Multi-vendor shopping cart software

Question

I'm looking into building a web app that allows multiple e-commerce stores to coexist on the same installation and lets allows each individual vendor manage their own products, pricing, sales reports, etc. I know that there have been a number of previous questions on the Stack regarding the best shopping cart software, but this is a bit of an unusual twist and I couldn't find it answered elsewhere.

Obviously, open source is better from a pricing standpoint, but I've got no problem with spending money on a quality product that meets my needs. The ideal package would allow each store to be uniquely skinned, would minimize the amount of time that it takes to get a new store up and running, and would include payment gateway and shipping integration.

I've run across a few things in my scouring of the web, but haven't found "the one" yet--I know that osCommerce sort of supports what I'm trying to do, but I'm looking for something designed with this functionality in mind. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Justin

Answer 1

I am at present looking into the same thing. After looking at all the different cart on the market I have settled on PHP Mall 2. I have had demos of X-Cart Pro, iscripts multicart and a few others.

There were only 2 that were any good at handling payments direct from buyer to seller without any added costs of have a mod done for that. They were PHP Mall 2 and iScripts Multi cart. iScripts Multicart didn't really have alot happening in the backend, and vendor shops were really just an about us page with their products showing.

I settled for PHP Mall 2 becuase each vendor can have their own website as such and can customise it to the way they want it. They can choose from a number of templates for their shop.

The part I really like about it is the payments system, there are a number of payment gateways out of the box and the vendor can choose which ever he/she wants. (because not everyone use paypal right!). Its also a fair bit cheaper than all the others and provides alot more from a site admin and seller admin side of things.

Answer 2

I was tasked with looking into a multi vendor cart for a project that was canceled. Before it got canceled, I felt that the below were strong contenders. This is not a comprehensive list but it's somewhere to start. The requirement for multi vendor was paramount, so the listed have varying amounts of CMS/blogging etc; so they are not necessarily apples to apples.

I did get to try out magento community and using information found here http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/145/ got what I felt was the correct experience for multi store/vendor for my purposes. Mileage may vary depending on requirements. It's a beast though and for some reason comparison doesn't indicate the multi vendor capabilities. My impression was that Magento was definitely for the technically minded, with a very high degree of configurability available. It's a meta system for sure. The average joe business owner wouldn't stand a chance with it. However, it might be a perfect for resellers.

http://www.x-cart.com/mall_solution.html
http://www.php-shop-system.com/products/iq-cart-for-joomla-our-new-cart-component-for-joomla.html
http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/compare

Answer 3

I am also in search of a multi-store solution. Magento Commerce is too expensive. OpenCart now supports multi-shop but only a single user can manage the stores. I would have preferred setting up multiple stores and have different users manage each store.

Answer 4

I've also been undertaking research within this area and discovered the following options;

• For joomla = http://www.ijoobi.com, IXXO
• For Magento = http://www.unirgy.com, MVDE

There is also an interesting product called MultiCart from iScripts, and the X-Cart Pro from Qualiteam.