Multiple stores with one checkout ?

[iron_chick]

I'm sure most of you realize this, but I wanted to mention for those who do not, that you can use the same merchant account/gateway for as many zen carts on as many domains (and at other venues, too) as you'd like.

[ladysaat]

Ladysaat

I get that you're excited and want to get this working for yourself ASAP, but please don't take this off to PMs as then other people who are interested in achieving this may not get the benefit of Absolute's great work.

Um Kuroi he asked people to PM him in his post.

PS If anyone is interested in helping test this mod, I need someone with a secure server, as I don't have an SSL cert on my test site. Contact me via PM.

I was just going along with it, NOT trying to hog something for myself .... I am pretty sure from what I've seen in the brief time on this forum that everything is shared pretty openly.

[Muddler]

I stumpled into a really great community here at the Zen forums. I have multiple replies below, I hope that this is appropriate etiquette.

iron_chick,
Thanks for your post. No, I was not aware. Can you elaborate a bit on how you go about doing this. I was under the impression it was not possible.

Kobra,
Great detailed post and real interesting way to approach the problem. My host does allow "add-on domains" (I had to research this just to find out what these were), along with unlimited MYSQL db's. and CPanel. I have multiple FQDN's currently registered pointing to their own sites currently (ie. -www.abcspoons.com). I can get the dedicated IP and SSL as soon as I know what Im doing . If I understand correctly, one site would be the "mother ship - checkout cart" that has the dedicatd IP, SSL, and merchant account / gateway on it. The other sites would point to that one by altering configure.php for their SSL (BTW - which configure.php, I found a couple of them - /includes/ or /admin/includes/). To clarify - each add-on domain would have it's own separate Zencart install and would go to the central one for checkout ? If I changed configure.php to set SSL to go there at what point in the checkout process would it actually switch to go there ? I would also have a copy of Zencart in this central domain correct, but only used for checkout ? Would the add-on sites still know that a purchase was made? Sorry, I'm not familar with configuring and working with SSL so it is still a bit fuzzy for me at that point. But would love to figure this out. Thanks.

Absolute,
I have been up to your test site(s) and they look great. Like ladysaat, I am very curious about how you configured the other sites to point to the primary one, and how in Zencart admin are you configuring the templates and categories to show up just for that particular site. You don't need to reply now, finish your testing and tweaking first. Glad to see ladysaat could help with the SSL testing, I do not have one yet (still trying to figure out they work). Nice work.

[Absolute]

I've been testing heavily over the last day or two, but unfortunately, I'm being sent away tomorrow for a few days. I'll be back at the weekend, hopefully with a completed add on.

Keep you all informed.

Absolute

[iron_chick]

Muddler - You can set up/enable any number of places to send paymets to your payment gateway to process. The gateway doesn't care if the info is coming from an xyz.com domain, an abc.com domain or through their virtual terminal. The payment gateway info you would use to set up your second or tenth card is the same as you used in your first.

I have one merchant account but I do business under several unrelated business names. So my official business name and the one on my merchant account is very generic. All of my payments (merchant account and PayPal) are processed through that generic name. Customers get a note letting them know that payments to xyz.com are process through our parent company, genericname.com. (Actually, I am going to edit the order confirmation email here to include that - I just haven't gotten that far yet! :))

I need an SSL for each seperate zen cart/domain, but that's way cheaper than getting a merchant account for each! :-)

[Sermonzone]

Iron-chick, What a great piece of info. Solves a major hedache for me. Thanks!

[Holgate]

This would be a very valuable mod for many people, I believe...but how would it work with a HOP script? My merchant account (Cybersource) only provides a single return address after checkout. Would this mod still detect the appropriate storefront after the sale when user is returned to 'Checkout Success' page? That would be excellent.

Then the biggest problem would be trying to figure out a nice generic brand-name for the merchant account, that would show up on the buyer's credit card statement.

[kobra]

Iron-chick & others:

I need an SSL for each seperate zen cart/domain, but that's way cheaper than getting a merchant account for each! :-)

Only need separate SSL's if these url's are not colocated on the same hosting account. If colocated, only need one like outlined earlier, and use in a similar manner as the hosts shared SSL.

Muddler & Crew:
As others have pointed out, you do not have to have the SSL attached to a Zencart directly. It could be like: pay.com for the SSl, buy1.com, buy2.com, and so forth for your carts. They just all point to pay.com as the SSL site. But it could also be on a zencart site.

Absolute:
What you seem to be describing sounds really fantastic in principle. I know that you have stated that you will post the mod when you are satisified. Could you pre-release share a bit of how you are reconciling zen sessions from multiple carts? This is what I would see as the start of corruption in the DB as each cart will generate their own session ID's and at some point they may use an ID already used as the carts do not communicate with each other. This is just for starters. Would be really interested in how you have mediated this.

I do see the real value in one DB multiple store fronts, just am cautious as corruption will bring all stores to a halt.

Keep posting your progress as many are interested...

[iron_chick]

For me, it's worth it to have seperate SSLs so that the buying experience is more unified. I'd rather my buyers go to https://www.sell1.com from http://www.sell.com than to https:www.buy.com. It's part of the advantage, for me, in having my own SSL as opposed to a shared SSL.

[kobra]

Iron-chick

I need an SSL for each seperate zen cart/domain

I took this in the literal, and you actually meant:

I prefer to use an SSL for each seperate zen cart/domain

Yes, this is considered more professional to some individuals but either way works...