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cayars
Starting Member
USA
49 Posts |
 Posted - September 03 2008 : 22:48:22
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Steve don't know if you are using SQL server or not but I run a couple of sites similar to what you are trying to do. I have seperate databases setup for each store but I use a shared product database among the stores.
Changing the setting for "xproductdb" in the 2nd store for example to point to the first site for example.
I messed with the productmatch field but found it to be a pain and it slowed things down to much for my liking. Since I use different prices for the same products depending on which site the person goes to what I did was modify the products table to add a new field. For example you could add a field called cprice2. Then in the 2nd site fire up a code editor like the free Crimson Editor and do a directory search & replace. Search for "cprice" and replace with "cprice2". Don't worry that it changes some variable names besides just the database field. It will change them all and it works just fine.
Now you have 2 seperate fields in the database that you can populate with prices and use any price model you want. I have a couple of SQL scripts I run that manipulate the prices outside of the website for just this purpose.
With the above type of setup you can setup the shipping & handling differently for each site but still share a "common product database".
One thing to watch out for is the "xproductdb" setting is used for a bit more then just pure products. It is also used for the categories, etc... The category sharing is GOOD in my book as I only have one place to make the changes (from either site).
If you want to try this out setup a "bare" 2nd site with the database changed parameter and the search and replace (IE cprice to cprice2) and play a bit just to make sure there isn't anything besides the products and categories being shared. You may have to make a small code change here or there. I don't remember anymore but you could hit a couple of small gotchas like the 2nd site pulling the UPS shipping (exampe only) from the first database. There was one or two small things like this that I had to change database for in the source in my setup but it was less then a hour job.
Overall I'm very, very pleased with the setup right now doing it this way.
Carlo |
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