Benefits of Integration
One of the more regular questions we see from Magento store users is how to integrate multiple Magento stores. Sometimes eCommerce merchants have separate product lines or even different languages that they would like to manage separately on the front end but have the benefit of combining on the backend. This allows online merchants to centrally manage all aspects of their online business from one location while selling through multiple stores or even websites. That way you have one location to manage for administration, orders and fulfillment.
There can also a marketing benefit to setting up multiple Magento stores. For example, Gap.com setup multiple stores for their main product lines: GAP, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Piperlime using a single checkout for all of their stores. By setting up separate Magento stores and websites for each brand, the company can now effectively segment their marketing initiatives to target specifically for the brand in question. In Gap’s search engine marketing efforts, they now have separate websites to target the different demographics and keywords for each of their brands.
Magento Multi-Store Setup
nChannel provides a unique approach to multichannel system integration. Our library of connectors easily connects any combination of ERP, POS, eCommerce (including Magento and Magento Go) and marketplace systems to the nChannel portal. This allows merchants to quickly and easily integrate and connect Magento to a variety of POS, ERP and eCommerce systems as well as integrate from one Magento store to another.
Multi Store Integration via nChannel
How does it Integrate?
What our system does is read data from one source (a channel) into our database, and replicate it to other destinations (other channels). This means the nChannel connector can pull data from one Magento store into our portal, and push that info back out automatically to any other connected channel, such as another Magento site. This gives our customers a single master inventory/category/order management control.
In the case of Magento to Magento, you can set it up one of two ways: Magento Stores on Different Domains or Multiple Stores on a single domain. Which way depends on how the customer implemented Magento.
Different Domains:
If a merchant has separate Magento websites (totally separate implementations), you can use multiple channels in our portal, with each one using the Magento adapter.
Same Domain:
The other circumstance would be if the customer set up multiple stores on a single domain, where one website can have multiple stores and stores can have multiple views. In this case, we would use one adapter with separate locations, similar to physical stores in different locations using RMS – the inventory is managed via a warehouse. Which approach we would recommend would depend on how the customer has their multiple stores set up, but nChannel can handle multiple Magento stores either way.
Multiple Magento Stores with nChannel
Multiple websites or a Magento setup with multiple sites would require multiple channels in our system, because item data would need to flow to both sites. If your inventory system lacks the ability to store multiple values for store views then you can manage item data for multiple views in our system then item data will prorogate to the proper site and view in Magento.
One of the main benefits of integrating multiple Magento stores with the nChannel platform is the ability to not only integrate data between 2 Magento stores, but the added ability to connect with the other systems you own and mange including POS (Point of Sale) and ERP systems. By integrating your stores with your POS system, you can easily syndicate your items and merchandise them for Magento and your other channels. This helps to eliminate redundant data entry and keep your inventory synchronized. With ERP integration, nChannel allows you to integrate accounting transactions, item details and real time sales data. The advantages are many when connecting your Magento multi-store setup with other systems like POS and ERP/Accounting.
You can read more about our: Magento Connector
