzz and highlight the product’s features. BigCommerce Multi-Storefront allows merchants to effortlessly create single-product spin-off sites without affecting their main store.
These micro-sites may be customized to emphasize the new product, provide targeted discounts, and offer a more convenient shopping experience.
Seasonal storefronts may be a game changer for brands that have fluctuating inventory or sales trends at specific seasons of the year. BigCommerce Multi-Storefront allows merchants to establish temporary or seasonal stores centered on special items or promotions.
For example, you may open a business specifically for Black Friday, Christmas, or summer discounts.
For brands who engage in events, trade shows, or pop-up stores, an event-specific storefront can offer customers special items or services. Event-specific stores can be temporary or permanent, allowing companies to profit from the excitement around the event.
Ecommerce brands looking to break into niche markets might set up several shops for different consumers.
For example, a fitness gear company may open a separate store dedicated just to yoga fans, with specific items and information that appeals to that demographic.
Creating a VIP or exclusive store is a great way to reward loyal consumers. BigCommerce Multi-Storefront enables businesses to establish invitation-only stores for their most valuable customers, providing them with unique items, discounts, or early access to new collections.
Many merchants sell to both consumers (B2C) and businesses (B2B). However, these two consumer groupings have quite distinct demands:
With BigCommerce Multi-Storefront, merchants can establish distinct B2B and B2C stores, each with a unique experience. You may provide B2B-specific pricing, private catalogs, and even provide customers login access to the B2B site while keeping a more visible B2C presence.
BigCommerce Multi-Storefront has powerful features that make managing multiple storefronts simple. Below, we’ll outline some important features and explain how they benefit your brand:
Merchants can choose to share the same products across multiple storefronts or offer different products in each store. This flexibility allows businesses to maintain consistency in their inventory while tailoring their product offerings to each audience. Merchants can even easily add custom HTML and Javascript to create even more dynamic product pages.
Each storefront can have its own unique design, styling, and branding. This is especially important for ecommerce localization or when managing different brands. You can use different themes, layouts, and colors to ensure that each storefront reflects its target audience’s preferences.
Merchants may assign a default currency to each storefront, making it easy to localize the purchasing experience. For example, a store in the United States may use USD, while one in the United Kingdom may use GBP.
Managing tax compliance across multiple regions can be challenging due to varying tax laws and rates. With BigCommerce Multi-Storefront (MSF), merchants can efficiently handle these complexities by:
This functionality ensures that merchants can operate confidently in diverse markets while providing customers with clear and accurate pricing.
With BigCommerce Multi-Storefront, you can set custom pricing for products based on the storefront. This feature is important when managing regional pricing differences or offering unique promotions for specific markets.
One of the most significant benefits of BigCommerce MSF is the ability to handle all storefronts from a single, centralized control panel. This makes it easier to manage inventory, modify products, and fulfill orders across different sites. From a single dashboard, merchants can:
Effective search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for attracting organic traffic. BigCommerce Multi-Storefront (MSF) empowers merchants with the ability to configure unique SEO settings for each storefront, which includes:
Discounts and Promotions per Storefront
Creating region-specific discounts or promotions can significantly boost customer engagement. Merchants through BigCommerce Multi-Storefront are able to tailor promotions for each storefront, allowing for diverse marketing strategies. Key features include:
Custom Payment Gateways Per Store
When selling across different regions, it’s important to integrate preferred payment gateways for a specific region. Merchants can easily establish different payment gateways for each storefront through BigCommerce Multi-Storefront.
Managing your inventory efficiently is crucial, especially when you’re juggling multiple storefronts. Fortunately, BigCommerce Multi-Storefront makes this task much simpler and more effective. Here’s how:
BigCommerce Multi-Storefront simplifies your shipping strategy with tailored solutions for different regions:
Managing multiple storefronts can quickly become a hassle, but BigCommerce Multi-Storefront makes it easier with centralized order management. Here’s how it helps:
Time-Saving: Spend less time managing orders and more time focusing on growing your business.
Now that you’re familiar with the awesome benefits of BigCommerce Multi-Storefront, let’s talk about how to get it up and running for your brand. Don’t worry—it’s pretty simple! We’ve laid out a few key steps to make the process a breeze.
Access Channel Manager from the BigCommerce Dashboard
Log in to your BigCommerce account and navigate to the dashboard. Select “Channel Manager.”
Create New Storefronts
Next, click the “Add New” button in the Storefronts section and fill in the required information, such as the store name, default currency, and region. At this stage, you can also customize the design and styling for each storefront to ensure it reflects your brand identity.
Set Up Products for Each Storefront
After creating your storefronts, configure your product catalog. Click on “Products” on the left side of your dashboard after you’ve selected your storefront. You can either share products across all storefronts or create unique product collections for each store. Set the pricing, product descriptions, and other relevant details to ensure that each storefront offers a localized experience.
Set Up Pricing
If you have different pricing strategies, this can be set up within price lists and then applied to specific storefronts by selecting “Price Lists.”
Select a Theme
You can design your storefronts to fit your business needs, whether that means a consistent look or unique styles. BigCommerce features a shared theme library, letting you apply a pre-purchased theme across all storefronts or create custom themes. Enhance these themes further with Shogun for a more personalized experience.
Configure Payment and Shipping Settings
Set up the appropriate payment gateways and shipping options for each storefront by selecting “Settings,” then click “Payment Methods.” Select “Shipping” to set up shipping options. Make sure to consider regional preferences and legal requirements when setting up payment methods and shipping logistics. BigCommerce offers 65 payment gateway integrations to choose from.
Optimize SEO and Marketing Strategies
Configure SEO settings specific to each storefront and launch targeted marketing campaigns. Create region-specific content to boost your visibility in local search results and increase engagement with your target audience. To boost SEO, merchants can install apps like Shogun to help them optimize their storefronts better.
Launch Your Storefronts
After configuring all settings, review your storefronts for accuracy and consistency. Once you’re satisfied with everything, you can officially launch your storefronts and start selling across multiple sites!
Shogun’s integration with BigCommerce Multi-Storefront brings an added layer of flexibility and personalization to your eCommerce strategy. Whether you need to create unique landing pages for each storefront or run A/B tests across your different sites, Shogun allows you to manage your content easily.
Here are a few key features that Shogun offers for BigCommerce Multi-Storefront users:
With Shogun, you can create pages for specific storefronts or publish the same content across all stores. This feature is particularly useful if you want to share certain promotions or products on some storefronts but not others. For example, if you’re running a region-specific campaign, you can ensure that only the relevant storefronts show that content.
Deliver Personalized Experiences to Each Storefront
You can easily create highly-converting personalized landing pages for each of your storefronts, adjusting the design, messaging, and product recommendations to match the preferences of your target audience. Whether you’re localizing for different countries or giving each brand its own unique look, Shogun’s page builder lets you tailor the customer experience seamlessly.
Create store-specific variants using Shogun’s A/B testing tools that enable merchants to test different elements across your storefronts, such as headlines, CTAs, and images, to see which variations perform best and make data-driven decisions.
Integrate with BigCommerce MSF
Shogun’s integration with BigCommerce MSF ensures that you can manage all your storefronts from a single platform, streamlining your workflow and making it easy to create consistent, high-quality content across all stores.
