Is this possible with multishop?

[AFemaleProdigy]

I would like to use PS multishop in the following manner.  I am going to attempt to do this, but if anyone has any advice or suggestions on how to approach this, I would really appreciate it.

 

In multishop mode, I have 3 shop within one shop group.  All three shops share everything they possibly can.  Let's call them Shop1, Shop2, and Shop3

 

The first goal is to have Shop1 and Shop2 function as store fronts where customers can purchase items on two different domains.  This part is set up and functioning properly.  

 

The second goal:  Shop3 is not intended to be a store where people can purchase, but rather a payment website that shares the PS back office and only parts of the front office with a custom designed theme.  When you visit the front office, it looks like a pretty basic website to log in and to make payments for things.  This is a work in progress.

 

The third goal:  I need customers to make purchases at Shop1 and Shop2 and upon checkout, be routed to Shop3 (the payment site), where they can make their payment and complete their order.

 

Since all 3 shops share customer info, order info, and product info... this theory seems like it could work.

 

The hurdles I forsee getting in the way:  

 

• Is there a way for the sites to share login sessions/cookies so that the customer will not have to log in an additional time on the payment website?
• Would it be possible, when they are at the payment shop (shop3), to detect the original shop they came from and redirect them back to it once their payment is completed?
• What would be the best way to implement the routing from Shop1 and Shop2 to the Shop3 payment site?  Module, direct link, or redirect code?

 

Do you see any other issues with this concept?  Anything that might get in my way?

 

You might wonder why I would go to such trouble and not just use the payment modules on each individual shop.  Well, because of certain terms of service requirements from specific payment processors, I cannot host their payment services directly on some of my websites as the content violates their terms of service.  I need my payment processing to be on a separate website and I want to offer multiple methods of payment in one place.

 

Thanks for the help!

Edited November 1, 2014 by AFemaleProdigy (see edit history)

[El Patron]

..the issue to consider is that  'cookies' are by domain.  this is a browser rule unrelated to ps.

 

once you leave one domain and go to another, regardless of ps sharing, all customer data is lost, i.e. login/cart/lang/currency etc. because they cannot share cookies...

[AFemaleProdigy]

Thanks, El Patron.  I am now trying to think "outside the box" to figure out another means to make the concept work.

[frank_jarle]

I am not sure if i understand the concept of why you would want two webshops to be the "front-end" while a third one handle payment.

 

As El Patron pointed out cookies can't be shared among websites, however the only possible thing i can think of right now is to pass session/credential between sites, this should in theory allow the visitors to login to one site and be able to get into the other site too.

 

The only thing i can think of is that all purchase information is stored in database instead of a cookie, but i am not sure if this is feasible or possible. In my opinion i think it would be better to handle both shopping and payment within each individual site.

[AFemaleProdigy]

As I mentioned previously, my reason for this method is because two of my shops display content that is a violation of the terms of service for certain merchant payment processors.  Merchant processors have rules about the types of content that can be displayed on a website in conjunction with their company name.  A good example would be adult imagery and things of that nature.  The work around for this would be to have an entirely separate domain that can be used for processing payments.  Just like a shop that uses Paypal... a customer orders on ShopA.com and then is transferred to Paypal.com... customer makes payment and is redirected back to ShopA.com.  This is the same concept I want to implement.  Except they don't transfer to Paypal, they transfer to my custom payment website which hosts several different payment methods.

 

I have not yet had time to mess with cookie sharing, but have read about some possible options.

 

In the mean time, I have simply added a link to my payment shop on the ShopA.com payment page with instructions for them to log in again.  The customer's cart information IS already transferring over, so that is good.  This is not the most ideal situation, but it will do until I find a better solution.  People are already using it anyway, so it must not be completely horrible.