Solid Cactus, a web design company, thinks it's a great idea to open a second web site. Okay, that's no surprise. It's good for us if you open another store on-line (unless you choose another designer!), but it's even better for you. You enjoy all the advantages of being on-line while using your second site to mine valuable research about your market, your customers and your first site.

A Niche within a Niche

Nearly all on-line stores target some corner in their respective industries. Our parent company TheFerretStore.com branched out from ferret products to sell thousands of pet related items. But Solid Cactus founders Scott Sanfilippo and Joe Palko needed information about how the products were performing, and they wanted to make specific products easier for potential customers to find, so TheFerretStore.com added 11 more web sites including RabbitCentral.com, ActiveK9.com and PetCareCentral.com. The first two sites are examples of the "niche within a niche." Pet specific listings narrow and more clearly define their niche. They started PetCareCentral.com with a deliberately general name to hit buyers who might avoid other sites because their names are too specific. Having a second, more focused store gives your customers the perception that you are specialized in that industry, and can be seen as an expert in that field

Take Chances, Make Experiments

A second web site by definition means you no longer have all your on-line eggs in one basket. You can take chances with this second, more experimental store. Try a different pricing structure. If you don't offer free delivery, try it with the new site and gauge customer reaction. If you're a full-service operation, go with rock-bottom prices, no customer service, etc. and measure the response. If you're a low-end provider, try the boutique approach with more personal service, more luxury items and treatment, etc. A second store is a marketing laboratory. A second store is where you can tinker and answer the question: "will this work?" without breaking the bank.

Be Your Biggest Competition

A second store is the opportunity to become your own biggest competitor. This is crucial. On one site you have cheap prices but you pay shipping. Another is more expensive but shipping is included. Where one is weak the other is strong. Every solid on-line business should compete with itself in earnest. In addition, a second site gets you listed on the search engines twice and doubles your chances for a sale.

Minimal Increases in Expense

Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, opening a second on-line store is not a major expense. In fact, the up-front investment in a new store might be covered by the buzz it generates. Niche stores are more focused in name and product offerings, and that focus plus good web design can make your newer, narrower site show up relatively high on many search engines. This is money to the bottom line without advertising! More targeted keywords are also cheaper when advertising with pay-per-click listings. And since you are operating the web site you don't need new warehousing or products or new customer service people. Your people already know the territory, and so do you. You can be many different companies to many different people without wrenching and risky investment.

A second web store is a solid business investment. So is a third site, but more about that later...