Multi store, Multi Vendor Virtuemart Setup
Here are some questions and answers which may help you in setting up your Multi Vendor virtuemart shop.
Question:
I am trying to setup the Multi store virtuemart plugin. The default home page is not
working now. Neither is the menu for the second site. Please help me.
Answer:
As far as content or menu display is concern, please take your time to understand the "Multi Store control center" in virtuemart back end.
For example, the menu problem. There are two possibilities. If you
want to share the main menu in both sites (and template positions are
same), you can just go to
Multi Store control center >> Joomla content & module allocation >> select module from drop down
You will see all modules available on your site. Here you can allocate them to any site(s).
If
you have a different menu (or template position is different), create a
copy of your menu module and allocate that copy to sub site while allocate
the original one to main site.
- For home page, note the item id of menu item for sub site. Then go to
Multi Store control center >> Vendor/Sub Store's Rights & Configuration >> select sub site
Then put menu item id in the following field:
'Item ID of default/Home page Menu Item'
Question:
I cannot see the products I put into virtuemart previously,
which is only the test products. How do i make them appear?
Answer:
Products will not display unless you allocate them. You can do that from
VM back end. You can see an 'Allocate' link in products list in virtuemart back end. This allows you to allocate/share products to just one site, many sites or share across all front ends.
Question:
In the backend of Joomla, in
virtumart I cannot see the categories and only two products.
Answer:
That was happening because you've written 'admin' (which is your super user account) as store admin.
Because of that 'admin' became a restricted user who can see only those
products which are explicitly assigned to a sub site.
In short, admin username field for the store must be left blank unless you want to give front end editing facility to any of your managers for your sub stores or to your vendors in a multi vendor scenario which is also supported by our multi store multi vendor virtuemart extension.
Question:
In the plugin Virtuemart Multi Store, i selected show all in main. What is this?
Answer:
Your main store is located on your main domain. If 'show all in main' is set to YES, all vendors' products will be visible on your main domain. While their own products will be visible on their own domains. For example, if show all is YES, then your main domain
www.yoursite.com
will show all products of all vendors.
and
substore1.yoursite.com
will show products allocated to substore1 or products allocated as 'All stores'.
If 'show all in main' is set to NO, only allocated products will show on main site. Vendors products will be shown on their own sub domains or their own domains (both possible but depending on how you setup).
Question:
I selected YES for 'separate cart for each sub store' option. Now each vendor will have a separate cart? How does that work?
Answer:
If separate cart for each store is set to YES then upon clicking a product user will move to the detail page of the product but on vendor sub domain. See? if you click a product on product browse page on your main domain
www.yourdomain.com
the user will be taken to the product detail page on
substore1.yourdomain.com
Here he can add the product to this vendor cart. That way, on each sub domain, there will be a separate cart for each vendor. It is a shopping mall like experience.
Our multi cart module shows all user carts (having all products he added to the cart) from separate vendors and shopper can easily checkout these carts.
Question:
I created a new module to show on Main site and made a copy of another module to show on vendor abc.mydomain.com. Both of them are not displaying. What to do? I am trying to build a shopping mall like multi vendor site.
Answer:
All Joomla content and modules must be allocated to display. There is one exception though. If 'Show all in Main' is YES in multi store plugin back end options, then everythings gets displayed even without allocation on your main site. But all joomla content and modules MUST be allocated to be shown on sub sites or vendor stores.
If 'Show all in Main' is set to NO in multi store plugin back end options, then you must allocate the desired content and modules also for the main site.
Question:
I am trying to understand the product allocation in my multi vendor virtuemart site. Do I need to create all vendor products from virtuemart back end? and then allocate them to each vendor store? Is there any other way?
Answer:
No, you do not need to do that. Vendor can create their own products and these are allocated automatically to their stores. However, you may also allocate products from your virtuemart back end if you have a need to do that. For example, you have some already existing products and you want to allocate them one or more vendors then you may use the product allocation from virtuemart back end.