Suggestions for a vendors contact details page & navigation panel

Recently an opportunity arose for me to make a new NopCommerce site for a customer, and the new 3.0 version came in the exact moment because I really need a Multi-Vendor store.
The only problem I have is that I need something similar to this:

http://www.vintage-handmade.co.uk/Orsini-Vintage/about-us/34
In this NOP site they have added a vendors navigation panel and I can go directly to the vendor's contact details page. Very simple and elegant.

Another example would be this site too:
http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/pogofandango
On this one, they give each vendor a "storefront" and show the list of their products. I think this is just awesome because you can even see the vendors on the search results (each product says "by xxx").

So, the first case would be a simple implementation... but I want to go more for the second one... I think that one is just fantastic.

But here comes the problem... so far, I have only been doing small changes to my Nop sites, like changing colors, fonts, moving things a bit around... very simple changes so I can easily upgrade to the new version.
The hardest thing I did was a payment plugin similar to the "Manual" one... so as you can see, nothing serious, hehe

This is why I wanted to hear what the community recommends to implement such a change... I do not know why a simple navigation system like this wasn't implemented on Nop 3.0, but well, it is not the point of this thread to discuss that, they surely had their reasons for not doing it.
So, suggestions are welcomed on how to implement this ... the idea is to not have to re-code Nop so I can always update easily to the next release... ;)

Thanks!!!

I think that the second option is not that difficult either. Check in this forums what Hezyz developed for the last multi-vendor version.
Check this workitem too

In the first option they just renamed "Manufacturers" to "Vendors".  I really don't see much difference (from a customer perspective) between the second and the first.  In the first, you can also go to "vendor's storefront" - e.g http://www.vintage-handmade.co.uk/homesoul/36  (I think the "36" at the end is because this is older version of nopCommerce.  I don't see that in even 2.65)

The second option has same model has nopC 3.0's  multi-vendor model.  As per their "how-it-works" link:

Load up your shopping basket, buying from as many different sellers as you like. You’ll pay through one easy checkout and we’ll notify each seller of your order, before we confirm each of your orders with you.

I can't say how their backend works compared to nopC multi-vendor.

eadameg wrote:
Yes, I have seen him on the forum, sadly, he hasn't been around for almost a month.
I checked his demo site but it wasn't working... it looks like it is again up, but it is not working good neither.
Also, he has no releases for download (or at least I couldn't found them)

New York wrote:
Both sites are working with Nop AFAIK, they just modified them a bit for their needs.
Yes, both are similar, that's why I used these as an example (like you said, the second looks better because it hides some things to the user, like the ID that are not displayed).

Anyway, I am not sure where to start modifying to achieve something similar to the second site... should I start by trying to replicate what happens now with Manufacturers but with Vendors?
I do not want to modify a lot so updating to a newer version is still as easy as it is now... obviously, some changes will need to happen to achieve the vendors details & navigation, but I want to keep controlled the amount of changes.
That's why I asked... what do you consider a good course of action to achieve that?

Generalisimo wrote:

around

https://nop3ve.codeplex.com/SourceControl/list/changesets

last update today

demo store

http://demo.online-ex.com/

hezyz wrote:
Thanks!
Will take a look...