Multi-Store

[quote name=‘JesseLeeStringer’]Hi Ilya,



Having considered your proposals, I would like to provide what “I” need.



A single administration area to control all products, categories, shipping methods, taxes, users.



Multiple domains/storefronts in order to accept payments. Checkouts will all be identical to settings provided in the backend. Promotions will be able to be developed per domain.



Having reviewed your proposition for multiple backends per domain, I can see the need for this, however where possible it would be easier for employees to place orders from a single administrative backend. Otherwise I presume they will need to have 5 website backends opened at all time in order to process an order.



An excellent example for our business is a large increase in manufacturered items which we can sell wholesale, this deserves it’s own website however it doubles our overhead for labour having to recreate storewide specials, contact forms etc.

[/QUOTE]



As I understood you are talking aout “Implementation A”, i.e. without external vendors

Root administrator will be able to control everything from the main backend, There is no need for a separate backends in this case.


[quote name=‘JesseLeeStringer’]

It would be much easier to see a ‘contact form’ with ‘enable for DomainA’ ‘enable for DomainB’ as opposed to creating the form multiple times.



Let me know your thoughts :slight_smile:



J.[/QUOTE]



Yes, that’s a nice idea. We’ll take it into account.

[quote name=‘imac’]As I understood you are talking aout “Implementation A”, i.e. without external vendors

Root administrator will be able to control everything from the main backend, There is no need for a separate backends in this case.







Yes, that’s a nice idea. We’ll take it into account.[/quote]



Correct on both counts :slight_smile:

If it would be plausible to allow the same ‘Enable for DomainA’ for products / categories it would save a few headaches having to worry about product features and global options.



J.

that be good idea not to make anything extra that be inadequate effort and resource as it impacts members who does not need multi-store at all. i personally need this option but no more functionality than it is in opencart. the solution there is very simple to implement and sufficient for most. no need to ask everybody what he wants to get in the multi-store. the first approach could be opencart example. it may turn to be easier to implement than to support discussions about.

I need the multivendor function, to operate multiple websites from a single database.

Each of these websites should have a completely different appearance and offer a selection of product categories. I should be able to mix and match products/categories per site.

Hi All,



I currently work for a company that has 8 x cs-cart stores, and looks to expand to 20+ . Running 8 stores has cost us a lot of time and admin, in listing products, adjusting shipping, logging in to collect orders, modifying the stores etc.



I understand everyones needs are different but if it helps heres some thoughts on what would be ideal for “my” needs.



Implemenation A.



-One Master Installation on a single domain.

-One Master database to store and share data to all stores.

-Multiple stores to have seperate dedicated domains ie www.greatstuff.blah, www.kitchinsupplies.blah, www.gadgets-master.blah etc

(then configured in the vhost to point at the master domain installation via document root and directory (i’m no linux master if there’s a better way of doing this then great)). Maybe the more technical among us could clarify whether having all different stores files and images under a single domain and not it’s own domain upsets google results? Currently the above is the Magento way…


  • One shopping cart / checkout and customer account to be shared across all domains. For example i can place a set of kitchin knives in my basket from www.kitchinsupplies.co.uk then via tabbed store links on the visual theme, visit www.gadgets-master.co.uk and add a microwave oven to the basket then checkout once buying both items.


  • An option to use one ssl by redirecting all https pages to a single domain (whether that be the Master installation or yet another domain?) This may seem odd but if you take the following scenario:

    Think Virgin:- virgin media, virgin mobile, virgin airlines etc etc… A customer buying a virgin mobile phone from www.virginmobiles.blah is not going to get upset if they are directed to another domain www.virgincheckout.blah to pay for the item. This would save us a lot of money on ssls.



    -One backend to configure everything! … stores, products, categories, discounts, shipping tables, etc etc



    -As much sharing and assigning of data to selected stores as possible (shipping tariffs, products, promotions, reward points etc).

    For example: i set up shipping tariffs based on Country and Weight, i only want to do this once! and therefore an option should be available allowing me to choose which stores to apply these settings too. Another example is that a product maybe suitable for all our stores, i only want to create one instance of this product and not have to create and maintain it for every store.



    -Unique store Variables for Custom pages.



    Example:

    If i create an HTML contact page, the only thing that is likely to change between stores is the email address. I would still like to only create and manage one contact page. If there could be a Unique store variable system, similar to the way languages works in cs-cart 1.3.5. Where you could define a variable and a value, but in this instance a value for each store. The variable name could then be put into the html and the appropriate value inserted when compiled to the browser.


  • Customer able to select which website to search in (advanced search).



    Apologies for the lengthy post! - just trying to contribute :slight_smile:

[quote name=‘Webmonkey’]Hi All,

  • One shopping cart / checkout and customer account to be shared across all domains. For example i can place a set of kitchin knives in my basket from www.kitchinsupplies.co.uk then via tabbed store links on the visual theme, visit www.gadgets-master.co.uk and add a microwave oven to the basket then checkout once buying both items.


  • An option to use one ssl by redirecting all https pages to a single domain (whether that be the Master installation or yet another domain?) This may seem odd but if you take the following scenario:

    [/QUOTE]



    These two options are not planned because the main idea of the multiple storefronts is that they work as a separate shops with own settings, design etc. Also from the technical point that would really take us a lot of time.



    I would like to note that we will implement the ability to share users between different storefronts.

It was worth a try :slight_smile: It’s not a deal breaker - as far as i know no other cart has managed to achieve a properly working shared cart yet.



Have cs-cart decided on whether to implement shared products and categories between stores? - this is something that is important to us.

[quote name=‘Webmonkey’]It was worth a try :slight_smile: It’s not a deal breaker - as far as i know no other cart has managed to achieve a properly working shared cart yet.



Have cs-cart decided on whether to implement shared products and categories between stores? - this is something that is important to us.[/QUOTE]



Yes, we are going to implement shared products, as for the categories there won’t be any problem to clone them from one store to another.

[quote name=‘tbirnseth’]No, actually my comments apply to multi-company.



Tell me how your solution relates to having 3 stores (x.com, y.com, z.com). I want x/y to have the same catalog but differ in pricing. I want z to have a subset of the inventory in different categories and to have some products be the same price and others be different.



How do I manage this from one inventory source where x, y, and z may be on different machines and may NOT have direct access between databases?



I also want sales reports, statistics and other info for the individual sites as well as the ability to “roll up” information across them all.[/QUOTE]



I agree with Tim, It’s not clear how you are going to implement the inventory management from 1 source to multiple sites (companies) using alternate pricing for each company.

I havent been following the tread very well, just want to try to explain how in my situation multistore could be usefull.



We are a company with different stores in different countries.

So one of the things that should be possible, is that a single product, can be displayed in different languages on different stores.

So a product gets created only 1 time, and then can make all variables in the different languages. Else it gets a mess having to create individual product for every language. The webstore in different language must be other url/store for seo and price differences between countries.



The functinoality of being able to make descriptions /attributes in more than one language comes automatically in need with making multistore. In our case, if this is not possible, we probably wouldnt start to use multistore to start with.

Very good point!



What would be really cool:



.de domain = German shop

.com domain - English shop



and so on.



All working together with one database. But just one language per domain for SEO.

My need is for something similar to eBay but without the auctions. One URL, one domain, one admin, with multiple sellers each with own store-front, products, pricing, postage.



It seems to me that Multi-Vendor did not go far enough, with vendors still being site admin, but this multi-store goes too far, essentially multiple websites with centralised admin.



Will there be anything in between? I’m currently using phpprobid but it’s not very satisfactory. But have a look at http://bookfair.com.au to get an idea of what I’m looking for.



Thanks, STeve.

[quote name=‘JesseLeeStringer’]Hi Ilya,



Having considered your proposals, I would like to provide what “I” need.



A single administration area to control all products, categories, shipping methods, taxes, users.



Multiple domains/storefronts in order to accept payments. Checkouts will all be identical to settings provided in the backend. Promotions will be able to be developed per domain.



Having reviewed your proposition for multiple backends per domain, I can see the need for this, however where possible it would be easier for employees to place orders from a single administrative backend. Otherwise I presume they will need to have 5 website backends opened at all time in order to process an order.



An excellent example for our business is a large increase in manufacturered items which we can sell wholesale, this deserves it’s own website however it doubles our overhead for labour having to recreate storewide specials, contact forms etc.



It would be much easier to see a ‘contact form’ with ‘enable for DomainA’ ‘enable for DomainB’ as opposed to creating the form multiple times.



Let me know your thoughts :slight_smile:



J.[/QUOTE]



Not sure if identical payment methods should be used,



If we’re a UK store selling in £GB we need a UK merchant account



While our Irish store will be run in Euros € and have to settle in an Irish merchant account

Hello, what is the ETA on this?



What do you mean by multi store?



One admin controlling uniques domains? domain1.com, domain2.com etc etc



If yes then I cannot wait!!!



Make sure you look after us cs-cart supporters who have stayed with you (£), wink wink

multi-shop available in the next release ???

[quote name=‘badmaash’]Hello, what is the ETA on this?



What do you mean by multi store?



One admin controlling uniques domains? domain1.com, domain2.com etc etc



If yes then I cannot wait!!!



Make sure you look after us cs-cart supporters who have stayed with you (£), wink wink[/quote]



First beta of CS-Cart Multi-store is on its way and should be ready by the end of June. And we expect stable release to be ready for public use within this summer.



And yes, in Multi-store you will be able to control several shops on several unique domains! That’s the main idea - one installation of CS-Cart, one database, single administration panel for many stores.

[quote name=‘admin’]First beta of CS-Cart Multi-store is on its way and should be ready by the end of June. And we expect stable release to be ready for public use within this summer.



And yes, in Multi-store you will be able to control several shops on several unique domains! That’s the main idea - one installation of CS-Cart, one database, single administration panel for many stores.[/QUOTE]



How will the SSL certificate work for these multiple shops?

[quote]

And yes, in Multi-store you will be able to control several shops on several unique domains! That’s the main idea - one installation of CS-Cart, one database, single administration panel for many stores.

[/quote]

Should one assume that it is restricted to a single server (instance of mySQL)? Obviously this will not work for people that run their stores in separate VPS’s or on separate dedicated servers (probably most of the multi-store clients).

[quote name=‘tbirnseth’]Should one assume that it is restricted to a single server (instance of mySQL)? Obviously this will not work for people that run their stores in separate VPS’s or on separate dedicated servers (probably most of the multi-store clients).[/QUOTE]

Not true If you have a big enough server why put them on multiple servers? I have a few stores all on the same server.

Not saying you can’t, I’m saying that most multiple site businesses don’t.