The multi vendor app here was developed by Hezys for his own needs and loater shared with the community and it is
not a Nop official version.
As mentioned by Jack there can be multiple versions for different needs. Here are some:
Multi-vendor (drop-shipping): several vendors selling under
one store (as
this in Nop)which has only one common: domain, skin, product catalog, customer db, payment and shipping methods, reward points, discounts, etc. There are several administrations, one general which sees and controls everything and one for each vendor from which he updates his products and sees and controls the portion of the orders refering to his products. This is, in real life similar to some department stores which provide (or "rent") places to vendors to display their products but customer pay at store's checkout. The vendors do not have control over the customers base nor the discount. promotion and reward strategies, etc. Amazon could be a case of multi-vendor.
Multi-Store: Several stores sharing one or several parts of the cart system. Here we can have different combinations and cases. Examples:
- Like a pizza (or groceries, supermarket, etc.) chain with a general catalog, but not all product and prices are alike in all branches: One domain (each store might have its subdomain); one skin; one central customer db; common payment and shipping methods, and discount and rewards settings; etc. Individual stores hava their administration to check/control thir orders and to select their products and pricing from general catalog.
- Like a mall: several stores under one roof. One general domain and other common infrasturcture (i.e. delivery, credit card processing, rewards, etc). Each store has its domain (redirected to its subdomain in the general domain) skin (sometimes from a set of templates provided by the mall), catalog, customers, discounts, individual payment and shipping methods. The Mall might have a general catalog, encompasing all individual catalogs, for the purposes of aiding the customers to do searches and then refer them to the individual store. It may also provide customer service, call/chat center and a guaranteies to customers. Ebay can be in a combination of this and previous case.
- Like a shopping district where all stores are independent (domain, skin, customers, catalog, payment/shipping, discounts/rewards, etc.) but they all share a common cart system (most db's are individualized), so that the hosting and any enhancements are shared by all stores.
- A multi-Vendor could be considered a particular case of a multi-store.
I guess this topic is the subject for extensive discussions.
