WP multiple ecommerce sites 1 database

wordpress

[WebWord]

Hi folks
lets say i have 50 spare urls , and i want to play with wordpress and ecommerce

the idea is to have ONE database , one cart like woocommerce and one admin
but have the possibility of 50 different websites ( themes), each with two or 3 products
pulled from the ONE MAIN DATABASE ... whats the potential pitfalls ... need to do
upgrade on sites FIFTY TIMES ... arrghhh for the simplest of tasks etc
somehow , somewhere im sure someone has a solution

anybody doing this ? ... and how ?

[WebWord]

wow really ? nobody knows ?

[LifeinAsia]

I'm not a WP expert, but it seems like it should be easy to do with the Multisite plugin.

Not sure why you would want to have 50 domains with almost no content (and actually duplicated content for any About Us and other pages common to all the sites) as opposed to 1 site with all the content.

Besides the extra maintenance, how are you going to deal with the checkout side? Get 50 secure certificates? Or have a checkout page that doesn't match the domain where the user has been shopping?

[travelin cat]

Multisite is the answer:

A multisite network is a collection of sites that all share the same WordPress installation. They can also share plugins and themes. The individual sites in the network are virtual sites in the sense that they do not have their own directories on your server, although they do have separate directories for media uploads within the shared installation, and they do have separate tables in the database

More here: [codex.wordpress.org...]

[gerygery]

Multisite is not the answer, because "they do have separate directories for media uploads within the shared installation, and they do have separate tables in the database".
This means each site cannot acces all the media in the database, it can access only its own media!

So if you have myhomepage.com pointing to your site with your database, and you have anotherpage1.com, anotherpage2.com, anotherpage3.com ... pointing also to the same site and database, then you must separate the programm execution in the PHP-script depending on what domainname your site was called from.

This you can do by exploiting $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'].
Example: $referer = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
$referer will be something like that: http:// myhomepage.com, or http:// anotherpage1.com, or http:// anotherpage2.com, or http:// anotherpage3.com ....., depending on what domainname was used to refer the site.

Now you can display your content depending on $referer!

One drawback which is not resolved yet:
You can login in WP only to myhomepage.com.
You cannot login to anotherpage1.com, anotherpage2.com, anotherpage3.com, ....

I wait for your suggestions to solve the problem with login from the subsites.

Gery

[edited by: travelin_cat at 6:52 pm (utc) on Nov 30, 2015]
[edit reason] Removed unnecessary link to website [/edit]

[gerygery]

By the way, if you want to see a working 1database - multiple sites, then you are invited to contact me!
Gery

[LifeinAsia]

Multisite is not the answer, because "they do have separate directories for media uploads within the shared installation, and they do have separate tables in the database".
This means each site cannot acces all the media in the database, it can access only its own media!

I could be wrong, but I believe that just refers to user-uploaded media files. And if I am wrong, then I'm sure there's a way to create a common directory accessible by all sites.

One drawback which is not resolved yet:
You can login in WP only to myhomepage.com.
You cannot login to anotherpage1.com, anotherpage2.com, anotherpage3.com, ....

It looks like the Multisite User Management plugin handles that. But unless the OP wants to let users create their own accounts, I don't see that it's needed.

[WebWord]

Theres changes going on here in UK ... the main one being the introduction of the .uk domain , we have had the .co.uk domain for many years , if you have a portfolio , the only way to keep and protect is buy the .uk domain , doubling the overall cost of your portfolio ... and with price increases on the way from march , its starting to become expensive to keep a large domain portfolio.

One way to offset is if each site was a small ecommerce site , even one sale per year on long tail searches can offset cost ... hence i wish to have 50-100 wordpress , ecommerce sites .... but having 100 logins etc would be onerous.

I beleive the official "wordpress multisite" plugin , well the name is misleading in this case , its for someone who wants to own 100 wordpress blobs ... its not suitable for ecommerce

A better way to descrivbe what i would be looking for is "MULTIstore plugin for wordpress ! "

I have found something , but i have not been able to find out a price or purchase ... but it does look like it would be suitble as it allows multiple instances of woo commerce , all with different themes , but all running off the one database for sales , admin products

[edited by: travelin_cat at 11:14 pm (utc) on Feb 6, 2016]
[edit reason] Link to third party website [/edit]

[WebWord]

This is an interesting point on the woomusitore website , its for sale for $199
"Important note to buyers.
Make sure that you know what you are buying when purchasing this plugin. As this is a digital product there are no returns or refunds after successful payment and download. Before buying it the buyer bears full responsibility to learn about all the features of this plugin and also what features the plugin dont have. If a feature is not mentioned in the documentation, the feature does not exist. "

Its hard to compare but im trying :-) , the first link details that all sites share the same checkout procedure , thats really handy ! and if requiring multiple options the only way to go as some payment systems are charging for woo commerce checkouts , can you imagine a $79 checkout x 89 stores :-)

SO definately winning at present on this alone is brihaspattitech

[Tonny]

Hi.

We are the developers of that woocommerce multistore plugin mentioned above.

If you dont want to read there, you can ask me here in this thread.

About that "Important note to buyers". We put it there because we dont want people that dont understand the plugin to buy it. And that note works, it certainly prevent some amateur web developers from buying just to try it. Imagine 1000 people trying the plugin and wants refunds because they dont understand the plugin. PayPal hate refunds and we have a PayPal account in good standing, that means we get cheaper PayPal fees, getting a 1000 refund requests we will not get that cheaper refund fees any more. The bottom line is that in any aspect you win if you sell to people that get satisfied with your product, no mather what product.

BTW, who is brihaspattitech?

[edited by: travelin_cat at 4:06 pm (utc) on Feb 7, 2016]
[edit reason] Removed link [/edit]

[Tonny]

Ok, I found out about brihaspattitech. I remember we tried plugin that some time ago, and decided to make our own plugin, as it didnt have the features we needed. Anybody knows more about brihaspattitech? They do not display price and more.

[WebWord]

oh thats me OUT then , im an amateur web developer , i really dont know what im doing , i struggle on by , i learn as i go because when you multiply ANYTHING by 100 or 150 sites costs become exorbitant so you must learn by yourself , its a shame your software is not so welcoming or am i losing something in translation.

* please note this thread is starting to become slightly confusing , as LINKS have been removed , i was not aware links to websites was not allowed *

1)SO we have brihaspattitech multistore who dont have a price online and reply comments on their website saying to email them , but then dont reply to emails Grrrr, still dont know how to buy or install this software , but it does have listed an extra feature , shared checkout , very useful as "payment checkout plugins" per store can work out very expensive

2) The woo multistore by the Norwegian guys , looks good lots of good info on website , you can buy instantly , its a plugin you upload , lots of detailed instructions , but only buy if you know what your doing , no amateur and appears but not clear , no shared checkout. ?

[Tonny]

Haha, great comment Web World :)
Being an amateur is not negative you know. Everybody has been there.
My main point is this: I want amateurs to buy the plugin, but I dont want people that dont understand what they are buying to buy the plugin.

And thats right, there are no shared checkout right now. Most people dont need a shared checkout, because its not good for business. Every single domain should have its own checkout, so that the customers are not confused, confused customers will not buy anything from you.

[WebWord]

OK , thanks , is it not possible to have single checkout
but code checkout to pull URL name into text ? type thing ?

ie/ welcome to tonny+ checkout
welcome to webword checkout
welcome to gerygery checkout
but essentially its the same page , this prevent issues with buying MULTIPLE addons , i think for me , a single checkout is essential feature ?

[Tonny]

Are you talking about cloaking the actual checkout URL? Thats not possible.

welcome to tonny checkout
welcome to webword checkout
welcome to gerygery checkout

will all have different urls like
tonny.com/checkout
webword.com/checkout
and so on.

You dont have to buy multiple addons, you buy only one license from us and use it in as many stores you want to.

[WebWord]

I understand but if you need add on for checkout , like one page express checkout for example , its licenced to URL so you need to buy add on for each checkout , gets expensive.

I was thinking more of the checkout being on "MASTERSITE" and each shop URL being pulled in to build confidence to customer

So would say ..... WELCOME TO TONNY MASTERSITE WEB NETWORK
INCORPORATING ( INSERT NAME OF SITE ) ....... that site customer was purchasing on

I wonder how the other plugin brihaspattitech does it ?

tonny thanks for hanging out here and answering questions , i suppose the answer might be to simply not buy any plug ins for the checkout :-) ....but overall a single checkout does seem really useful feature though ... get coding ! :-)

[Tonny]

I dont think its a good idea to cloak the real URL for the checkout page.
For example, in a near future we will possible have to use https for any checkout page, you cant do that with cloaking.

If you cant code, just buy a theme where the checkout page is designet like you need it.