Is this a quick n dirty workaround for 'Multiple Shops?'

[beerkid]

Maybe others have done this but I would like to re-configure the blocks in the following way so that I can feature suppliers' products separately on their own page.

When importing products I include fields for suppliers and manufacturers, both fields containing one supplier/manufacturer for each product. So suppliers are now suppliers and manufacturers. Voila, they are on their own page now. I'm new at Prestashop though I am guessing you can style CSS uniquely for each manufacturer page? Even if they are the same layout, that isn't so bad.

So what about manufacturers? They get moved to categories. And subcategories now represent individual products, many of which are carried by many suppliers. This will take a decent amount of tinkering.

The missing piece to this is how to allow store owners to manage their own products. Currently, the admin permissions are too general to allow them access to the back-end. The back-end does not allow a supplier to only view/add/edit their own products for example. If there was a log system to track back-end activity, that could potentially be an easier solution because you could cut off any problems fairly quickly.

Any drawbacks other than a decent amount of template tinkering? Are there core files that get upgraded that are separate from peripheral files? If so, I would feel better about messing with templates knowing that it would not inhibit me from upgrading in the future.