Sub shops possible with osCommerce?

[jakob]

Hallo Forum,

 

A more general question: Is the following scenario possible with osCommerce? And if so, what would be the best way to go about it?

 

We have a main shop (currently using another software) with a product palette and its own domain name/portal - a standalone shop so-to-speak.

 

To increase sales/awareness we would also like to offer smaller subset product selections (though the products might be in several categories) from the overall product palette as mini-shops or sub-shops from within other homepages (also ours) and, as far as is possible, to match the design to the respective host homepage.

 

...

 

I can imagine this would work with several osCommerce installations on the different homepages but can they be made to

a) use the same product database (so that product details can be updated centrally), and

b) use the same customer details database (so that customers are recognised from all the shops/subshops even if these are reached through sub-domains)

 

An alternative approach would be to provide a number of different paths/faces to one shop installation, e.g. each with their own design and product subset to fit the design of the respective 'host homepage'.

 

If neither of these is possible, a third approach might be to describe the products separately on the respective sub-shop host homepages (possibly without shop and cart etc.) and to provide direct links to the "product description" or "product description with product added to cart" from these homepages to the central shop.

 

I realise I may not be using the correct terminology, if so please point me to the right ones. I'd be most grateful for any infos, tips or alternative suggestions,

 

Thanks in advance

 

jakob

[jakob]

*bump* Does no-one have any suggestions on this?

 

Thanks again for any feedback.

[Wendy James]

do a search for mini stores or malls in the contributions... that could do it for you.

[jakob]

Thank you for the feedback, wendyjames.

 

Have found 'multiple mini-stores', 'multi-stores' and 'virtual mall' in the contributions and will investigate further.