Multiple stores with one checkout ?

Ah yes... Addons... that explains how your sample works with different browser addresses. I never had any use for that feature before :blush: ...thanks for the free lesson. :smartass:

Absolute:

Don't worry, the PM message was only to give me some personal information as to where Laysaat was, and when they would be around for testing.

The module is still a work in progress, but you can see how its going by visiting my test store.

Store A - https://www.absolute-solutions.co.uk/test/zen/dual/
Fetching brown - main store, and as such handles all of the "secure" pages. My site is set up to redirect to secure pages, but without the security at the moment.

Store B - https://www.absoluteproductions.co.uk/test/zen/dual/
Calming Blue

The two sites are the same site, in the same directory. However, they each use a different template set to give the different layouts, colours and category listing in the side boxes. All of this is edittable in the admin section, including which categories are available.

Any questions, please feel free to ask. I realise that this mod is not for everyone, but I hope that some of you find it useful.

I need another couple of days to test, and finish up the admin pages, and then I'll be able to distribute it to those who are interested.

Absolute

I went to see the Store A & B, and interest to know detail of how to do so....

as I am new touching Zen Cart, previously I made a demo site using OSC, and found Zcart is pretty more nice :)

The two stores are part of a demo site, displaying this mod which is currently under development. As soon as its done, I'll let you know how to install it on your own store.

Absolute

Absolute;

The mod sounds great, if you’re still looking for beta testers for input, let me know. I have a site with ssl to test this and can setup add-on domains for these too.

My wishlist additions have to do with Advertising, because if you cant advertise and get folks to your multiple stores, you wont have many of the other issues listed on the wish list. (added my wish to the wiki page also)

WISH:

1. Each store can generate its own feed for FROOGLE, GOOGLE, YAHOO SHOPPING, SHOPZILLA, etc.

I can help here if you need extra hands to look at the FEED MODS to make them work with multi-stores, doesn’t seem that hard to implement, some SQL changes and maybe a little extra work in the ADMIN section, etc.

QUESTION?
How is GOOGLE RANKING, YAHOO DIRECTORY positioning, and ALEXA statistics affected by this mod? as opposed to an individual store with its own IP? Anyone know how GOOGLE ranks add-on domain sites .vs. sites with own IP. I know Google keeps track of IPs and is one important factor in rankings.

Can I clarify what is happening here!

1. Are these 2 stores in addon domains and therefore point to 2 different REAL subdirectories that each have their own install of zen-cart but use the one database. ie 2 installs & 1 database.
   or
2. Are they parked domains, therfore 1 zencart install & 1 database.
   I have tried this but as soon as you click on something the configure files are read and it reverts to whatever site is in the config files.

If 1, then how do you synchronize 2 installs accessing the one database?
or
if 2, how do get around the hard coded urls in the config files?

If not 1 or 2,
Have I completely missed what is happening here???

:unsure: This has been a very interesting thread to follow. From a strategic business / marketing point of view. Though dividing your website into small units with independent urls would enable you to better target specific user groups and possibly give you the illusion of easier admin especially in the area of stock management. There are a few very significant detriments to this method of business set-up.

1st, is in the area of economies of scale and customer retention. Customers purchase a wide variety of products and I am sure that it is better from their perspective to be able to access these products from within one site.

2nd, is search engine optimisation and ranking. Surely, it is more cost effective to promote and have highly ranked, one good site than several me-too sites offering a limited product range.

3rd, is off line marketing, in this area the cost could escalate proportionately upon the number of sites you are promoting.

4th, is your merchant account provider, Having just spoken to the major banks with regard to merchant accounts, they are very tichy when it comes to risk analysis. It is a shame to have to say this, their policy makers are not that clued up on risk dispersment with multi-product sites let alone several sites linking into one merchant account. From my discussion with them, I believe that they may well refuse a multiple site set-up or require a separate account for each website.

5th, the merchant account would require a definitive email address for the main store connecting to their system. This would present another problem from a customer perspective. Customer A buys a product from the main store which is fine, customer B buys from a subsidiary store with a different site name but gets a confirmation email from the main store. This would raise questions as to whom the customer is dealing with. Would the policies of both stores be the same ‘Unification’. The banks would want assurances of this and especially who is liable for charge backs and complaints. They would also be very interested in who is liable in the case of a subsidiary or even the main store becoming bankrupt and closing down. (Risk analysis again) Both the banks and the customer would want to know whom they complain to.

I think these little snippets of thought provoking material is enough at this stage. My advice is to think carefully before commiting yourself to a lot of hard work. Check and double check every aspect of the operation that you are planning to set up. You dont want an Autocratic Jobsworth type guy to scuttle efforts just before you go live.

Maybe I have had no right to include them in this section. My rational has been on the basis of multiple linked stores. If they are out of place please feel free to amend the copy as you think fit and re-place them in a more appropriate area of the site.
Kind regards
Stephan Toth

WOW Absolute at al - this looks very good. I was directed here from a question I asked elsewhere.

I was after a SINGLE instalation of ZenCart with, say, 5 sites using that same instalation. Each with their own separate logins, carts and templates. There is a master login with the ability to add a new cart and assign a template (complete with logins etc)

They will all utilise the same shared SSL on our server.

This will mean that we will have only one instalation to look after and upgrade and upkeep etc. And the process of adding another shop would be much simpler, just design a template, add another user (complete with separate URL), asign the login details and template and off you go.

Thoughts??

How's it going Absolute?

Testing is going well - I'm trying to add as many features as possible to the first release, so that we don't ahve to re-write chunks of code when an idea comes along that we didn't already consider.

Slipsam - do you have a sample tracking code you would like to include? I currently have the footers being set in templates, so its no problem to add the tracking to the relevant footer.

Keep you all posted.

Absolute

This is simply amazing and I wanted to thank for your efforts :thumbsup:

Question: What is the ETA for this mod?
Can this be downloaded currently and used?

Also, would the users be able to setup their own products and shipping cost as well? What about the taxes?

Absolute:

Testing is going well - I'm trying to add as many features as possible to the first release, so that we don't ahve to re-write chunks of code when an idea comes along that we didn't already consider.

Slipsam - do you have a sample tracking code you would like to include? I currently have the footers being set in templates, so its no problem to add the tracking to the relevant footer.

Keep you all posted.

Absolute

ABSOLUTE

Are you looking for a sample of advertising tracking (like Google Analytics?) or user tracking mod (http://www.hot-rock.com/zen-cart/user_tracking_20060114_1.zip) I do both.

I setup a test 'merchant' store (the one that actually interfaces with payment gateway). This store functions on website with SSL and dedicated IP. The SSL covers 'http://mywebsite.com', but a security warning pops up if you type in 'www.mywebsite.com' - even though it's the same site. So my hosting company recommended a mod_rewrite in public_html .htaccess file (and were kind enough to take care of it all)... ok... So now any variation of the 'mywebsite.com' directs straight into 'https://mywebsite.com' without a security popup. Good.

But now, I setup an addon for an alias store - call it 'alias1.com' - it points to the 'https://mywebsite.com/shop' directory. Unfortunately, when it loads, the address bar reflects the 'https://mywebsite.com/shop' url instead of the addon 'alias1.com' url.

Experimenting, I was able to get the addon 'alias1.com' to find the 'https://mywebsite.com' index page while still cloaked, and I placed a link there '/shop/' to Zen. Successfully it found the shop directory and still had 'alias1.com/shop' in the address bar - but after that, all links in the ZEN shop page were 'https://mywebsite.com/shop/etc.'.

So to summarize; security popups for SSL may be unavoidable when starting the shopping experience in the 'multiple stores with one checkout' concept. Using the mod_rewrite method to control an addon alias isn't an effective solution to this problem (so far as I've tested).

FYI: the code we tested for the mod_rewrite was:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} =80
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI}

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^mywebsite\.com
RewriteRule (.*) https://mywebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

and ```
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://mywebsite.com/$1 [L,R]

I'm running a support ticket with my hosting company to see if they have any solutions to making the 'alias1.com' website hold it's url throughout the SSL cloaking.. thought I'd post to see if Absolute or others have tested these waters yet?

Hosting company provides excellent service ( :thumbsup: ), but it seems this one is beyond 'free support': > I'm afraid we don't have a ready-made answer for you. However, it is likely possible to achieve with mod_rewrite still, or use a frames to cloak the URL. I'd recommend you search google on these methods or see other possibilities to acheive this.

Hi everyone,
I'm a new, and mightily impressed, user of Zen Cart and am interested in potentially hosting multiple sites using the one Zen Cart installation to avoid nastiness with upgrades and such.

I've been reading over a lot of the posts in this thread and others, and it sounds like a lot of what I'm after may be here. I am a newbie so bear with me though...

Since we'll be doing the hosting I want one installation of Zen for multiple people. Each hosted site will have it's own administrative interfaces ( or access to their admin values ), individual templating, domains etc... which all sound like they're possible from the posts I've read. But as the hosting company we won't have a payment gateway and leave that up to the client... Is it possible to have multiple sites, each with their own admin stuff and payment gateways/checkouts running from the one installation of Zen Cart?

Thanks for the help. Zen Cart worked like a charm right out of the box! :)

Adam.

The demo looks very interesting.

great for inviting various customer groups to your store! looking foreward to developements with keen interest.

Thanks

dadnad:

Since we'll be doing the hosting I want one installation of Zen for multiple people. Each hosted site will have it's own administrative interfaces ( or access to their admin values ), individual templating, domains etc... which all sound like they're possible from the posts I've read. But as the hosting company we won't have a payment gateway and leave that up to the client... Is it possible to have multiple sites, each with their own admin stuff and payment gateways/checkouts running from the one installation of Zen Cart?

What you are asking for does not quite make sense. You want multiple stores, on multiple domains, with multiple admins, but one installation? What does that mean? What you have described is simply multiple installations. Are you talking about running them all off of the same SQL? Do you know what kind of nightmare that would create? :shocking:

hi voltage
thanks for your reply,
I think maybe I'm not asking in the right way...

I'm keen to avoid any insanity having had to deal with it in the form of maintaining multiple installations of the same software in the past...

Having dealt with forum software before I know there's a concept allowing multiple sites to be handled by the one installation. This is what I'm after, I'm not sure whether this entails using the same database, or multiple ones.

I'd be interested to see a single install handle multiple accounts. I have tried installing Zen into one central place, linking the php to multiple client directories and having local instances for configure.php... this seemed to scratch my itch but am really wondering if there's a nicer way to do that? In this scenario each client has their own database and admin interface, but not sure if it's really the right way to do this? If this is the path I need to go down can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks for the help.

Adam.

:thumbsup:

interesting thread to follow! thanx for this great efforts, Absolute...

Hi there Absolute,
Any progress on finishing this mod? Are you ready yet to release a beta version so that we can inspect/test it? I'm particularly interested to see what the admin changes are & how usable they might be vis the shop owner.
Thanks for your efforts todate.
Eddie

Appologises for the delay - a large project kind of swallowed my time over the last month, and I´ve just not had the time available to finish the project.

I´ve taken a few days break, to get a tan and clear my head, and this is definately on the list of things to complete before the end of the month.

Absolute