X-Cart forums

[Shopgirl]

Please point me in the right direction if this is not the right place to post this question. I like this software but need the following. Is this custom work or is there a mod for this?

1) ratings for vendors
2) change manufacturers to stores
3) ability to add a custom banner to an individuals store
4) easy navigation from a product to the vendors store

Thanks in advance!

[JWait]

This sounds like you are evaluating the "Pro" version, correct?

1. I'm not sure about ratings for vendors as we don't use the Pro version, but each product can be rated by the customer.

2. The term "manufacturers" can be easily changed to whatever you like, it is a label variable. On our site we changed it to "Brands".

3. Banners can be added, but again I'm not sure what you mean by "individuals".

4. Depending on how you lay your site out, this should be fairly easy. It sounds like you plan to use "Manufacturers" as your various "vendors"... and there would be a "Manufacturers" list on every product page as well as a breadcrumb trail (i.e. yourdomain.com - category - product) on every page. Again, I'm not certain how Pro works.

I hope this helps.

[Shopgirl]

Yes you are correct. I am looking at the Pro Multi Cart version. I am having difficulties deciding because I don't know what can be customized the way I want it. It's important that if a customer limes a product they can easily navigate to see what other products that vendor has created. I am going for Etsy functionality. It would be nice if vendors could customize their own store front with a banner and some text about their terms etc. Is this functionality all possible? Is this heavy custom work? Thanks so much for your help.

[JWait]

I guess that would depend on how you set your shop up. As I said, we don't use "Pro" (we use the "Gold" version), but even if the Pro version doesn't "allow" what you are asking, it still could be done using "categories" (another label variable).

By renaming "categories" to "vendors" and having the individual "vendors" having their own sub-categories, all of their products would be in a "tree"...
VENDOR1
----- category 1
----- category 2
----- category 3
VENDOR2
----- category 1
----- category 2
----- category 3

Which would produce a breadcrumb of yourdomain.com :: vendor1 :: category 1 :: product 1

Each "category" and sub-category have an area where there would normally be a "category description" than can be used for a banner and/or text that should be able to do what you want.

"Manufacturers" has a text area also, but there is no "sub manufacturer" (but could could still be the same as your vendors so they would all be on the same page).

[Shopgirl]

Hmm interesting. So these categories would only exist under each vendor. The main categories could still be used to navigate to products correct? Vendor categories could be renamed banner, description etc and show up on the page if the vendor chooses to use them? I would also like to use the ability to scroll down and see shops on the left side like it is with manufacturers. Would this layout using categories allow this?

[JWait]

Well, not exactly. If you have x-cart installed and are using the sample data there should be "categories" already there, and these categories each have a "category description" (at least it is there on the demo) when you click on that category. This text can be html, so you can have images (banners), and text. It is editable in the admin section under "categories" (duh).