Creating a Category "Sellers" is this practical?

[Bobcat22]

I am asking if creating a standalone category for each seller (seller's name) would be practical using PrestaShop? This would allow the buyer to look for all products by seller. The admin or store owner could also search for all products by seller on the front end.

 

If this is possibly a good idea, the problem is that a seller would be seeing all of the sellers in the category drop-down when adding/editing a product. Secondly, that seller can add a product to another seller's inventory without knowledge or consent. Is there an alternative?

Edited August 27, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[benjamin utterback]

Hi Bobcat22, actually this can be done by just attaching each product to a Manufacture or Supplier (The actual verbiage can be changed to Sellers)

 

You can sort all products by doing this way so there is no reason to really set it up like this. However, it does make sense and you can do it.

[Bobcat22]

In the admin area - "Filter by Category" how do you search my "Supplier?"

 

Regarding Suppliers seeing a list of other suppliers and being able to link them to their product.

• Each seller sees and has access to other sellers inventory when using the method of using the Suppliers in the left menu for products. This tells me that Supplier is not a vendor nor seller but perhaps a distributor.
  
• Why should a seller be bothered with looking at a list of distributors when entering a new product, especially when there is no distributor?
  

Edited August 27, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[Bobcat22]

Still awaiting a response - is this part of PrestaShop that needs to be rethought? A better way is to let Prestashop stamp each product entry with the seller's or supplier's name or ID so that a search on a supplier will bring up all products from that supplier.

Edited August 28, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[benjamin utterback]

I'm sorry, I thought you meant browsing the Front Office, in that case the customer can filter by manufacturer or supplier.

 

In the back-office under Catalog, Supplier or Manufacturer, you will see all products from each of the manufacturer or supplier you select.

[Bobcat22]

"In the back-office under Catalog, Supplier or Manufacturer, you will see all products from each of the manufacturer or supplier you select"

 

When a supplier wants to add a new product, they can select any supplier in the drop-down list?

[benjamin utterback]

Hey Bobcat22,

 

It's actually easier than that.

 

All they do is Add their product as anybody would, simply select the Supplier they are with in the dedicated "Supplier" tab. It's all in one area.

 

Catalog>Products>Add New Product.

[Bobcat22]

I'll stated this again, The problem is that the one entering the product can select another supplier without that supplier's knowledge or consent. Also a person can get a list of all the suppliers.

 

Again, as I state in the above post, PrestaShop should already track, when the individual logs in, which suppliers is adding products. The shop admin or super admin should only have access to a supplier master list.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[benjamin utterback]

Hi Bobcat22,

 

What you are stating is true.

 

If you give BO access to 10 Suppliers, and they have permission to add a Product. When they add a product they are allowed to select any of the suppliers that have already been made.

 

There is no Permission set within the Add Product function that can prevent this.

 

 

Can you tell me more about the ideal situation with your Suppliers? Usually suppliers update inventory through the back office, or provide a CSV file for you to upload the relevant information.

 

PrestaShop has a very robust permission set in Administration>Permissions. There are options you have to deal with that situation a number of ways.

[Bobcat22]

Would like to thank you for your assistance in this matter. "If you give BO access" What is "BO."

 

The idea situation would be that when a supplier enters in new products, PrestaShop would stamp that entry with the sellers ID with no seller intervention. Only the super admin or admin should be able to reassign, if needed, the supplier to a particular product entry.

 

It just does not make good business sense nor does this model conform to Etsy, Ebay or Craign List to allow any supplier to see or manipulate inventory of another supplier's inventory.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[benjamin utterback]

You are very welcome!

 

BO= Back Office.

 

I understand your ideal situation but if you allow any supplier permission to add products, they could add multiple products, add wrong products, wrong pictures, wrong prices etc....

 

Having them select the wrong supplier is just a small part of the risk.

 

That is why most supply orders are done through the Supply Order tab of Advance Stock Management, or through CSV.

[Bobcat22]

What business model does PrestaShop follow? "It just does not make good business sense nor does this model conform to Etsy, Ebay or Craign List to allow any supplier to see or manipulate inventory of another supplier's inventory."

 

This is unusual and posses a security issue to allow a supplier the ability to change the inventory of another supplier. If this was to happen as a prank, the admin and host would get 2 back eyes from the buyers and sellers. To fix this would be a mess and would considerable time to resolve. Even more difficult if there were transactions on these products.

 

Adding a wrong product, product ID or product description is hardly compared with getting the wrong supplier listed for that product entry. I think I am at a cross road with you on this matter. From you responses, you are defending what is a bad policy within the framework of PrestaShop. I will take this up with someone else, Thank you again.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[benjamin utterback]

Hi Bobcat22, have you looked at the permission set?

 

Have your supplier use a CSV file, or have a Supplier update inventory through the Supply Orders in Advance Stock Management.

 

Do not allow your supplier to add the products or edit the products. That makes no sense, I agree.

 

Look at it this way, even IF you stopped your supplier from picking another Supplier, let's say that worked fine.

 

What's stopping your supplier from making the price of a product a million dollars, or making the picture a spaceship. There are a lot of "pranks" that can happen when your supplier is adding products. That is why the standard way for all (not just PrestaShop) is to use either 1) Supply Order, Stock Management or 2) CSV Files . Or a combination of both.

 

It does not make sense to let your suppliers add whatever product they want to your store, it is not safe and not good business practice.

 

. PrestaShop can connect inventory to marketplaces like Ebay, and Amazon. But PrestaShop can not be compared as simply a Marketplace, it's a Ecommerce solution. The business model for a marketplace is different from a business model of an online ecommerce store.

[Bobcat22]

You say, "What's stopping your supplier from making the price of a product a million dollars, or making the picture a spaceship. There are a lot of "pranks" that can happen when your supplier is adding products." The obvious different is the impact is contained within the seller's shop and not the shops of other suppliers.

 

From your recent post I understand that you do not allow the supplier access to the product menu in the backend, but rather use Supply Order, Stock Management or 2) CSV Files . Or a combination of both. This point was not clearly made in the docs I visited.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[benjamin utterback]

I understand.

 

That is true Bobcat22

 

There is a solution! use MultiStore!

 

Use multistore and have each Supplier have their own separate store and domain. That way, you don't have to worry about suppliers going into other people's inventory. They only have access to their shop. Are you familiar with a Multi-store set up ?

[Bobcat22]

I thought that PrestaShop was set for MultiStore by default. This makes sense now. Let me read up on that, How to set PS for MS.

[benjamin utterback]

Preferences>General>Use Multistore (yes)

 

Then go to Advance Parameters>MultiStore>Add new Shop etc.

[Bobcat22]

I apologize for my not knowing PrestatShop better. Enabling Multi-shop partitioned one supplier from all others.

 

Thank you.

[Bobcat22]

In Multi-store mode the supplier for a new shop, which adds a virtual folder, can see the inventory of another shop even though as super admin, I have linked the shop to its own domain (folder). The shop user is set as "Employee"

Edited August 29, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[benjamin utterback]

You will have to edit the permissions of each shop employee so they do not have access to the other shops admin or inventory.

 

Are you adding a new shop or new shop group?

 

Also, you may have imported all the data from your original shop, that will include all the orders inventory etc.

[Bobcat22]

Good to hear this. Wonder why PrestaShop did not create a Profile called, "Shop Onwer" and set the permissions that would most likely work for most. This would allow the new PrestaShop admin to see what is enabled and thus get a better sense of what to allow and restrict..

 

Is there such a recommendation what to enable? For example, on invoices, should we enable view/add and edit for the shop owner?

Edited August 29, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[benjamin utterback]

It depends. A SuperAdmin on a Shop can see everything in it's group. That's the main part. If you do not want to share inventories or orders, You should make separate Shops.

 

In that case, only You can control everything. You should give all the rights to each "Shop"'s owner the ability to do everything.

 

A super Admin of a Shop, does not have rights to other Shop's inventory. However, if you are part of a shop group, the Super Admin can do everything within the shop group, including all the child shops and the parent shops.

[Bobcat22]

Ok, will proceed with your instructions. I first created the shop as a single shop, now I must export the inventory to the virtual shop.as you have stated.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[Bobcat22]

PrestaShop is working, keeping these shops isolated. Lastly can you show me where I can read how shop owners can enter products via CVC or any other means?

[benjamin utterback]

Well, the way you have it set up your suppliers can add products individually, that is what you wanted originally no?

 

CSV is a file that your suppliers should have if they want to do it this way, so when they send it to you, you can upload it via the Back Office>Advance parameters>CSV Import.. alternatively, you can set it up so certain other people have access to this feature.

[Bobcat22]

Generally, shop owners or suppliers will add products one at a time.

 

Although CVC option exist, this task the host with yet another process. I can see if the store owner or supplier already has exported products from another database, otherwise, this is not attractive.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Bobcat22 (see edit history)

[benjamin utterback]

What is cvc? Do you mean CSV? I'm sorry I am confused. When you export a database, it's hard to link just that one articular database to any other install. Usually an exported database will also need the same PrestaShop files from the time of export. That's because certain modules and changes will change the database.