Multi store or multiple instances?

Hi all

I have a hard time desciding if I should go with a multi store or have two instances of nop setup.

The scenario is that we have two businesses. One europe based, and one in Canada. The tow differ in that way that the use different paypal account, differ in shipping methods and also have different pricelist.

The unique prices I think I have found a custom solution for, even if I handle it in a multi store. But it seems that this issue comes up again and again when looking into a multi store setup.
For fedex etc they have different accounts, since they ship from different locations, and have different price list. I know that there are warehouse functions that I should look into to handle this I guess.
Also the messaging (email) can be limit for a store, but I haven't found that I can have two different message for the two stores.

I figured that the pros of using only one instance is one place for handling administration (products, pictures etc).

The benefits with two instances is that everything can be setup to each specific needs. The catalog will be the same except the prices, but the prices need to be handled based on customer country in some cases anyway, so I will have to address that in a multi instance anyway.

One thing that I don't know is if I can have each nop instance set to a virtual drive? store.com/eu and store.com/us. Multi store I know can't be setup this way. If so, this would also be a reason to have two instances since I then can have a "select your region" at store.com that directs the user to the right site.


So, my question basically is: What are the parameters that result in using multiple instances over multi store? Or, how far can you go with multi store, when does it "not work"

Actually, The scenario you described is supported by the nopcommerce. It will be good to use the tier price feature of the nopcommerce for handling product price for multiple stores rather than implement the extra code. Shipping, Payment Method will work for the per-store, MessageTemplate also work. But most difficulties I faced about multistore is maintaining the product quantity per store. You can not assign product quantity per store by default. But by little code change, you can achieve that. Another thing customers are common for all sites. You can also isolate the customer by changing the code.

Ok, will look further into multi store for now then. Often I can't find how to disable for example payment method for a store, only change settings or disable for country. But I guess that's on me to learn how to do.
If we take payment method, how can I setup so that for store1, you can use paypal in northern america, but on store2 only europe is valid.

I have another question about shipping. Since there are two different location, they have different fedex deals and clientno. What I can find, I can't have the shipping provider settings for the different stores? I can set different shipping from per store, but they must use the same fedex account?

Hi,

I have the opportunity to make a store for a supplier with 5k products.
I would do a model retail store with all the product and I already know how to sync quantity live.

So then if one of my customer want to have a store I would create another store instance or a store in the same instance.  The customer would use is name, is domain name, is logo. Same product and mostly same price.  He can also add other products from other supplier but these products should be view only in his store. Is payment gateway, his shipping rules and provider. His country and taxes.

How can I make his customer be visible only in his store.

So should I use different instance or one multi store setup?

Thank you