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jack208
VP-CART New User
Malaysia
116 Posts |
 Posted - September 26 2021 : 03:20:26
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We are planning to spin off one of our categories into a separate storefront and thought using multi-store on the same db feature of VPCart might work ie setting xProductMatch = Yes
Has anyone done this before? Would like to share your experience before we jump in. We''ve done some explorations and found some gaps but would prefer to validate them with actual implementation experience if there''s any.
Thanks in advance :) |
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InkMagic
VP-CART New User
123 Posts |
Posted - October 04 2021 : 17:16:52
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Hi There Jack:
I''ve used product match for over 10 years to setup several websites selling some or all of the same products. Started out with 4 different websites selling printer cartridges under our InkMagic brand name. The last 2 years we''ve started forwarding 3 websites to our main website inkmagic.com.
Currently, and again for the last decade, we have 3 other websites feeding off one Access Database.
www.niftystuff.ca
www.spamarvelwest.ca (Canadian Sales)
www.spamarvelwest.com (U.S. Sales)
NiftyStuff website has all our ''NiftyStuff'' Products.
SpaMarvelWest.ca sells our Spa Marvel Hot Tub Products and some bug repellants and traps.
SpaMarvelWest.com which is for U.S. Sales, sells only the Spa Marvel Products which are shipped from a Buffalo, NY warehouse and none of the other ''NiftyStuff'' products.
Using the ''product match'' names for each site allows you to setup similar or different menu items also.
All orders from all 3 websites can be viewed and handled from one control panel. so when I long into my NiftyStuff Control Panel I see all my orders in one place.
I think the important thing is to make sure all websites have the same file structure. eg. for images I use /images or /sliderimages subdirectories. Every time I add an item to my main website, I also upload the images to the same directory of the other 2 sites.
I have my data base in a separate directory called ''dbases'' and it needs to have read/write permissions for all websites using it. Easy to backup the database(s) if they are in separate directories and not mixed in the all the VPASP files.
It takes a bit to setup and some time to get the overall feel of how it works, but once you''re up and running, there is no easier way of maintaining several websites selling overlapping products.
If you''ve got any questions, my emails are on my websites. I''d be happy to answer any questions you''ve got.
Hope this helps!
Dale
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jack208
VP-CART New User
Malaysia
116 Posts |
Posted - October 08 2021 : 15:04:05
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Dale, it''s great to hear you are making good use of this feature.
I''ve just set up my 2nd site. It''s still in staging and about to go live. There are some use case and workaround issues that I''ve noticed from trying to run two sites on a single DB so it''ll be good if I can bounce them off you.
Let me take some time to gather my thoughts and I''ll post a longer reply here. I would prefer to keep our back-n-forth here - if that''s okay with you - since our discussion here may serve as useful references for others in future. But if you feel we should go offline, I''m fine with that too. :P
Thanks in advance |
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jack208
VP-CART New User
Malaysia
116 Posts |
Posted - October 08 2021 : 17:25:57
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1) Duplication of product image files
Let''s handle the 1st (and obvious) issue first, having to duplicate prod images across store folders. I saw that you''ve already mentioned this
>>I think the important thing is to make sure all websites have the same file structure. eg. for images I use /images or /sliderimages subdirectories. Every time I add an item to my main website, I also upload the images to the same directory of the other 2 sites.
I''m also keeping both stores to the same directory structure, and am copying prod image files across the stores (depending on where I add the new product).
For this I''m planning to set up a sync program (Goodsync) to keep both stores in sync so this may not be a major pain point.
But I''ve been thinking. if I change from using relative path to absolute path for the product image, wouldn''t that resolve this issue?
For eg let''s say I''ve these two stores
- greatstore.com, and
- newshop.com
I''m now using relative path for the product image eg
"images/prod/kallax.jpg"
So this means when I upload the Kallax.jpg to GreatStore, I''ve to upload likewise to NewShop (or vice versa). I presume that''s what you are doing too.
But if I now switched to use absolute image path eg
"http://greatstore.com/images/prod/kallax.jpg"
...this would remove the need for me to keep another copy of the prod images on NewShop folders, yes?
This approach has its downsides. We actually started our VPCart store (many years back) using an absolute path but when we had to change the domain of our store, we found that yikes, we need to update all the image file path!!
Hence we now use relative image path.
If you''d considered absolute path, but didn''t implement it (and opted to stay with relative path), what are the reasons you dropped this idea?
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2) Duplication of content files (eg product page link)
While my suggestion for using absolute path may resolve the workaround needed for prod images, we still can''t get away with having to duplicate the product page link (as I notice you are using friendly URL links too).
For eg when I create a new item for GreatStore.com, it''ll create a sub-folder under PRODUCTS folder for this new item, and adds a "default.asp" file to it that''ll convert the friendly product URL to the absolute product URL
This default.asp / product subfolder has to be duplicated to NewShop.com as well, yes? And there seems no getting around this. Goodsync might be the only option I''ve to automate this duplication.
TQ
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jack208
VP-CART New User
Malaysia
116 Posts |
Posted - October 09 2021 : 03:58:36
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Dale, the other issue is the top menu. It seems we can only have one top menu and there''s no way to split the menu items among the multi-stores. Unlike say Categories, where we can still use productmatch to split (or share) the category.
You did have two different top menu
1) one for Inkmagic
2) and another top menu for the other three stores
www.niftystuff.ca
www.spamarvelwest.ca (Canadian Sales)
www.spamarvelwest.com (U.S. Sales)
I understand you may not have a need to have different top menu for the other 3 shared sites, but how did you create a new set of top menu for InkMagic (or rather make it to be different than the other three sites)?
In my case, the top menu for both stores GreatStore.com and NewShop.com are totally different, with very little overlaps.
For now, my workaround is to have a top menu for GreatStore.com but to disable it for NewShop.com |
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jack208
VP-CART New User
Malaysia
116 Posts |
Posted - October 09 2021 : 04:01:27
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haha.. I''m answering my own question!!
Ok, I was looking for "ProductMatch" in the Menu Edit page... turns out there is this option "Only show in this site" that should allow me to customize the top menu for each store.
Let me try and see if this works |
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