2. Multi-store functionality is considered to be one of the greatest capabilities
of Magento. So, in this presentation we are going to discuss the one
advanced functionality of Magento, Multi-store. How you can add and
manage multiple stores on your Magento website, we will show you in this
presentation cum tutorial.
Magento Multi Stores functionality powers you to add numbers of stores
within single Magento installation. This can be very useful if you are going to
sell products on different domains sharing single admin panel. You can keep
track of your sales and customers without having login to the admin of each
websites.
For this example, we’ll be attempting to set up domain1.com, domain2.com
and domain3.com.
Usually, Magento is installed into the folder /var/www/http, according to
the Magento Installation Guide. We’ll be dividing process into the steps
based on the areas of configuration we will need to deal with–namely,
Categories, Store Configuration in Magento Admin, and Store Configuration
in the Server.
3. Step 1: Categories
First of all we need to create categories. As all three websites will be
sharing the same catalog, we will be using the default root category in
Catalog -> Categories -> Manage Categories and this will be creating
categories under the root category (i.e. electronics, clothing etc.).
These categories (Clothing, Electronics) should be set as both “Is Active”
from the General Information tab and “Is Anchor” from the Display
Settings tab for them to appear on the frontend of your Magento shop.
(NOTE: If the websites will not be sharing the same catalog, a Root
Category must be created for each website. Thus, if there are 3
websites, there will be 3 Root Categories with subcategories under them.)
4. Step 2: Store configuration
1. Well, we have created our Categories, now it’s time to create websites
by going to System -> Manage Stores and clicking the “Create Website”
button.
Name – domain name of our new website
Code – a parameter that will be used in configuring the Apache web server to point
to that particular domain name
5. 2. Once the website is created, we will create the store corresponding to
this website by clicking on the “Create Store” button in System -> Manage
Stores.
Website – website to which this store will be associated
Name – the same as the website name
Root Category – the root category that will be used for this store. (Refer to Step 1
for Details)
6. 3. Now, we create the store view which is the interface that the customer
will be able to access on the frontend. Click the “Create Store View”
button in System -> Manage Stores.
Store – store to which this view will be associated
Name – name of this store view (i.e. English Version, German Version, etc.)
Code – code for this store view
Status – if enabled, this store view will be accessible from our frontend, otherwise,
it will not be accessible
7. 4. After the Store is created, we need to configure the Unsecure Base URL
and Secure Base URL under System -> Configuration -> General ->
Web. Before we set their respective base URLs first we need to confirm
that the configuration scope is set to the domain1.com website to define
which site we are working on.
Then, we modify the base URLs for both Unsecure:
and Secure:
8. with the corresponding domain name by un-checking the ”Use default [STORE
VIEW]” checkbox and then click on save the configuration button .
5. Now just repeat Steps 2-4 for the other two websites, domain2.com and
domain3.com by replacing the fields with their respective information.
9. Step 3: Store Configuration in the Server
1. Now we re-configure the Apache configuration file, httpd.conf, for all
domains to set the DocumentRoot to our Magento directory. In this
case, the directory is /var/www/http
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain1.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/http
ServerName domain0.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain2.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/http
ServerName domain1.com
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain3.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/http
ServerName domai2.com
</VirtualHost>
11. 3. Restart Apache Server
If you are on a Red Hat based distribution, you’ll be able to type service
apache restart. For other distributions, you’ll want to type apachectl
restart.
(NOTE: The second option here is different than “apachectl graceful” which
will run a graceful restart and reload configuration files, without
terminating current connections. We don’t have any visitors to our site
yet, so it’s okay to do a “apachectl restart.)
12. Step 4: Here we are ready to Go!
After we’ve completed all of these steps we should now see all 3 domains
in our backend:
All that’s left now is to add products to the catalog and give each site a
custom theme if you want.
13. Many web owners are taking advantage of Magento’s incredible multi-store functionality,
whether it’s to set up stores with multiple languages, different catalogs and even the same
catalogs with different themes.
Without any doubt, Magento is most powerful ecommerce web development
platforms. No other ecommerce development platform can beat Magento in
terms of functionality and serviceability. Magento as ecommerce is incredible
and most sought-after platform.
Just with single Magento installation one should have control over multiple
stores from single admin panel which is really considerable.
Website with a huge amount of data, products and categories would
obviously bother users to find their desired products. We need to thank
Magento Ecommerce Development because it has solved this problem by
coming up with this exciting multiple store management functionality using a
single admin. With this amazing feature functionality, retailers can easily craft
their business in more bespoke manner.
When it comes to Magento Ecommerce Development, companies like KGN Technologies truly stand
apart in the crowd because of their incredible services and familiarity with the way to successful
Magento Ecommerce Development solutions. Technically skillful Magento Developers of KGN
Technologies are known for developing solutions abide to industrial standards in the form of
astonishing and dominating Magento store for you.