Using WCFM Ultimate (and Marketplace) with more than one site – advice please

[jmd9]

Hello all,

I’m trying to get my head around how this works and whether this software can do what I need or not. I have a licence for all add-ons for 2 sites.

This is what we are building:

1) A standalone ecommerce site using woocommerce and, currently, Re:Hub theme
2) A marketplace that will sell it’s own products – some of which are also sold in the standalone site, but also have vendors on them (also using Re:Hub)
3) One of the vendors on the marketplace will be our standalone site
4) There will also be other vendors on the marketplace – some of whom we will hold the stock for and handle the order processing, some will handle their own stock and order processing.

All products belonging to the standalone site and the marketplace’s own shop, are owned by us, one legal entity.

I need to have one unified backend (or frontend!) that allows us to manage all the orders and stock from all of these.

The main requirement is the inventory. We need to be able to have one inventory system that manages the stock for the standalone site, the marketplace’s own site, and the standalone site’s vendor on the marketplace. All those will be from the same products (although the marketplace will sell some that the standalone site doesn’t).

We would also need to manage the inventory management for the vendors in the marketplace (whether we hold their stock or not).

We would also like to have one unified order processing frontend for all orders regardless of whether it is the standalone site, or anything from the marketplace.

Is this possible, and what is the best way to do it?

Ideally, from an SEO point of view I would prefer to have the standalone site on another IP address or another server even, if possible.

Will it work just using these packages, or should I use something like WooMultisite too? Will that allow me to do what I need?

Thanks
John

[John Adams]

I use one license for a test server, and the other for production.

The way WCFM works, is the master seller is always the admin, or woocommerce > add products. You can always make your own vendors account that has your label, and give it the full capabilities.

Reason why I am directing you towards that route, is the fact that you’re going to face a lot of integration challenges, and it’s not really a viable option. Another route, would be some sort of plugin that can sync all of your products together, like WooMultisite.

[jmd9]

Thanks John Adams.

When you say make our own vendors account, presumably you mean for the standalone site? Can that 1) have it’s own url, and 2) operate completely like a full standalone site – or is it limited somehow? We need to have separate logins for the standalone site and the marketplace site.

I’m wondering if WooMultisite will work, but I just can’t visualise how it would work to sync the inventory across the two different sites, one standalone and one marketplace. As there is no test version, I’m reluctant to spend the money and time on trying it if it doesn’t do what we need.

Thanks

[John Adams]

I’d use Multi-Site with WooMultiSite.

Make your marketplace site the one with WCFM, and the other, the WooCommerce (synced from marketplace via WooMultisite) site. You can pick whichever one you want as the main. And you can set up your own domain per domain and have separate or combined access. But remember, integrating tools from one site to another might be tricky. You’re heading into Webhooks, API, and dev territory.

[jmd9]

Thanks John. I’ve contacted a few developers for their take on it and see if any of them can convince they know enough to do it properly and not leave me with a tangled mess!

[jmd9]

Thanks, I’ve narrowed down my question and posted it here – https://wclovers.com/forums/topic/syncing-with-an-external-site/

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