We pre-ordered the Ultimate version of CS-cart, but are now having second thoughts about unifying our sites. We are afraid that the shared products will be hit with a duplicate content penalty since they will be shared between the 2 sites. Is there a way to specify a different product description for each site?
Absolutely. Click on your specific store and you will only be editing that stores content. Click on all stores for global edits.
Choose your store in the top left of the admin area.
Yes, it is possible, but be aware.
The bug that I have run into when products are shared between 2 stores, is that it is not possible to set a preferred category. So if those two sites are already live and you want to start up with CS Cart, you are not able to specify the correct URL you would want to use. And you really want that, because some URL's generate massive revenue and have high ranking in search engines. (The work around is; edit the edited product in Bulk Edit and set the category of store1 correct, but you still can not specify the correct category for store2.)
Also, when you edit a product (all stores, store1, store2, does not matter which one you take), it again looses it preferred category and therefor the URL and the breadcrumb. You are back to square one. So you need to bulk edit it again.
This goes for every single product that is shared and is changed.
My conclusion: Ultimate does not work with products that are being shared in two or more stores. And, quite frankly, that sucks.
We have not encountered such a bug in our live ultimate stores.
You can make custom “Product details layout” and also use different product description.