Pros and cons of running 2 businesses

I started My Event Décor in January 2017 to market products to corporate event designers and marketing managers. My Wedding Décor, which I began in April 2015, aims coupleswedding planners, and stylists.

I addressed My Event Décor in January, at”The challenge of establishing another website.” In this post, I will deal with the advantages and disadvantages of running two ecommerce websites.

Pros

Harness different markets. The obvious advantage is I can reach distinct market shoppers: event professionals in 1 case, and mostly individual consumers from the other.

Cross sell. Once I have got customers on a single website, I will pitch the next company to them (in a sensitive and timely fashion ).

By way of instance, marketing managers who order through My Event Décor for a corporate occasion might be planning their wedding and therefore could use My Wedding Décor. Likewise, My Wedding Décor clients might have to arrange an expo rack, product launch, or charity fundraiser for their own company.

Reach multiple geographical locations. My Wedding Décor centers on Melbourne rentals while My Event Décor centered on things for lease in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. Fifty-two percentage of Australians live in these three cities.

Sixty percent of orders across both sites for purchase and lease are for metropolitan Melbourne, with 9 percent sent to Sydney and 5% to Brisbane. The remaining 25 percent of earnings is to the other capital cities and regional areas.

Harness different peak seasons. Australia is big. The distance from Hobart, Tasmania to Cairns, Queensland is 1,791 miles, more than the 1,360 miles from Miami, Florida to Portland, Maine. There are several peak seasons for events because of the widely differing climate zones.

The southern hemisphere spring through to mid-fall period — November through March — is peak season for warm weather weddings from Brisbane south to Hobart.

From Brisbane to Cairns, however, few men and women schedule weddings or corporate events as a result of heat, humidity, and rain. Rather, northern Queenslanders generally hold their events during late autumn through winter to mid-spring — May through October. This assists My Event Décor because period is traditionally quieter for events in the southern Australian states.

While orders from Queensland include 11 percent of overall earnings, 60 percent of are from regional areas where they can’t access event décor products. I’m interested to see how much effect My Event Décor makes in 2017 and beyond.

Maximize inventory. I list on both websites the very same products for weddings and corporate events, with unique names, meta tags, and one of a kind copy depending on the website. Thus I can optimize the leasing turnover of my merchandise by having it recorded twice in various ways.

By way of instance, peacock chairs are popular with bridal couples for their wedding ceremony table photographs while they appeal to particular companies who employ them as props for expo stands, shop openings, and product launches.

More revenue. An expanded reach leads to more revenue. I progressively receive emails and phone calls for my Melbourne office from Brisbane event managers wanting to plan an event in Sydney, or vice versa. The market products available on My Event Décor can help me shut enquiries for that site. In actuality, My Event Décor has earned 24 percent of my total revenue for the two businesses because it launched in late January 2017.

Cons

Higher expenses. I pay more to have two domain names, two Shopify carts, and two collections of processing fees and apps, and of course printed business materials. I’ve spent tens of thousands this year on site design, search engine optimization, and newsletter design.

SEO challenges. Each item requires unique copy and meta tags to avoid being penalized for duplicate content. This takes substantial time.

Google Maps challenges. Only recently I found My Event Décor wasn’t recorded on Google Maps because, while My Wedding Décor speech was verified, the more recent site was showing as a duplicate address. Since fixing it by revising the speech somewhat, the special visits to My Event Décor in July have climbed 54 percent over the same period in June.

More product sourcing. Two companies means more product sourcing is needed to present a special range across both sites. I also need to source products for just two other states, in addition to nationally.

Inventory-management challenges. If a client hires items from My Event Décor which are also on My Wedding Décor, I must block it out on the latter website.

Delivery challenges. Which site order takes priority for shipping? I am currently juggling earnings and gain against time limits for lease orders, which typically demand delivery to the same day.

Time constraints. Two sites significantly increase the volume of emails, text messages, phone calls, and live chat. This means that I have less time to write blog posts and social networking updates even though those are vital for promotion. I’m spending increased time only managing bookings and quotes and less time on business management with two sites. I must ascertain how best to handle my one-day-per-week employee.

How have you handled running two site companies?