In the world of large companies that sell through brick-and-mortar stores, having multiple locations is usually critical to the success of those businesses. The expectation is that if a store is successful in one location, presumably a similar store will be just as successful in another location, thereby increasing overall revenue and profit.

With online commerce, similar considerations apply, and it is common that a company may want to create multiple sites to increase its revenue. Thanks to the creativity of human enterprise and the diversity of business ideas, there is no end to scenarios that cause companies to create multiple commerce sites. We have seen companies create sites targeted to different countries, sites dedicated for business customers, and sites dedicated to particular consumers.

If you view the site of Ritz Interactive, Inc., at www.ritzinteractive.com, you will find that this company owns a number of brands, such as Ritz Camera, Wolf Camera, CameraWorld, Boaters World, and so on. Each of these brands has its own site and its own customer base.

The Jones Apparel Group (www.jonesapparel.com) owns a number of different brands, such as AK Anne Klein, Nine West, Jones New York, and many others. Each brand in turn has its own commerce site for presenting its products to consumers, such as www.anneklein.com, www.ninewest.com, and www.jny.com.

Sony’s consumer site is branded under the name Sony Style. You will find Sony Style sites for many countries, such as the United States at www.sonystyle.com, Canada at www.sonystyle.ca, and France at www.sonystyle.fr.

Staples Inc. has a site for consumers at www.staples.com and a site for business customers at www.stapleslink.com.

There is no end to these examples. In today’s corporate world, having multiple online commerce sites is no less important than having multiple branches of a retail outlet.

This prevalent concept of creating multiple sites carries with it significant benefits, but also significant costs. Experience shows that the challenges and opportunities of multiple sites are in many ways different from the traditional challenges of creating a single commerce site.

If a company has already set up a single commerce site and now wants to create additional sites, its past experience is often not sufficient to help it through the challenges of this process. The creation of multiple sites presents new problems on the level of business and project management, as well as with the underlying technology.

This book is therefore an exploration of the needs and challenges of multiple sites. In addition, the book offers approaches that may help companies achieve their multisite commerce vision.