Run two or more shops off the one database – Product Matching

VPCART supports running more than one shop in one database. Each can share products and have products that are unique to them.

Note: If you want to setup two sites using one db, do not put the second site into the same domain with a different subfolder. We would suggest you to put the second site into a new domain or subdomain rather than into a subfolder.

The reason for this is that when both sites are put into the same domain, the session in both sites will be mixed together and you might have a lot of session issues later.

If you put a second site into a new domain or into a subdomain of the main site, both the new domain/subdomain and the main site will have their own session variables and will not mix with each other.

The following is a basic guide on how to set up multiple sites to run from one single database:

1.  Create 2 VPCART sites on your server.
If you have an existing live site already running VPCart, please create another new site by copying the same files to your second site.

Open shop$config.asp (under “config” folder and “admin/config” folder) using notepad or text editor in second site and change the xssl and xmysite value to use the second site URL eg:

const xssl="http://site2.example.com"
const xmysite="http://site2.example.com"

2.  In the first site (your existing live site), Please log into your administration and then run the copy configuration utility to populate the second configuration table for the second site.

To do this, login to your administration and go to :Misc > Multi Sites Set Up Tool



You should be presented with two options below:

A) “New copy”, that means you want the new config table to have all VPCart default configuration value.



The new configuration table name is configuration1.
You can change configuration1 to your own liking eg configuration_site2

B) “Existing site”, that means you want the new config table to be copied from your existing live site (first site) configuration table values.



The new configuration table name is configuration1.
You can change configuration1 to your own liking eg configuration_site2

3.  Click Continue.

4.  If completed, you should see success message as shown below:

5. Open shop$config.asp file using notepad or text editor (under “config” folder and “admin/config” folder) each in the second site and change the following so it is pointing to the second configuration table.

const xconfigtable="configuration_site2"

Please also change the xshopid value to something unique for second site. This can be anything as long as it is different to the xshopid of other VPCART sites installed on your server eg:

const xShopId="mystore2"

If you want certain products to load for certain site, then you will need to set up product matching by entering an unique value into the xproductmatch eg:

const xproductmatch="store2"

6.  Open shop$config.asp file using notepad or text editor (under “config” folder and “admin/config” folder) each in the first site and change the xshopid value to something unique for first site. This can be anything as long as it is different to the xshopid of other VPCART sites installed on your server eg:

const xshopid="mystore1"

If you already have a value for your xshopid please ignore then.

If you want certain products to load for certain site, then you will need to set up product matching by entering an unique value into the xproductmatch eg:

const xproductmatch="store1"

7.  Repeat Step 1 until Step 5 for the 3^rd site and so on if you still have other sites to use the same single db.

8.  Please login to the administration for the first site and go to the Advanced Settings > Software Configuration menu. Search for xproductmatch and set it to Yes.
Repeat this process for the 2^nd site, 3^rd site and so on.

9.  Login to the administration for the second site and go to: Website >Layout Manager. Please see if your xshopid for second store is already selected by default. In this example, second site was having xshopid with value mystore2 in step 5 before. If mystore2 is showing in the dropdown list, please click Choose Store button.

If mystore2 is not showing in the dropdown list, please enter the xshopid value of the second site in the New Store text box (if you do not remember what is the value of your xshopid for second site, please refer to step 5 above).

Then click the “New Store” button.

Now you can start adding a layout for your second site. You can add the left column, center column or right column for the second site.

Please repeat this process for your 3^rd site and so on.

10. For all products you add into your database, ensure that you enter the value from xproductmatch for either the first store, 2^nd store, 3^rd store and so on into the Match Product field of the View/Edit product administration page.



If you leave this field blank, the products will display in all sites.

Note: If you have more than two stores and you want a product to appear in multiple stores but not in all stores, in the Match Product field of the product record, you can enter a comma-delimited list of shops you want the product to appear in.
For example – store1,store2,store3

Product matching now includes xshopid of the store to be saved into Orders table. The value of xshopid is saved in the “storematch” field in Orders table. This is to restrict admin users that are “Restricted Administrator” type to only see orders containing the Store ID for the site they have accessed through the admin. However, an admin user that is a “Normal Administrator” can access all orders that comes from all stores.

Since VPCart 8, there is also an enhancement to shopexd.asp to ensure that if an user manually updates the id in the URL, a validation is carried out to ensure that they are legitimately allowed to view that product.

For example, if a merchant has setup product matching for two stores, store A and store B. Let’s say product X with catalog id 1 belongs to store A. When customers open this link shopexd.asp?id=1 from store B, the customers cannot view product X. They can only view the product X in store A.