There are two affiliated brick & mortar retail stores moving into e-commerce. For non-marketing reasons separate e-commerce websites are desired.
The two brands are based in separate (nearby) cities in the same Canadian province.
Although the store name and branding will be different, the content on the site will either be near duplicates or exact duplicates.
The more I look into this on Google and SEOmoz QA, the more I am concerned about the SEO implications of this.
SEOmoz QA: Multiple cities/regions websites - duplicate content?
"So, yes, because you are offering the same services at second location, you are thinking correctly about the need to rewrite all content so it's not a duplicate of site #1."
Duplicate content - Webmaster Tools Help
"However, in some cases, content is deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic… In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we’ll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search results.
...
Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results."
Unfortunately, I would say there's very little chance that rewritten content will happen in the foreseeable future.
With that said, I'd be greatly appreciative of the concerns and remedies that the SEOmoz community has to offer (even if they're for future use). Thanks in advance.