When I see this I think of that old saying that we all are often reminded about. "Don't place all your eggs into 1 basket". So then many will also ask How many storefronts do we need? How many storefronts is really enough? Often times we will ask ourselves do I need another storefront. If I have another storefront will I have more sales. Also, having another storefront gives me how much more exposure too. Another logical question is how many storefronts is too many.
Many questions asked, and they are all within good reason of asking too. The theory behind this sort of thing is the more stores you have the more eyes you will attract, more visitors, more traffic, and so on. Honestly there really is no right, or wrong answer to this question. You need to find what works for you, what you are capable of doing, and what you see results with that you are happy with yourself. Sorry, this is one I will not give you a definite answer to. There will be many mixed feelings, and many different views with this. All sellers are different. Some sellers find that having everything under 1 roof works for them, and they like it like that. Others find that they can do better if they break things down into different stores.
Something to consider is if you would want 1 store per product type that you will be offering, or maybe you would rather have 1 big store that will house different categories for the different products that you will sell. You will want to consider the products that you sell. Will they all be for the same audience, and customers that you will be serving. An example to use for this would like selling electronics, and clothing in the same store. Would this work, and is it appealing to you. Try seeing this through the eyes of a customer, and what would work for them too.
If you were to house everything into one place it could also be an advantage for you too. You would have more listings, more people visiting for the different things you are offering which could bring you more traffic, it could be a convenience for the customer to have it all in 1 place with no roaming around to all the different stores, and etc. It could make a little bit more work making sure you have categories to cover all products being offered. You would have 1 place where the customer would visit, browse, and ask questions for you to answer to as well. Something like this makes me think of a catalog that you would browse, and shop with. Also, another thought is the simplicity of things being in 1 place too. Not only for us, but for the customers too.
So, IF you were to split things up into different stores how many items would you have in those stores. I think of the issue where it is always discussed that having at least 100 items in your store is good for you, visibility, sales, page ranking, SEO, and etc. Could be quite helpful in the search engines too.
If you were to have separate stores would you have them all in multiple market places. Doing this you would have to consider the different locations, the fees for each one of them, and the time spent to do all of this too. Is it necessary to do all of this, and would it be of benefit for you to do this as well.
I apologize for not being able to give you 1 complete answer, but do hope this will help you consider different things before moving ahead with your thoughts. Over time I have seen many things done by many people that works for them. I have seen many sellers who have 1, 3, 5, 8, 12 shops and sometimes more. They have found for them that this works. I am thinking. . . Whew! I myself have had up to like 5-6 shops, and did not like it. I had to worry about duplicating things among the shops that google does not like. Then I had to consider being able to give each, and everyone of the shops fair time spent with them. If something sold, did I remove it from the other stores, and which stores did I have this item listed with. Also, holding things up in between the stores due to packaging, and shipping an item that has sold with 1 of the stores. The fear of the 1 item selling twice too. How do you decide which customer will get the item, and what do you tell the other customer that will not get what they thought they were purchasing.
Many years ago when I started selling online I started with Ebay, and at that time I housed everything into 1 place. I did okay with it, had no issues, and things moved right along for me too. I wish you all well with these decisions that we always have to make. I hope that this topic was able to help you think of a few things as you make your decisions with your shops for selling. Not only consider what I have mentioned here, but maybe also some other things not covered too.
Good Luck to all of you, and many Happy Sales to you as well! Thanks for visiting with LilacsNDreams. Come back to visit again soon.
