Building the stores

[lewco]

This is a great forum on SS. I am new and seeking advice and/or opinions on how to build the store fronts.
Is it better to build a store for each individual market niche or build a general store with many niche catagories and sub-catagories.  
Also which is better to use for each niche, a sub-domain or sub-directory.  I only have a couple of domains presently, so I am trying to set up the stores using those domains.

[Omar]

If you will build general stores and target general market, it would be pretty hard to get ranked. It will also take quite some time to build a store too. I'd say would be better to build niche stores, even if you build them on subdomains. Make sub, install, build niche store, move on to next, and so on.

[lewco]

Thanks Omar for the guidance, I will change direction now!

Lew

[Crazeet]

Good advise Omar,

I'd say would be better to build niche stores, even if you build them on subdomains.

The only drawback with it is a lot of hosting packages limit the number of databases you have. That's why I put in a feature request to have the option of adding a prefix to the database on installation so you could use the same database for all the different subdomains.

[leesr]

Would it be necessary or advisable to set-up a new mysql for each install on the same DOMAIN, or could they all share the same mysql, using different user-names/passwords. (I don't know mysql or sql -- but THINK it would set-up different TABLES for each user-name.   Huh?)

Thanks,

[Omar]

It will require separate DB even if use another user.