How to manage multiple WooCommerce stores?

WooCommerce multiple stores could be a fascinating solution for you as a store manager who has different target customers for selling your products. 

If you have ignored this opportunity till now because you think that managing multiple WooCommerce stores is time consuming and frustrating, it’s time to reconsider. 

It’s completely normal to be afraid of ongoing problems by running a WooCommerce multistore like:

• Managing products, orders, reporting, etc.
• Customizing multipe store appearances
• Updating customer and product data
• Working with multi admin panel 

But we are here to show you how struggling with multiple store management challenges could be as easy as managing one single store by utilizing the right tools and plugins.

1. Why multiple WooCommerce stores is a good idea?

Before discussing about how you can make managing multiple WooCommerce stores more convenient, it’s important to recognize if running multistores is really a good solution for your business or not.

Actually, you may need a multi WooCommerce stores if the target customers of your products are totally different. For example, consider one of the below conditions:

1. You are producing a lot of products in different lines. Also you need to sell some of them locally but others globally. So, it doesn’t make sense to offer all of them in the same online store. You have to create multi WooCommerce stores and offer the right products to the right customers in different regions.
2. You are providing various goods from different brands and they don’t have the same target audiences. For example, think about kid toys and jewelry. It’s obvious that you can’t put both of them in the same online store except you are working like Amazon.
3. You run a wholesale brand and a retail brand at the same time. Also obviously the wholesale product prices are different from retail ones. So, it’s a great strategy to lead the target customers of each business to the different stores.

There may be other reasons for running multi WooCommerce stores, such as:

• Getting in touch with customers from different countries by their own language.
• Improving SEO of each website by using the right keywords for each one.
• Enhancing customer experiences by designing different stores with suitable theme.
• Optimizing functionality, appearance, etc. according to the product type in each online store.

Whatever reason it might be, you need to know how to figure out your challenges for managing your multiple stores.

2. Is WooCommerce multisite compatible?

WooCommerce is now one of the most popular plugins for creating an ecommerce website based on WordPress. If you really want to run multi WooCommerce store, the good news is that WordPress support multi site functionality and of course WooCommerce is a multi site compatible plugin which means you can manage multiple and independent sites on a single dashboard.

However, to make it happen, you need to install and use WordPress multisite. Then some effective plugins to help you manage inventories, requests, prices, orders, coupons, etc. simultaneously.

By running multi WooCommerce stores, you have access to one “Admin Panel” but you can handle user accessibility, products, reporting, integrations, and other features individually for each store from one place.

In multiple WooCommerce stores, you can add products to each store individually. It means, you can manage which products to be displayed on which store directly from one “Admin Panel”. 

It is also possible to see all orders received from different stores on your “admin panel” simultaneously. 

Although you may wonder even managing one WooCommerce store is a big challenge and it will magnify when you run multiple stores, the complexity is not as frustrating as you think. You just need to know the most useful plugins that can help you to manage multiple stores the same as a single site.

Stay with us to make everything easier for you.

3. How to create a WooCommerce multistore?

To choose the best method for creating a WooCommerce multiple store, at first you need to decide about your hosting server. 

1. Running multistore on a same hosting server trough WordPress multisite install.
2. Running multistore on different hosting servers through standalone WordPress install.

There is not a big difference between managing stores created by these two methods for admin, the only difference is about user account. Actually, when you create multistore on the same server, you can give permission to the users to have access to all stores by creating one account, but for the other method, users must “sign up/ sign in” on the different store, separately.

The process of creating a multiple WooCommerce store, starts with downloading and installing WordPress on the main domain, which we discussed about it in “Getting started with WordPress: step1”.

Then you need to proceed the following steps:

• Install WordPress Multisite 
• Set up as many domains, subdomains or folders as you need to run multiple stores on them
• Install and activate WooCommerce
• Add some products to one of the stores
• Install a multistore management plugin
• Share products to other stores
• Manage orders, coupons, etc. by using the options provided by that plugin

4. Best methods to manage multiple WooCommerce stores

To manage WooCommerce multiple stores, it’s important to use efficient tools and plugins which are compatible with WooCommerce multistore.

In brief, those tools and plugins need to provide below functionality to help you handling multiple stores in one place:

• Centralize inventory and order management processes on the backend.
• Enable you to manage shipping, payment options, customer care, etc. for different stores in the same Admin panel.
• Sync and update product data through different stores.
• Provide a comprehensive report about every single details of different stores separately.
• Enable you to customize any features such as prices, descriptions, product images, etc. without any need to switch between multiple stores.
• Make a better experience for customers during purchase from your shop for example by integrating all purchases into one cart and checkout page.

5. Best WooCommerce multistore plugins 

WooCommerce as an open-source platform provide a lot of opportunities for experts to offer solutions for every single problem by writing codes and making them available as free or premium plugins in the WordPress respiratory or other marketplaces.

So, it’s not surprising that you can find a few plugins/solutions to help you deal with WooCommerce multistore management by doing some search or installing one of the following plugins:

Woo multistore

Woo multistore come with incredible supportive features for making WooCommerce multistore management as easily as possible for you.

The most effective functions of Woo multistore plugin

• Manage as many stores as you need from one panel even through multiple domains.
• Have access to all products of multiple stores in one inventory and featured them to be sold in each one you prefer.
• View and manage orders from one place or export a report from all or some of them as a CSV or XML file.
• Design and customize your WooCommerce multistore pages according to your customer taste differently.
• Support all types of products and enable you to add different descriptions for the same product in each store.
• Set up different languages, payment methods, currencies, etc. In each store but control and manage them from one place.

Visit: Woo Multistore plugin Page

WooCommerce API product 

WooCommerce API product plugin is a good solution if you have the same products on multiple WooCommerce stores and you need to manage all of them in one place with sync options.

The main function of this plugin is reflecting all changes you have made on the products of one store to others. It can sync all media related to the products as well as categories, tags, etc. 

The most effective functions of WooCommerce API product

• Sync inventory and reflect changes of one store to others.
• Make price adjustment for each store individually from one panel. 
• Sync product data and manage them for all stores in one place.

Visit: WooCommerce API product page

WooCommerce global cart

Installation of this plugin is not free, It worth to pay for it if you are running WooCommerce multistore for various brands and you want to establish distinct store for each one but let your customer to pay the cost of products purchased from all different stores in one cart.

The most effective functions of WooCommerce global cart

• Integrate all running stores in one environment.
• Compatible with all domain types.
• Lead customer to a single cart page even after purchasing from multiple store.
• Enable customers to have access to the multi stores by one single account. 
• Provide simple and easy to use interface for store managers.

Visit: WooCommerce multi-site global cart plugin page

WooCommerce multisite duplicator

WooCommerce multisite duplicator plugin comes with an amazing feature which can enable you to copy all of your products to WooCommerce multiple stores. Installing this Premium plugin solves one of the biggest problems of running WooCommerce multistore which is adding the same product multiple times in different stores.

By using this plugin not only you can duplicate the products in different stores but also you have access to many options to manage them easily and flawlessly.

In this plugin, you can copy everything related to one product and paste it on other products in different stores, including:

• Images
• Attributes
• Taxonomies 
• Categories
• Custom Field
• Etc.

The most effective functions of WooCommerce multisite duplicator

• Duplicating products data.
• Copy or set custom posts statuses and prefixes.
• Use any value of products in one store for other products in different stores.

Visit: WooCommerce multisite duplicator plugin page

WooCommerce product information management

WooCommerce product information management plugin has the best performance on keeping all data of multiple WooCommerce stores up to date. It can sync and reflect the new data automatically on multi stores. 

The most effective functions of WooCommerce product information management

• Provide flexible tools for stock management through WooCommerce multiple stores.
• Offer synchronization options for updating product data.
• Manage all orders received from multistores in one place.
• Run multi-language stores. 

WordPress multisite plugin for WooCommerce

WordPress multisite plugin for WooCommerce provides a user-friendly admin panel for management and development of all data in your multi stores.

The most effective functions of WordPress multisite plugin for WooCommerce

• Set different prices for the same product in multi stores.
• Offer independent Cart and Checkout page for each store.
• Control every single details of your  multi stores just from one “Admin panel”.

Visit: WordPress multisite plugin page

WooCommerce stock synchronization

WooCommerce stock synchronization plugin is an ideal option when you want to sell the same products in multiple WooCommerce stores with different prices, descriptions, etc. By installing this plugin, you can keep the inventory up to date and make sure that all important data such as stock list, orders, sales, refunds, etc. are synchronized precisely all over your stores.

Putler plugin

Putler plugin enables you to have an eye on everything in real-time on your multiple stores. By installing this plugin, there is no need to switch between your WooCommerce store panels instead you have access to a powerful and comprehensive admin panel with a lot of amazing tools to monitor, manage and grow your business.

The most effective functions of Pluter plugin

• No limit for connecting WooCommerce multistores.
• Easy setup and installation.
• User friendly panel for monitoring and managing everything.
• See a comprehensive report about all details of your multistores such as transactions, orders, sales, etc.
• Search among the customer data.

Visit: Putler plugin Page

6. The best WooCommerce multistore themes

WooCommerce themes supporting multi stores are another helpful tool for managing various tasks through multiple online stores. Installing multistore themes improve the functionality of your websites and provide you a lot of options to design each store according to your customer taste with different layouts, carousels, Ajax features, etc.

We have already introduced the best WooCommerce themes to you, but in this post, you can get familiar with the best WooCommerce themes for multistore:

Wendy

Wendy as one of the best premium themes that support WooCommerce multistore comes up with 6 different layouts to help you design each store with different style just by installing one theme.

A lot of incredible features are also provided in this WooCommerce theme to improve your customer experiences, including:

• Dynamic layouts for creating attractive WooCommerce store.
• Quick view and zoom for product pages.
• Image or video carousel. 
• Sales countdown.
• Contact form 7.
• Google maps.

MultiShop

Multishop enables store managers to handle multistore with different product ranges and categories effortlessly. Working with powerful tools and options offered by this premium theme for designing multiple stores is absolutely simple.

You can customize each store according to your product types to be desired for your target audiences. After installation of this theme, you will be connected to a support team and a well-organized documentation that can help you the control and manage everything by getting help from them.

The good news about this theme is the possibility of using a lot of amazing prebuilt demo for product pages. so, you can easily pick them on your different stores and personalize each one in a few minutes.

Visit: Multishop theme page

Wanium

Wanium is perfectly compatible with WooCommerce multistore environment by offering multiple header and footer layouts, perfect integration to other social media links, displaying live preview, customization tools, multi language options and etc.

The most amazing feature of Wanium theme that makes it very spectacular is showing spectacular popups to encourage visitors sign up to each store individually.

Offering various homepage models makes designing WooCommerce multistore more convenient for you. You can easily choose one of them for each store and start updating your data to sell products in multiple stores.

Although Wanium is a premium theme but it worth to buy it because a lot of powerful functions provided by this theme such as being translation ready and SEO friendly.

Visit: Wanium theme page

Sober

Sober is among the most professional WooCommerce theme support multiple stores with offering 12 different homepage layouts. These layouts are designed to be used for different product categories. So, you can easily find the appearance which is appealing for your target audiences according to the types of products you want to sell in each store.

The main features of Sobar theme include:

• Support multi language.
• Offer SEO friendly options.
• Responsive to be displayed on mobile devices.
• Provide ample options compatible with different product ranges.

sober theme page

Conclusion

If you think running a WooCommerce multistore is a key solution for your ecommerce business, there is no need to postponed getting through it just because you are afraid of its consequences for managing or handling different websites.

Multistore management could be easily done by using the best tools and plugins we introduced in this post.  They can provide you powerful tools and options to integrate the data of all multistores on one admin panel and try to customize, update and manage everything at once without any need to switch between multiple stores back ends.

By using these spectacular themes and plugins you just need to focus on your marketing strategies to attract more customers and boost your sale. 

FAQs