Steps to Setup Magento Multi-Stores

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.

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.)

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

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)

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

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:

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.

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>

2. Edit the .htaccess file at /var/www/http/.htaccess and add the following lines below:

SetEnvIf Host www\.domain1\.com MAGE_RUN_CODE=domain1_com SetEnvIf Host www\.domain1\.com MAGE_RUN_TYPE=website SetEnvIf Host ^domain1\.com MAGE_RUN_CODE=domain1_com SetEnvIf Host ^domain1\.com MAGE_RUN_TYPE=website

SetEnvIf Host www\.domain2\.com MAGE_RUN_CODE=domain2_com SetEnvIf Host www\.domain2\.com MAGE_RUN_TYPE=website SetEnvIf Host ^domain2\.com MAGE_RUN_CODE=domain2_com SetEnvIf Host ^domain2\.com MAGE_RUN_TYPE=website

SetEnvIf Host www\.domain3\.com MAGE_RUN_CODE=domain3_comSetEnvIf Host www\.domain3\.com MAGE_RUN_TYPE=websiteSetEnvIf Host ^domain3\.com MAGE_RUN_CODE=domain3_com SetEnvIf Host ^domain3\.com MAGE_RUN_TYPE=website

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.)

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.

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.