Magento Exclusive: Running multiple Magento stores on multiple domains from a single index.php

-By

Younus Sardar

tekSymmetry, LLC

18th Jan,2010

What’s Magento ?

An open-source ecommerce web application.

Popular Open Source eCommerce Software

Magento Zen-Cart osCommerce X-Cart Avactis Batavi VirtuMart

Why Magento?

One install, multiple merchants, multiple websites, multiple shops!

Suitable for a small ecommerce site as well as an ecommerce network

About all popular payment methods are already integrated (total 11 methods).

Customized admin roll management

Multiple Images Per Product Product Image Zoom-in Capability Batch Import and Export of catalog Shipping to multiple addresses in one order or

multiple shipments per order One-Page Checkout

Advantage(Developing view)

A perfect MVC approach (using Zend framework)

Fully Object Oriented Platform Highly stable, very powerful, and extremely

expandable User friendly

Disadvantage(Developing view)

Due to the Zend/OOP/MVC influence on Magento. A huge folder structure and hundreds of files. It is difficult to follow the code

Database depends on EAV (Entity-Attribute-Value) model. SQL codes are difficult a little bit!

Most complex php application ever found!

A Scenario

Let’s imagine a merchant who deals with thousands of products.

He has 100 stores. He wants to sell his products over 10 different

websites.

Can we do these with just one Magento install ?

Multiple Magento stores on multiple domains from a single install.

Setting Up Multiple Websites

Step 1:  Creating a new folder in the main Magento installation

for second website, copying index.php and .htaccess, necessary change of code to index.php

Step2:

Create a new root category for second websiteAdmin-> Catalog-> Manage Categories -> Add Root Category

Step3:

1) Create new website2) Create store & point to new root category to that

store3) Create store view

1) Create new website

Admin -> System -> Manage Stores

Admin -> System -> Manage Stores -> Create Website

2) Create Store

Admin -> System -> Manage Stores -> Create Store

3) Create Store View

Admin -> System -> Manage Stores -> Create Store View

Step 4:

Configure URL structure for new websiteAdmin -> System -> Configuration

We are done for multiple websitesWebsite 1: Digital Store

URL: http://localhost/magentostore/index.php

Website 2: Shoe Store

URL: http://localhost/magentostore/shoestore/index.php

Step: 5

1) Add Categories

2) Add Products

1) Add Categories (Admin - > Catalog - > Manage Category)

2) Add Product (Admin - > Catalog - > Manage Product)

Select website for the product

Now we can have.. Website for Digital Store

Website for Shoe Store

Website for Shoe Store

Adding a new store to a website

Step1: Create a new store in Magento store manager and add

a root category for the store. Admin-> System-> Manage Stores -> Create New Store

Step2:

Add an additional store view to the new created store

Admin-> System-> Manage Stores -> Create New Store

Now we can see the store list in the footer (default). Customers can switch between stores.

Thank You! Questions ?