You have opened a dropshipping store, and now you know what really takes into growing one. After putting so much effort, your store is currently getting a good number of customers, plus, you are able to generate hefty profits. Your business gets automated completely, and the efforts you have to put in as compared to previous days, is very less.
Sounds like you? If yes, setting up a new store would make much sense at this stage. Because after all, relying on just one store would not help you make millions, but two-three stores can definitely be much more worthy and profitable! Yet, if you are still having double thoughts about running multiple dropshipping stores, we'll break the ice for you.
Running multiple dropshipping stores was/is never impossible, and it never would be in the near future. But yes, since you'll earn double profits with double sources, the efforts you will have to put in would double up too. And if you are ready to take up this challenge, trust us, the outcomes would be much more rewarding than you have ever thought.
The decision of whether to start out one more store completely depends on you, but as always we would guide you in the right direction with our years of experience!
In this article, we will walk you through the reality of starting out multiple dropshipping stores, benefits and a few tools that would help you run two stores efficiently.
So, let's get started!
Is it Possible to Run Multiple Dropshipping Stores?
Before coming to running multiple dropshipping stores, you might have a question: why just dropshipping as a second income idea, and why not other businesses? We all know, starting out with dropshipping is extremely easy, you don't need to invest heavily both on inventory and supply chain, it's just the marketing you have to worry about. When you already have a store, and thinking about opening another one, the process gets a lot easier.
In fact, what remains different here is – you'll have to open two stores, then plan twice the marketing budget. But, did you know that not every platform allows a person to run multiple dropshipping stores from one account? However, this should not be a BARRIER FOR YOU! Because to your surprise, there are several Ecommerce platforms already available to help you with this issue – Shopify being an amazing one!
The only downside with Shopify is, you will have to pay more, and by more we literally mean $2000 per month more (That's huge!). But if you are extremely sure about your store, that it would bring out great profits to you, then this should not be a loss factor for you. Shopify even allows users to run multiple stores very smoothly with its amazing features, and if you are interested much, don't forget to check out their – Shopify Plus Plan!
Now, you have made up your mind to set up multiple dropshipping stores – remember, as mentioned previously, it's not just about the stores. You literally have to build social media pages for each store, work extensively on marketing, and invest a bit more on multiple dropshipping stores.
*(Like always, we don't want you to keep in dark, hence, find some exciting dropshipping tools at the end of the article, that would help you boost your second store)
Why Should You Run Multiple Dropshipping Stores?
3 Reasons stating why you should consider running multiple dropshipping stores!
To get more specific, in this section, we will try to give you a deeper insight on how running multiple dropshipping store can benefit you, and trust us, it's going to be worth it!
International Expansion Opportunities
If you have been running your dropshipping store for quite a while now, you would know how differently a product sells at different geographical locations. Basically, the demand of each product varies depending upon the location a customer stays. They have different shopping habits, needs, and lifestyles. Having multiple dropshipping stores for different countries would help you offer localised products to each audience.
The best thing about using Shopify for this purpose is, it allows Dropshippers to set up a target market for each store. For example, if you are selling products in the UK, there is a features available for users to add regionally exclusive products, and the pricing will be in pounds.
Targeting More Audience Portions
Selling multiple products on a single dropshipping store can get quite daunting at times. This is because you will not be able to target just a section of customers, leading to major inconveniences to both consumers and your brand. But if you have multiple dropshipping stores, each having its own unique selling products, and each store targeting only a specific category of customers, the brand building process gets a lot easier.
For example, if you are into clothing, and wishing to add health supplements to the product line, you can open another store, all dedicated to health supplements. In this way, customers who are interested in clothing will visit your STORE 1, whereas customers who are into health supplements will visit STORE 2.
Sub-Branding Opportunities
Since both the dropshipping store will be dedicated to just a niche, you will get great sub-branding opportunities. This is because, in your store you are not adding multiple products from different niches, instead you would be adding more similar products, and the customers will get more options to sort from.
For example, if you are into clothing, you can give multiple discounts, launch similar products that are affordable, premium products that are more in demand in the market, and make your customer stay connected to the store for all their clothing needs.
Sub-branding basically would never let you compromise with your brand name, your brand instead would stand out more unique than others!
Pros and Cons of Running Multiple Dropshipping Stores
No individual would really like to start out a new business, or a new dropshipping store (to be specific) without knowing the benefits, so here are the pros!
Pros of Running Multiple Dropshipping Stores
1. Multiple Income Streams
The first and the most important benefit of running multiple dropshipping stores is undoubtedly the hefty profits you would earn. For example, the fitness niche is quite trendy nowadays, and the sooner you jump into it, the more income you will grab at an early stage. Personally speaking, behind the glory of dropshipping stores stays the hard truth that has to be checked out quite often. If you are running a store, you would know how competitive the market is.
Everyday a new player joins the bandwagon, and a new competition thus pops up. Next, comes the supply chain issue, mostly many dropshipping sellers rely on a single supplier for a product, hence, the products for different reasons end up being the same. Hence, to cut this issue off, you must always have an additional income source, so it can be two dropshipping stores, three, four, or five to the max. It all depends on you, and your capacity! To be honest, every business has its peak days, and the growth graph, some or the other day goes down. So to avoid this loss, you must always have an alternate option ready for you.
If you are still not content with this idea, we'll give you more relevant reasons for you to understand. Facebook ads play a major role in the growth of any dropshipping store, and what if the account of that specific store gets banned for some reasons? What if your PayPal account gets banned? Uncertainty is very common to any business, but if you'll have one more dropshipping store, you will be able to run it smoothly, till the time the first one gets ready to run on the track!
2. Diversify Product Portfolio More Cleverly
Many dropshippers have been running one-product stores, and that's quite a brilliant idea. Because the more the refined products are, the more the targeted audience would come to the store. But does this mean you should always stay that one-product store owner? Well, not really! The market out there is highly volatile, the list of trendy niche/products keeps on changing every day. What's more surprising here is, the early you hog on to trends, the quicker the profits!
Hence, DON'T STAY COMMITTED TO A PRODUCT, EXPERIMENT! EXPERIMENT! AND EXPERIMENT, AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!
*You would never know what lies in the future (maybe your current store is making profits of about $5000 per month, but the next niche would make $1000, who knows the future)
Although having multiple dropshipping stores may seem like a profitable idea, there are still several downsides to this plan, which we would like to highlight a bit in the cons section!
Cons of Running Multiple Dropshipping Stores
1. Might Get Exhausting!
Since you have been running a dropshipping store for quite a while now, you would know there are several problems Dropshippers deal with – like customer service, payments gateway issues, marketing issues, and more. So, running two dropshipping stores means twice the issues, twice the exhaustion!
Since you will be diversifying your stores, you will see a lot of product data related issues too. Everything will get messier in the first place, which directly shows that you will have to spend more time.
From content building, to branding, to marketing, building focus and giving attention to each store won't be an easy task. On some days, you will even give more attention to the new store, and for that reason, your old store would end up getting neglected. In the worst case scenario, you will get frustrated which in result would worsen the quality of both the stores.
2. More Investment
After time issues, next comes investment, which definitely has to be taken into consideration while starting out with a new dropshipping store.
Let's get to the reality, if you want more profits, you will have to work on your investment part too. Hence to not keep you in the dark, we'll give you a gross structure of how much a new dropshipping store would cost (obviously here you are not starting out from scratch)!
- Ecommerce Site Charges: Since in this article, we have taken Shopify into consideration, we would share their pricing. When it comes to building an e-commerce site, Shopify has three plans dedicated to the same. The basic ones would cost you $29 and of course very limited features, while on the other hand, the advanced ones will cost you $299. For the initial stage, a $79 plan would best suit you, since it comes with a fair amount of features for your store to grow. Apart from this, you will even have to pay 2.4% – 2.9% credit card fees.
- Theme Charges: Themes do play a major role in attracting customers, hence you will have to spend a few dollars here too. When it comes to paid themes, the charges for the same are between $1 to $200.
- Domain Charges: Buying a domain for your dropshipping stores is quite an obvious cost, and if you are thinking of buying a premium domain, be rest assured to pay $300+. You will even have to pay a few dollars more for business emails.
All in all, before starting out with one more dropshipping store, be comfortable with losing $500 – $1000 in the name of investment (but it will bring in more revenue).
Tips to Set Up and Manage Multiple Dropshipping Store (Guide on Running Multiple Dropshipping Stores)
With the pros and cons listed above, the next step is to kick start your dropshipping journey a bit more by opening yet another dropshipping store.
The very first thing you would need to start out a new store is to automate the one you owned previously, so that you get good time for the newer one. Next, comes the optimization part, you will have to work a lot on optimizing your new store to the new target audience. And for this, you will have to learn your new target market, their buying patterns, and the demand.
For this purpose, you can try Google Trends – a tool that would help you build your store with products having higher market demand. You will even have to work more on your customer support service. To not to lose track on any customer issues, don't fret out to take help of email or ticketing systems – this will ease your work at a higher pace.
Also read: How to Use Google Trends for Dropshipping Store? (A Comprehensive Guide)
Best Dropshipping Tools that Help You Running Multiple Dropshipping Stores (Top 3 Pick)
Need more help with running multiple dropshipping stores? Consider these tools for hassle-free business!
1. Dropshipme
Dropshipme is an excellent WordPress plugin that gives Dropshippers access to best performing products in the market. This tool will help you a lot with core inventory management. Setting it up is also very easy, and the best part, you can start using the tool for free. To know more about Dropshipme and its features, check out our latest Dropshipme review!
2. ShipStation
After inventory management, comes the shipping issues which many dropshippers face a lot of time. Just like the name suggests, ShipStation is an exclusive shipping software for your store. You can import orders from all your dropshipping stores (if you own two stores) into one single dashboard. The further processes are thus automated by the tool itself, your customer will be constantly notified about their order status.
3. Stitch Labs
Stitch Labs in simpler words is an all-in-one tool, helping dropshippers with inventory management, order management, fulfillment management, and reports & analytics. With this tool, you will get a firm hold on your business, and lastly, it integrates well with popular Ecommerce stores like Magento, Shopify, and more!
Conclusion: Should you really run multiple dropshipping stores?
Finally, here comes the section where we are about to answer the question asked above – Can a person run multiple dropshipping stores? Definitely YES!!
Anybody can run multiple dropshipping stores, but the only thing they have to be sure about is their time and investment. Be it one, two, three, or even five, any number of dropshipping stores needs time and money to grow. You have to find the best route for yourself, and with this being said, automation is the key!
Our only suggestion to you, if you are thinking of running multiple dropshipping stores is – Start out when you have enough time for it, don't do it just because everyone is doing it. You don't have to hurry!
Got a heck lot of information with this article? Well, we have so much more for you. Stay tuned to ‘DropTweaks‘ to explore more such tweaks related to dropshipping and grow your business like never before!!