Prestashop Multistore & Marketplace

[Yorgocom]

Hello everyone. New to Prestashop. We have installed PS 1.7 and are in the process of configuring it. The aim is to create a virtual mall whereby physical brick and mortar shops will have their own respective shops on the platform. We enabled multistore functionality in the admin section of PS. my question is :

From your collective experiences, what is the best way to configure PS so that a user browsing the platform can see and purchase products from all shops while at the same time being able to browse specific shop pages. Also, If there is any documentation I should read I would greatly appreciate if someone can point me to it. 

 

thank you

[El Patron]

Hi welcome to the community.

MultiShop does not support a 'market place'.   With multishop there is still only one 'admin' so sellers would not be able to access their own admin and manage their products.

 

This seems to be the de facto module, make sure to review and ask developer if you have questions.

https://addons.prestashop.com/en/marketplace-creation/8057-advanced-marketplace.html

 

happy selling, el

 

[Yorgocom]

Hi 

Thank you for your reply, However I do not want to allow shops to manage their products through PRestashop. This will be handled through another module (POS that will be installed in each physical shop). 

The main idea is, having under one shop group, one shop per physical store with all its products defined, and one shop where ALL products from all the stores will be shown. Needless to say all shops/stores will share same categories , customers etc. 

 

MAIN

  |____SHOP1

  |____SHOP2

  |____SHOP3

  etc etc

 |____SHOP X which will not have any products of its own but shows all products for all shops. 

 

This shall be the default shop for the group... which means I will publish its URL and users when navigating to it will see everything. 

I did look into the Advanced Marketplace module. Not bad at all, but I was not able to get a POS module to work with it out of the box. All POS modules are made for single shop setups.

 

I hope I managed to convey the situation as clearly as possible

 

thank you again 

 

[El Patron]

Have you  considered cookie handling between shops.  If same domain maybe not an issue and which could be tested.

[Yorgocom]

HI

I have not really considered cookie handling as I am still working on the config side of things...what would cookie handling bring in terms of a solution?

[El Patron]

On 11/8/2018 at 1:50 AM, Yorgocom said:

can see and purchase products from all shops while at the same time being able to browse specific shop pages.

 

if visitor can purchase products from all shops and browse specific shop pages then they need to maintain the same cookie during visit.  you would want to do a test of your visitor nativations and how it affects cart/login status etc between shops.

[Yorgocom]

I thought this was default functionality...when having multistore, Prestashop handles all this in the background via the share customers/orders etc? At this stage we are not planning to develop anything inside prestashop but are rather focusing on out of box functionality in addition to add on modules needed...

 

[El Patron]

This is why you will want to test early in your investigation visitor navigation between shops and how cookies are handled.

[Yorgocom]

Duly noted. What about the configuration part? is there any way to create what we are seeking? one shop where all products would be displayed (without duplicating and without loosing product <--> original shop association)?

[El Patron]

I would start by creating a subdomain with a clean installation.  enable multishop...and configure demo data between shops and test.  PS supports stores within same domain or different domain(subdomain).   From this you will know what if any challenges you will have building a production shop.

[Yorgocom]

This is already done (im on my 5th installation of PS with a complete cleanup after every try to ensure there are no leftovers that affect the setup). We did a new installation of PS , enabled multistore, created categories and sub categories , added a shop group and added shops underneath this group... below screenshots show the config:

Three shops have products defined in them and if I open the URL associated with them I can see the products while the fourth one,  Merkado, is meant to be the main page where all products would be displayed. 

[El Patron]

On 11/9/2018 at 11:57 AM, Yorgocom said:

This is already done (im on my 5th installation of PS with a complete cleanup after every try to ensure there are no leftovers that affect the setup). We did a new installation of PS , enabled multistore, created categories and sub categories , added a shop group and added shops underneath this group... below screenshots show the config:

Three shops have products defined in them and if I open the URL associated with them I can see the products while the fourth one,  Merkado, is meant to be the main page where all products would be displayed. 

 

That's great and I know a lot of work..but nothing good is easy.

What happens if you add to cart on one store then navigate to other store?  Maybe because you under one domain it may work.

[BambooDragon]

I think you're maybe over-complicating things. All you need is a single PS, "My Market Place." Effectively your Home Page. You then make a main category for each "Shop". For instance, "Joes Electronics", "Mary's Knickers Shop". You can add an appropriate logo/photo for each shop in the edit categories section. Then add sub categories will act as categories within each shop. Finally you have your final X shop, say "Supermarket" which sells everything. Simple to add all products as you just enter additional "Category" " sub categories" as you add each product. Simples!

[Puriom]

Hello!

On 10/25/2019 at 11:06 PM, BambooDragon said:

I think you're maybe over-complicating things. All you need is a single PS, "My Market Place." Effectively your Home Page. You then make a main category for each "Shop". For instance, "Joes Electronics", "Mary's Knickers Shop". You can add an appropriate logo/photo for each shop in the edit categories section. Then add sub categories will act as categories within each shop. Finally you have your final X shop, say "Supermarket" which sells everything. Simple to add all products as you just enter additional "Category" " sub categories" as you add each product. Simples!

If someones know:
- Can different domain point to each category?
- Cart would show the main site? (The POS module would be installed on main site?)
- Can each category (domain) has it's own theme?
Thank you