Complex multinational Shopify set up - how best to approach

[SeanMcEl]

We currently run 4 stores, each on the Basic plan:

• cannyco.co.uk - UK, Norway, Iceland, Faroe Islands, South Africa, Russia and the default store for anywhere not specifically named
• cannyco.eu - all countries within the European Union (and this site is multilingual)
• cannyco.com- USA, Canada, Mexico and all South American countries
• cannyco.com.au - Australia, New Zealand, Japan 

Which are run by four separate businesses, each with their own warehouses, Google Merchant accounts, Facebook pages, payouts etc. All have the same products, branding, look and feel.

I'd like to combine them into either one or two sites (if the multilingual site is an issue for example, at least.com, .co.uk and com.au could be combined as English language sites). The ideal would be one site, using Shopify markets, different warehouse locations to fulfil etc. Each of the separate companies would still fulfil orders from the main site (cannyco.com, currently based in the US but we would shift this to the UK business) and would invoice back to the UK from the fulfilment from their stock.

As we already have the above four domains, my thoughts are to either to add .co.uk, .com.au and .eu into the respective Shopify markets OR use subfolders, so .com/uk, .com/de etc. The main reason for merging the sites would be mainly for SEO purposes and management of each store. We only have a small range of products but I'd really like to start adding more blog content to rank better. This currently means posting the same article to all 4 sites otherwise given the hreflang structure (trying to avoid duplicate content), we end up with no content on the other 3 URLs.

To complicate things further (and again, something I'd really like to simplify), each of the current 4 stores has its own Google Merchant Centre account, GA, GSC, Google Ads account etc. It's a nightmare! I believe we currently have our hreflang set up correctly so this should be fine but with one store, on the TLD cannyco.com, we could have 3 markets ('Europe', inc UK, 'Americas' & 'Australasia') and hopefully simplify things.

As you can see, it's complex. I'm currently unsure if, firstly, this is even possible and secondly, is it desirable from an SEO point of view - is the current setup hurting our SEO? Are we better off keeping all four sites as they are and trying to optimise each one (while not making each one radically different) or is it better to just have one and have only one blog to contribute to, manage etc?

Your assistance would be very much appreciated!

[kyle_risley]

Hello,

Yes, this is a thorny one. And it's definitely important, so I don't think it's a decision you'll want to make based on my hastily written reply. 🙂 

Markets does sound like a good choice if possible. You'd really want to work with someone that specializes in International SEO like Orainti (or maybe they can point you in the direction of another good agency). Depending on the size of your business, they may or may not make sense for you, cost-wise. Shopify also offers paid growth services that may be able to advise on this. 

The consolidation will be a lot of work, so I'd want you to be reasonably confident that you'll have other benefits outside of SEO. Those SEO benefits may be smaller than you expect, so you'd ideally be receiving other cost-saving or time-saving benefits to make the pain of migration/consolidation worth it. If things are working okay right now and you think this is just something you're "supposed to do" for SEO, it may be best to keep the current structure. But I hear ya, managing multiple sites, multiple GSCs, GMCs, GAs... it's a lot. But I'd definitely recommend working with a recommended international SEO consultant on this.