I couldnt find much reference to this other than a few people talking about malls.
Im looking to stand up a 2nd site with a different layout/theme but have them both point to the same database.
Anyone know if this is possible?
Hello Tirade,
Just a thought, however, in the long run I believe you would be far better off to just build an entirely new second store running on it’s own seperate DB. I have done exactly what you are thinking of in the past with both .asp & asp.net Windows based cart systems, but, the problem is always that all of your specific site settings are stored in the DB so it is very difficult to get complete seperation of the store specifics when using a single db. You also run a high risk of being penalized for duplicate page content between these two sites whereas if you run each store on its own db, you can now keep the product pages entirely different between the two stores.
Of course if CS-Cart ever does offer a true mall (multi-store) version, then everything changes!
We have also done MANY hours of research for this, and other than Magento, there is no low cost alternative, perhaps Viart ( which has it’s own issues!)
Cs-cart used to have a mall feature, which they no longer offer, but…
I e-mail Cs-cart with this very question yesterday, and received the following replies…
“Thank you for your interest in CS-Cart Shopping Cart software.
My name is Alexander Shabaev, I am the Senior Sales Executive at CS-Cart.com.
I will be glad to answer your questions.
CS-Mall as well as other multi-store options are planned to be added in future but the implementation date has not been set yet and now I cannot say exactly when it can happen. If you are interested in it, we can develop the features in questions for you in the framework of our paid custom development service.
You can provide me with a detailed description of the required functionality so that we could pre-estimate the project.
Our company, the first-hand developer of CS-Cart Shopping Cart software, offers full range of custom development and web design services and our specialists can build a web store of any complexity for you. We will be happy to work on your project to turn your website into a dynamic quotation/shopping system with required design and functionality.
Feel free to contact me if you have other questions.
I will be glad to help.
—
Sincerely yours,
Alexander Shabaev
Senior Sales Executive, CS-Cart.com
https://www.cs-cart.com/”
To which we responded with…
“Thanks for getting back to me.
We are looking for a cart that will allow us to operate any number of e-commerce sites from a single admin.
It would need to allow us to choose which products would appear in which store, as well as each store to have it’s own look (template).
These are the basic requirements we need.”
And the reply…
“Thank you for your reply and the information.
We have pre-estimated realization of the required functionality and now I can name an approximate price for addition of the ability to manage several web stores via one admin panel.
Modification of such complexity will cost from USD 2000 depending on details and your specific business needs which should be discussed with our quote manager.
Please note that due to the highest popularity of our custom development service and work pressure as a result, we will be able to start working on the project in two weeks after the payment is made and it will take us around two - three weeks to complete the task.
If you would like to proceed with the project it is necessary to purchase the CS-Cart license which costs USD 265. You can order it on the following page of our website:
[url]https://www.cs-cart.com/order_now.html[/url]
As soon as the license is bought, you will be able to discuss the details of the project with our specialists directly and they will provide the exact quote.
And in case you are not satisfied with our software or conditions of rendering our custom development service, you will be able to request a refund as we provide 30-day money back guarantee for all purchased products and services.
For more information on our refund policy, please refer to the following page of our website:
[url]https://www.cs-cart.com/money-back.html[/url]
Please do not hesitate to contact me if any questions arise.
I am always ready to assist.”
So…more than we are ready to spend at this point, but at least it gives us, and everyone else and idea.
BTW, from searching the cscart forums, this appears to be the standard response for the last bit of time.
Walter
plumbing-deals.com
Snorocket was talking about this on his forum a while back. I know there were quite a few people interested and it sounded like there was some money to develop this.
I can’t seem to find the discussion on his forum.
You might want to check with Snorocket or maybe he’ll chime in here.
Brandon
plumbingdeals,
This is something that I have really been interested in. If we can get a group of people to split the 2,000 it would be worth it.
We just need the people who are interested in this to put their money where their mouth is.
I am willing to put up $500 for this. Now just 3 more people! 
Adam
[QUOTE]My name is Alexander Shabaev, I am the Senior Sales Executive at CS-Cart.com.[/QUOTE]
Hello Mr. Shabaev,
I have a suggestion for CS-Cart as a possible future licensing model!
- Add the Multi-Store/Single Database feature to the CS-Cart Core release.
- CS-Cart License Pricing as Follows:
Initial License for Single Store/URL = $265.00
Price For Each Additional Store/URL = $265.00 (or less, your call)
** You end up attracting a high number of new CS-Cart customers looking for multistore capability & also continue to make money on multiple store licenses!
** We, the loyal CS-Cart users have this feature as part of the core release so that it is maintained & updated by CS-Cart developers.
It is a win, win situation!
[quote name=‘Struck’]Hello Mr. Shabaev,
I have a suggestion for CS-Cart as a possible future licensing model!
- Add the Multi-Store/Single Database feature to the CS-Cart Core release.
- CS-Cart License Pricing as Follows:
Initial License for Single Store/URL = $265.00
Price For Each Additional Store/URL = $265.00 (or less, your call)
** You end up attracting a high number of new CS-Cart customers looking for multistore capability & also continue to make money on multiple store licenses!
** We, the loyal CS-Cart users have this feature as part of the core release so that it is maintained & updated by CS-Cart developers.
It is a win, win situation![/QUOTE]
Cs-cart already has this. $165 for each additional license purchased under your Help Desk account.
[QUOTE]Cs-cart already has this. $165 for each additional license purchased under your Help Desk account.[/QUOTE]
Hello Triplets,
Yes, they do, however, they do not have the multistore/single database (aka Mall) feature which is the main topic.
[quote name=‘jegesmaci’]plumbingdeals,
This is something that I have really been interested in. If we can get a group of people to split the 2,000 it would be worth it.
We just need the people who are interested in this to put their money where their mouth is.
I am willing to put up $500 for this. Now just 3 more people!
Adam[/QUOTE]
Adam,
That’s something to consider…
Perhaps we should start a poll and see who would be interested?!
BTW the way, I e-mailed Sno about this a few days ago, but he has not responded yet.
And as Struck says, the key is a single Admin
Walter
A mod will not suffice for this feature. It is against the license agreement to do this with one license. You will still need to purchase two licenses for two installs.
[quote name=‘Triplets’]A mod will not suffice for this feature. It is against the license agreement to do this with one license. You will still need to purchase two licenses for two installs.[/QUOTE]
I not sure you understand, we are not talking about two installs, we are talking about one install, but separate storefronts.
Please read again the reply I posted from Alex at cs-cart…he calls it a mod…
“Modification of such complexity will cost from USD 2000 depending on details and your specific business needs which should be discussed with our quote manager.”
And indicates that only one license is required…
“If you would like to proceed with the project it is necessary to purchase the CS-Cart license which costs USD 265.”
Hi Triplets,
It is not about wanting to run multiple storefronts from a single $265.00 license cost, the cost is not the real issue here. It is all about operating & managing multiple storefronts from a single admin panel. I have no problem, & I am sure none of the other posters to this thread for that matter, would have any problem paying an additional 165-265.00 per license for each additional storefront they want to put up…
So, it not at all about license cost, however all about the management of the multiple storefronts. 
[quote name=‘Struck’]So, it not at all about license cost, however all about the management of the multiple storefronts. ;)[/QUOTE]
Struck,
You are exactly right. We will need to purchase an additional license of CS-Cart. I did that for my old cart. We just need:
- One Database: This is the real reason behind something like this. We want to have another domain name selling our products, but we don’t want to manager two sets of inventory.
- Centralized Administration: For example I have 3 of one product. I want it to show up on my two different websites, but if someone places an order for all three items, I want that to update both sites. Very difficult and time consuming to manage two databases as you would constantly need to update the opposite admin.
I am happy paying CS-Cart for an additional domain license. We just need to get this built.
I don’t think the requirements are too much to start with.
- It should work off of the same database and same admin panel.
- I can setup different emails and message for when people purchase.
I think we could go crazy and ask for a lot of specific stuff, but I would caution against that for round 1. If we can just get this programmed, we can sell a bunch and then get some upgrades made to it.
We also need to convince CS-Cart that their is a business for this addon and they can then sell it as one of their products and provide updates accordingly.
Just my two cents.
Adam
Glad to see some activity on this.
The idea for us is indeed to be able to maintain one database with multiple store fronts. Im ok with buying a license for each domain. But I dont want to have to deal with stock/inventory/database changes on multiple servers.
Someone did bring up a good point regarding google penalizing for duplicate content. I dont think your site is penalized in regards to having duplicate product descriptions, I think its just rewarded for having unqiue. That being said, I dont think that reward goes away if you set up another site that has the same information. Otherwise everyone would sabotage their competition by copying their pages and spam hosting them everywhere.
Dear Struck and all the other Forum members,
First of all, I would like to thank all of you for sharing how we can better meet your needs.
The development of the so-called Mall/Multistore features will begin in January, 2010 but the exact time frames of the project are not set. It is a rather large-scale project and currently it is difficult to say when it is going to be finished.
These features are unlikely to be included into the standard version of CS-Cart. Probably, they will be available as paid addons.
We are trying to satisfy most of our customers’ needs when releasing each new CS-Cart version with a set of extra modules, new features and various improvements but, obviously, it is virtually impossible to bundle a default version of software with each function that users want.
If you would like to get a specific version of the Mall/Multistore feature, we can develop it for an additional fee in the framework of our custom development service.
We will be glad to discuss the details of realization of the Mall/Multistore functionality via our Customer Help desk.
Thank you.
[quote name=‘alexander’]The development of the so-called Mall/Multistore features will begin in January, 2010 but the exact time frames of the project are not set. It is a rather large-scale project and currently it is difficult to say when it is going to be finished.[/QUOTE]
You just made my year! Great news! I am very excited to hear that you are going to work on this. Very smart move for CS-Cart.
[quote name=‘alexander’]These features are unlikely to be included into the standard version of CS-Cart. Probably, they will be available as paid addons.[/QUOTE]
I am happy to pay for something that helps me grow my business.
[quote name=‘alexander’]We are trying to satisfy most of our customers’ needs when releasing each new CS-Cart version with a set of extra modules, new features and various improvements but, obviously, it is virtually impossible to bundle a default version of software with each function that users want.
[/QUOTE]
That’s understandable, but don’t swing too far the other way and make us pay for every addon.
Great job CS-Cart. Just keep in mind that the objective here is to have all things managed from one admin and make the front end shops looks different.
Thanks again!
Adam
Hello Mr. Shabaev,
[QUOTE]The development of the so-called Mall/Multistore features will begin in January, 2010 but the exact time frames of the project are not set. It is a rather large-scale project and currently it is difficult to say when it is going to be finished.[/QUOTE]
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to personally reply to this thread. This is viewed in a very positive way for your loyal CS-Cart users to know that CS-Cart staff does look through these forums!
We are looking forward to the progress which can be made on the multi-store capability & I am certain you will find many of us willling to assist with beta testing & feedback when needed!
Regarding my suggestions as to possibly including this into the core release, let me further explain my thoughts as follows:
I believe this would be a major feature attraction to new potential users of CS-Cart. To simply know that at any time in the future, the capability to include additional storefronts & manage them from a single backend could be accomplished by simply purchasing another store license would be a major selling point.
I believe Magento is a very good example of this concept!
What is the number one reason for Magento’s overwhelming popularity? Is it because the basic/original version of Magento is Free? I do not believe this is the real reason for their popularity as Magento users are typically not going to be ecommerce beginners on tight financial budgets, it is not a beginners level platform. Is it because Magento is easy to install, customize, host, & manage…no need to comment!
I believe the absolute number one attraction is that it offers multi-store capability! Even for new Magento users which have no immediate need for multistores, just the idea of knowing that they can if they ever choose to do so is both interesting as well as a very attractive selling point!
These are just some thoughts for consideration.
CS-Cart is moving ahead quite nicely & I look forward to building more sites on this platform.
As many of you who have been following this thread know, I posted the response that I received from cscart about a custom mod in regards to this.
As a follow-up, I asked Alex to view this thread so as to show him how much interest there was in this feature. He should be congratulated for doing so as Struck has said.
I think there is a lesson for all of us here…the developers just need a little push when it comes to knowing what the users want…in the future I think we need to let them know when a thread needs there attention.
And please don’t misunderstand me here, I’m not looking for credit for Alex’s response, I just making a general comment that could help all cscarters.
plumbingdeals
[quote name=‘Struck’]Hello Mr. Shabaev,
I have a suggestion for CS-Cart as a possible future licensing model!
- Add the Multi-Store/Single Database feature to the CS-Cart Core release.
- CS-Cart License Pricing as Follows:
Initial License for Single Store/URL = $265.00
Price For Each Additional Store/URL = $265.00 (or less, your call)
** You end up attracting a high number of new CS-Cart customers looking for multistore capability & also continue to make money on multiple store licenses!
** We, the loyal CS-Cart users have this feature as part of the core release so that it is maintained & updated by CS-Cart developers.
It is a win, win situation![/QUOTE]
I think this is the best option for us (customers) and for Cs-cart. My vote for it.
Another option is to simply use the cart as a storefront and sales machine.
EZ Merchant Solutions can solve your problem easily and at a reasonable cost (see http://www.ez-ms.com). You can manage multiple stores from a single logon in the order/inventory manager, easily changing “context” by selecting which store in a drop-down within the page header… You can create catalogs for each store that determine what goes to where. You can share inventory across stores (companies in our venacular) or have them remain separate from each other.
We provide a “rule based” catalog for generating catalogs for the cart. Hence you can copy a catalog and simply change one rule to price everything at 10% off. Then switch back when sale is over. Orders are automatically imported so shipping and real payment processing can continue.
You would have 3 separate stores each with their own Admin login. After initial setups, the Admin environment is rarely accessed since most operations are performed from the back-end order/inventory management system.
Check us out or give us a call with any questions. Our service is subscription based and “packages” are bundles of “orders/month”. Priced from $59.99/month.