Multiple stores with one checkout ?

Hi Kobra -
Could you please clarify the below quote :

kobra:

add your additional domains
set your SSL to function like a shared SSL that many hosts can/will provide.
Link/Set your Zencart to point to the correct URL for the SSL sessions in configure.php.

Does this need to be a wildcard SSL certificate? Even these appear to only do subdomains and not add-on domains.

Is it a shared or private SSL? My host's first level support is a bit confused and I'm not sure how to clarify for them what I'm after (not a good combination).

Also, if this can be done, would the shared SSL message stating that it could not verify the domain come up?

I guess I should not shorthand my posts but I am typing challenged... I will add back the missing detail to what you quoted. I/we were discussing using an SSL for more than one cart/account:

add your additional domains to your hosting account as unique url's. Addressable as sitea.com, siteb.com etc. Install your Zencart to the selected sites.

Now in another url site or one of the cart sites you setup a private purchased SSL cert, issued to the url in question. (this is not one of the hosts shared SSL's).

Set this private SSL to function like a shared SSL that many hosts can/will provide. This is accomplished easily by directing your zen cart to that https://site.com. It is placed in the 2 configure.php files where the https: is specified. Now zencart will process SSL transactions via the htpps: url that you have already setup with the private SSL that you have been issued..

Your host should be able to assist you in correctly configuring your url that will be the secure transaction handler.

You cannot use the above with the hosts shared SSL. It requires a private SSL.

You could use the host shared SSL for each cart that you have installed and then each cart would transfer to the hosts SSL url for these transactions and the focus would look something like: https://www.pluto.my_host.secure_server.com/xxx
But each cart would have been given access to the shared SSL by the host.

As Iron-chick eluded to, this being taken to a strange site name can look suspicious to some shoppers over something like myshop.com and myshop1.com or any other similar naming convention.

Hope this helps get the smoke out of the way...

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.iron_chick, you appear to be doing what I've considered in the past, but how do you control the 'Checkout Success' page? That is, with multiple shops and only one gateway - where does Zen lead you after you've hit 'Submit Order'?

I can only figure that you would be using the generic website (assigned to your merchant account) to process and it would return to you to that website's 'Checkout Success' page. My limits seem to be in the gateway configuration options, where I can only specify a single return url after completing the sale...or are there alternative solutions?

Absolute - please tell me your mod is working great and makes this all go away! I'm holding off to purchase and assign dedicated ip's and SSL's until I see how this all goes down...but I know I need them - if someone hits 'Submit Order' and gets a security notice they can choose to cancel at that point..but that still registers a charge and leaves them with a blank page :ohmy:

Holgate:

iron_chick, you appear to be doing what I've considered in the past, but how do you control the 'Checkout Success' page? That is, with multiple shops and only one gateway - where does Zen lead you after you've hit 'Submit Order'?

I can only figure that you would be using the generic website (assigned to your merchant account) to process and it would return to you to that website's 'Checkout Success' page. My limits seem to be in the gateway configuration options, where I can only specify a single return url after completing the sale...or are there alternative solutions?

You are making this much too hard. :)

I don't know what gateway you are using, but for authorize.net, you don't specify a return url.

(You do specify a return url for paypal, but as long as you use your primary paypal email address and have one cart set up correctly in that cart and at paypal, zen is smart enough to sort it out and return folks to the correct cart.)

My generic website is nothing but an informational page for folks to find if they don't recognize the charge on their credit card or paypal statement. Nothing is processed there. There is no SSL. There is no zen cart. CC charges are processed at my gateway - authorize.net.

You don't have to have a website that matches your merchant account name. There is no website "assigned" to my merchant account. I could shut that website down tomorrow and my merchant account provider wouldn't know (or presumably care). In fact, I had the merchant account in the new name for a month or so before even purchasing that domain name.

iron_chick:

I don't know what gateway you are using, but for authorize.net, you don't specify a return url.

(You do specify a return url for paypal, but as long as you use your primary paypal email address and have one cart set up correctly in that cart and at paypal, zen is smart enough to sort it out and return folks to the correct cart.)

I'm using Bank of America's Cybersource with a 'Hosted Order Page' (HOP) script. It requires one redirect for 'Receipt' and another one for 'Decline', which gets sent back to a Zen module php file - specific to the url provided.

So you're saying, you have 2 carts at 2 different urls...both using the same paypal e-mail address. And when a sale is completed the cart returns back to a 'Checkout Success' page for the correct site? I'm looking at paypal's 'Return URL' field now... with the specific field required and 'Auto Return' On, how can it know to return to which cart?

iron_chick:

You don't have to have a website that matches your merchant account name.Yeah, I didn't phrase that properly. I just meant that the name I registered with my Merchant acct is the same as my generic website url...and I'm trying to figure out how to use that site with dedicated IP and SSL to process multiple Zen carts that return to the respective storefront upon sale completion. It could be single by re-direct like Absolute's mod might be, or as kobra detailed with seperate carts. Like yourself, I'll make the processing website informative in case they don't recognize the charges.

Ok, I'll try and answer a few questions, but other work has hampered progress this week, and I'm running a couple of days behind with testing.

Firstly, all card processing companies return your client to the zen cart website once they confirm payment has been accepted or declined. Regardless, the customer is returned to zen, and the previous session is re-instigated and continued. With the dual store module, the store domain is stored in this session, and so when the customer is returned, they are returned to your secure site, and continue onto the original store.

In terms of clashing sessions, this isn't an issue, as all stores use the same session table. If your customer visits one of your stores, and then visits one of your other stores, you can either set it so that the cart is carried over, o a new session is started.

This module is currently being adapted to display multiple templates for zen. This is perfect if you design Zen templates, and want to show your clients the stores. They can then select the template, and your store is instantly shown using this template.

I am still looking for a tester who has an SSL certificate however, as currently I have only been offered similar hosting to my test server. Can anyone help?

Many thanks

Absolute

I have my own SSL is that what you mean? Versus a shared one?

Absolute,

Any further development on your mod? I'm interested in this as well! Let me know if I can help.

At the risk of appearing pushy, I tried a pm and an e-mail to Absolute without response - although in my defense I've also hinted at financial inspiration as an option for this mod. Reviewing Absolute's post count and activitiy, I'm betting real world obligations have stifled progress here... hopefully only temporarily :lookaroun

Is there anyone that has been able to test the pre-release mod?... and now, I wonder if it will work with the latest Zen update version?

You guessed it, just when I try and find a little spare time to develop a mod I've been playing with over the past month, a whole host of other work lands on my desk. Not that I mind! Anyway, I'll be working on this mod this weekend, and hopefully have something for beta testing next week.

The delay at the moment is working through so that you can select which store products are available on. I have a requirement where someone sells itemA on websiteA and itemB on siteB, and all other items on both, and I just need to finish up this modification, and then I think I'm done.

There are bound to be other requirements further down the line, but if anyone has anything specific you mthink I need to add at this stage, please do PM or email me.

Absolute

Hi, I'm a newby to all this so I just need to have a bit of clarification that what I intend doing is correct.
The site I am working on has 2 price structures, ie. military and non-military.
I have got two buttons on the sites 'order' page giving the customers a choice of either pricing structures. Is it just a simple case of having two identical carts (apart from part no's & prices) in different directories both having the same payment module but accessed using the chosen button on the order page?
Will this work?

Also, I am trying to link up to Metacharge, does anyone know if there is a payment module available or one that works with it?

Any help would be appreciated.
Steve.

Hi there,
Just checking to see if any progress has been made? Also, to see if your mod meets these requirements.

Again, one shop multiple domains. So that say I have a shop at: https://www.carshop.co.uk that sells cars. Say I also have another shop that sells car accessories - say https://www.caraccessories.co.uk. Both these shops are run by an umbrella company called cars4U. (NB - all shop names/domains are fictional, I think!)

Can I have one zen-cart that serves both shops? So that only cars show up on carshop.co.uk but perhaps (some) cars & accessories are displayed on caraccessories.co.uk? Each shop would also have its own template?

If so, that's just what I'd be looking for. However, there's more!

Customers: What about customers? Ideally I'd like a customer of carshop.co.uk to also be able to shop at caraccessories.co.uk without needing to login again or create a separate account. So, one customer account for multiple shops.

Marketing: Also, I'd like to be able to market separately to both sets of customers. Is there a flag (or something) that would enable me to send a newsletter, for example, to only carshop.co.uk customers? Being a contrary person, I'd also like to be able to send a newsletter to all customers as well!

Invoices: Would zen be able to know that this customer bought from carshop.co.uk & therefore send them a carshop.co.uk invoice? Or, would I have to have a generic invoice from Cars4U?

Reporting: Accordingly, I'd like to be able to run separate reports for each shop. Being contrary, I'd also like to run reports on x-selling products that are available on both shops - I'd like to be able to judge if my x-selling strategy is working.

Payment: This has been mentioned before, but buyers from carshop.co.uk be returned to carshop.co.uk thank you page on completion.

Sorry if this has turned into a wishlist, but these are crucial issues for my client, & would make zen a wonderfully flexible solution for shop owners who have disparate items to sell but are put off having everything in one hyper store.

Thanks
Eddie.

The good news is YES YES YES. This module ahs the capability to do all of the things you listed above. My issue is that with every wish that people would like, I need to edit more and more core files. This isn't a problem, however, it does mean that the finsihed module will be slightly more than just download and drop the files straight in.

The great news is that I now have a test site being set up, thanks Holgate, and hopefully this is about to be released, all be it, a beta release.

Sorry for the delay, but there have been a few additions to the wish list!

Absolute

Hi Absolute!
I am very keen for this. As you probably know, I have a bunch of domains that I would like to set up for my custom printing, each would be just a tad different (in templates and products) than the other. It would be super if they all could point to the one ssl on that I currently have on photoimprints.com. So I will be watching your progress closely!
S.D.

Ideally, how should I prepare to test this mod?... that is, should I go ahead and setup Zen at the primary (SSL/Dedicated IP) site? And then, how do I go about creating the (I'll start with 2) separate 'pointer' stores from different urls?

This is really a question about how the setup should be created from scratch anyway..

Currently, my test site, on a local machine is setup with 1 copy of Zen 1.3.0.2.

I then have 1 domain, and an alias set to the same location, so both point to /htdocs/

It should be that you can access the same store by using both domain names, so for mine, the store is located at:

http://www.absolute-solutions.co.uk/test/zen/dual/

and the SAME store is also at

http://www.absoluteproductions.co.uk/test/zen/dual/

They do look different, but they use the same database tables, the same zen core files.

As for the SSL, choose 1 store as the primary. That store will handle the SSL and the admin pages.

Thanks Holgate.

Absolute

Sorry for my ignorance, but how do you establish an 'alias' (from CPanel?) that keeps it's own url in the address bar - but points to another location?

This isn't accomplished by way of 'Parked', 'Addon', 'Subdomain', or 'Redirect'... is it? Or is there another maneuver I've overlooked?

Hi Absolute,
Thanks for the quick response.

Great news re: my wishlist. As you say, each requirement leads to more core hacks. How many core hacks are there roughly? This is obviously a concern re: upgrading a site in future.

Cheers,
Eddie

Hi

I use 123-reg and their domain name cpanel uses' framed web forwarding' meaning "The destination URL will be replaced by ... ". So, if you point mycar.co.uk at yourcar.co.uk, the browser will display mycar.co.uk when someones enters https://www.mycar.co.uk in their browser address bar. The av. users won't really know that they've been redirected from mycar.co.uk to yourcar.co.uk.

I think that's correct!

Eddie

Just found this handy little post from another forum [sorry].

http://www.freewebspace.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-2165165.html

The post basically lays out how to use the addon domains with cPanel, so that you can add more domains to your store.

At the moment, the module doesn't look at the path between the domain name and the index.php file. It is merely concerned with the domain name, so this will work with addons, or subdomains.

Let me know if you need anything furhter.

I need to start a wiki wish list somewhere. The bit of paper I have is great, but you can't all add to it. Here it http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Contribution:Multiple_Stores

Absolute