How to set up multiple websites, online stores and customer views with Magento.

One of the many reasons we all know Magento is the best ecommerce platform in the world, is the simplicity of using it after the Magento expert has integrated it to your business. You can personally create additional websites, different stores and customer views all as the business grows and changes.Within each website, a retailer can have multiple stores and within each store, separate customer language views... and so it goes on!

We know the Magento Community User Guide inside out, so we thought we would break down a few easy steps for retailers; to easily learn how to add more websites, more retail stores and different language views for customers - showing how simple it is to manage your own company growth after we have developed and integrated this feature rich ecommerce platform. 

How to add more websites

In a single Magento installation you can manage several different websites through just the one ecommerce platform, by setting up separate websites within it. Each website can have its own domain name and act as a separate store - but they can be set up to share customer data.

1) On the Admin menu - select System > Manage Stores

2) From Manage Stores, click the Create Website button. Then, do the following:

a) Enter the name of the website. The name is for internal reference, and can refer to the domain of the site or anything else to distinguish it from other sites in the hierarchy. 

b) Enter a code that will be used on the server to point to the domain. The code must begin with a lower case letter and can include any combination of letters (a-z) numbers (0-9) and the hyphen (-) character. 

c) (Optional) enter a sort order number to determine the sequence in which this site is listed with other sites. Enter a zero to make this site appear at the top of the list. 

3) When complete, click save website button.

How to add more stores 

If your business is acting as an umbrella for a number of shops or you sell two completely different types of product; it will make sense to have two or more separate online stores. Magento allows you to have independent domain names as long as they are configured on the 'store view' level of each store. 

1) Before you begin, set up the Root Category that will be used for this store.

2) On the Admin menu, select System > Manage stores

3) From Manage Stores, click the Create Store button. Then, do the following:

a) Set website so the site that is the parent of this store

b) Enter a name for the store. The name is for internal reference to distinguish it from other stores in the hierarchy. For example: Private Sales Store.

c) Set Root Category to the root category that will be used for the main navigation of the store. The root category can the same as used for other stores or unique to this store. For example Private Sales Root. 

4) When complete click Save Store. 

How to set up a new store view

Within each store, you can create a separate store view for each language; perfect for a business looking to branch out of the UK.  Each store view shares the same catalog, but in a different language. Customers can switch from one store view to another by using the 'language chooser' in the header of the store website. 

1) On the Admin menu, select System > Manage Stores

2) From Manage Stores, click the Create Store View button. Then do the following:

a) Set Store to the parent store of this view

b) Enter a name for this store view. The name appears in the "language chooser" in the header of the store. For example: French.

c) Enter a Code in lower case characters to identify the view. For example: french.

d) To activate the view, set Status to "Enabled"

e) (Optional) enter a Sort Order number to determine the sequence in which this view is listed with other views.

3) When complete, click the Save Store View button. 

And there you have it - your business now has multiple websites, store views and online retail outlets to reach even more customers and grow even more revenue - all from one ecommerce platform. Talk to us today on how we can get you set up with Magento and give you the tools to grow you business.