Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

[ChessnGames]

Hello all,



I'm about to make the jump and upgrade to Merchant 5.5, but before I do so, I'd like your feedback on the best way to manage our 2 sites:

• We have a Merchant site for consumers that sales at retail price: www.chessngames.com.
• We have a wholesale site/catalog (not e-commerce for the moment) that only shows our products with no pricing. We send the wholesale price list only if requested, this way the retailers can use our website to show the products to their customers.
  www.worldwiseimports.com

I'm thinking about using a second store to manage our wholesale catalog.

Can I use the same database for both stores, only changing the price?
Can I have the wholesale store only showing the products with no prices, unless user log in, then the prices will show and they will be able to order?
Can the two stores be in the same mall, but with different domain name and different look and feel?
Do I need a licence for each store?

Thanks a lot in advance for your advises.

[Gamelord]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

I am not sure of the best way to do this but one option that pops into my mind right off would be to purchase a second store license and just add another store to your already existing domain. Then duplicate the product list from store A and import it into store B, then create a login (password protect) for all guest going to store B that you could list into a price group that would show the wholesale pricing.

Downside to this is that you would have to add products into both stores or export/import between the two stores... but someone may have a better way of doing this.

Positive side to this is that you can manage both stores from one login and one install of Miva. The second store silence would be much cheaper than a second full install license.

At least this way you would be sure to keep your wholesale pricing separate from your retail pricing and have better control over who access it.

The other option is to just set up price groups in your current store and add those customers into that price group that would get the wholesale pricing.

I am sure others will chime in with other options that may be better than these.

[leslienord]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

Stephan,

Take a look at eMediaSales Wholesale + Retail Store Configuration - it allow wholesalers and repeat customers to experience discounts, but at the same time allow retail customers to see regular prices.

It's not a module, but a configuration service.

[ChessnGames]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

Leslie,

Maybe I'm not understanding well what the service you are providing is doing but in wich way is it different from setting a price group for my wholesale customres and manually assign them to this group?

And it's not addressing my main two issues that are:
- I need the retail and wholesale site to be disconnected visually and at the domain level.
- I need the wholesale site to not show any price unless you login as a retailer.

[ChessnGames]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

Thanks Gamelord,

I think I will go toward this direction if I dont' find an easier solution.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

Leslie,

Maybe I'm not understanding well what the service you are providing is doing but in wich way is it different from setting a price group for my wholesale customres and manually assign them to this group?

And it's not addressing my main two issues that are:
- I need the retail and wholesale site to be disconnected visually and at the domain level.
- I need the wholesale site to not show any price unless you login as a retailer.

The domain issue is only going to be solved using two different stores, unless you want to play around with domain forwarding and redirects which will get messing and cause other issues (i.e., secure server cert problems).

The not showing pricing unless logged in is easy, simply wrap the price in a conditional that tests whether or not they are logged into a price group. (Personally, I'd do this as a custom currency module, otherwise you are going to have to make dozens of changes...small changes, but lots in various areas.)

A product such as StoreMan...(wait, there is only one product like StoreMan)...will help prevent duplicate category/product content changes as you could have one base set of content and upload it to both stores.

[lesliekirk]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

Bruce is right about the domain issue and StoreMan will help tremendously trying to manage 2 different stores.

If the wholesale site IS going to be a separate store, with it's own domain name, it will need it's own license. Then to hide the prices, you assign your users to a price group you set up, as Bruce has outlined.

The eMediaSales option, is great if you want to have a wholesale & retail store under one roof, so to speak.

[Biffy]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

Using 2 stores on 2 domains is clearly the best way to go. You can use StoreMan or StoneEdge to manage common inventory and integrate multiple store management systems.

You can also run both under a single store without much trouble as long as they share a common graphic design. Managing wholesale accounts is pretty simple in this scenario.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

You can also run both under a single store without much trouble as long as they share a common graphic design. Managing wholesale accounts is pretty simple in this scenario.

Common Graphic design isn't really an issue--you could even have two different designs for each page, using conditionals to switch them...it could get messy, but its doable. The problem is the actual domain name (at least for this user).

[ChessnGames]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

Thank you all for your insightfull answers, I'm going to go with StoreMan and two store licences.

[lkampouris]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

There are 2 ways within Miva (there may be more but have used these 2 and they work. First question is in Wholesale is there a standard number of Units you sell in or can the Units vary (like our does) somethings are sold in Units of 4 others Units of 12. (For the sake of an example) If Wholesale is by the same number of Units then Price Groups is the way to go there you create a Price Group called Wholesale and You assign who has access to see this by assigning Customers to this price group (they or you need to enter them in the Stores Customers Database for them to be able to access, again you open the price group and assign who has access) When setting up the Price Group you decide if the price is either assigned in the field 'Cost' or if there is a standard % discount from retail for wholesale.

I've not found a way to be able to change the description data for those you allow to be on that price group so on to the 2nd easiest choice.

'Additional Miva Store aka Mall Store'
This is sweet a second completly independant store with a little tweaking involved but just a little.
For $99 Miva will sell you this additional store that drops into your existing Main Store it becomes 00000002 with 00000001 being the Main Store.
Once you add this Miva has now added a new selection to the horizontal menu all the way on the left that allows folks to access the menu for all the stores (like a mall)
But never fear you can get around this too. Create a 1 pixel gif or jpg the same color as your horzontal menu bar (black by default but in the event you changed it..) and under either the navagation settings or the button menu point it to the image you created and uploaded and now there is no Store Select folks can see.

If you don't want John Doe public to access wholesale then you'll need to password protect the 00000002 folder via your domain host or eventually spiders will find it and you'll get folks shopping wholesale since they found it while googling etc.

Another way is a complete Miva Store with it's own IP etc which is more work and money than it's worth in my opinion.

We had 2 other stores within our Main Miva Store and unfortunatly when we moved to a better host and upgrade to 5.5 the 4.23 stores won't work and these are the solutions I found. My problem is that we don't have a single number of Units we sell products in and haven't found a way to state Unit information in Price groups. (everythings not by the dozen which would have made life simple.)
Though I suspect I can find the pages for the price group and add information there. Now to see if that's correct.

Good luck

[lesliekirk]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

I think you may be over looking the beauty of Price Groups - with Price Groups the customer must be logged in to see the discounted prices. But you are the one in control of which Price Group a customer belongs to. So just because someone creates an account doesn't means they will see the wholesale pricing, you have to assign that customer to that Price Group.

The neat feature about eMediaSales Wholesale Only Store Configuration is that it also includes setting up a Wholesale Application form. You receive the information from a potential wholesale customer and decide if you want to assign them to your "wholesale" price groups that you have had eMediaSales create for you with the service.

Since the prices are hidden via the Price Groups you can actually have a Wholesale and a Retail store within the same Miva Merchant license.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

If you don't want John Doe public to access wholesale then you'll need to password protect the 00000002 folder via your domain host or eventually spiders will find it and you'll get folks shopping wholesale since they found it while googling etc.

Wont do anything as the only directories that have that nominclature are the graphics and data. Since no one is (or should be accessing) the data directories anyway...this has no effect. The way to "protect" a wholesale site is through availablility groups...or, its possible to use an .htaccess file to block the store_code of a second store in a mall.

[ChessnGames]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

I tried the Price Group option but it doesn't allow me to setup a specific price for an item, it's either Retail, Cost, or a Percentage discount or markup.
I need to set some specific prices on my wholesale price list that are not related to Retail.
I think I really need to create another store in my mall.

[wcw]

Re: Managing a wholesale and a retail store/price list

You can use the Price Group Manager module. It lets you set the price by product within each price group. It can be a discount off price or markup from cost or a fixed amount. The possibilities are boundless. http://www.emporiumplus.com/go/wcw/PROD/1AA/1AA00226