PrestaShop multi-shop creation and administration

The advantages of PrestaShop multi store

A single interface

From a single backoffice, you can choose to work in any store, a group of stores (only in PS 1.5) or all stores at once.
There's no need to log out and log back in to switch from one store to another, and you have global visibility of your business.

Significant savings

You only need one hosting solution, and only one PrestaShop to install, manage and update. You save time and money.
If, moreover, the stores have products or other elements in common, it's a double win, because you'll only have to create and modify the products once.

Mutualized inventory management

When boutiques are created, they can be grouped together to share inventory. When you sell a product in one of these types of stores, the quantity available of the same product in the other stores is automatically synchronized.
You can also create groups of stores where each store manages its own stock independently.

Disadvantages of PrestaShop multi-shop

Not very intuitive

It's not always easy to know when you're working in one store or all at once. The risk of errors is quite high, and this mode is not recommended for true beginners. Set up a single store first, get the hang of it, launch your business and later, with a little experience, add the second.

Not always stable

Depending on the version of PrestaShop, multiboutique mode can be more or less stable.
At the time of writing, it's still recommended to stay on the latest version 1.6 and avoid 1.7 (even if things are evolving very quickly).

Lack of flexibility

It is not possible, for example, to modify products in two stores that are not part of the same group, or in any selection of stores, at the same time. It's either one or all. This is a major problem that is fortunately non-existent when using Merlin as a management interface.

How to activate multi-shop mode in PrestaShop 1.5 to 1.7

Don't look for a particular installation mode. Start by installing PrestaShop in the traditional way. This automatically creates a first default group and store.

Multi-shop mode is off by default and must be switched to on before a second store can be added. To do this:

1. Go to the "Configure" section of the menu (PS 1.7 only).
2. Then go to "Shop settings".
3. Then click on the "General settings" menu.
4. Stay in the "General settings" tab (PS 1.7 only).
5. Down to the bottom of the page and Set to "Yes" the option "Enable multi store.

How to add additional stores in PrestaShop

Start by going to the multi-shop management page, and familiarizing yourself with PrestaShop logic, by following this step-by-step:

1. As before, go to the "Configure" section (PS 1.7 only).
2. Then go to the "Advanced settings" menu.
3. Click on the "Multi boutique" menu. If it's missing, multi-shop mode is not enabled.

A: The store tree, with one branch per group and for each store in the group two lines, one indicating the store name, the second its URL (see several different URLS).
B: The list of groups and the possibility of modifying them.
C: The choice of PrestaShop's default store. We'll see later how important this choice is in Merlin.
D: The button for adding a new group.
E: The button for adding new stores.

The request to add a store opens a new page, allowing you to define all its characteristics:

1. Enter the name of the new store.
2. Choose the group to which the store belongs. Please note that this choice may be irreversible in certain cases (quantities or other elements shared with other stores).
3. Choose the store's "Root" category. This is the one that will be the home category, without necessarily being the one already called that. Each store can have its own Home category.
4. Select the categories to be included in the new store. You can only choose categories and sub-categories from the Root category selected just before.
5. Choose theme. And yes, thankfully, each store will be able to have its own look.
6. An important choice, whether or not to import data from another store. Be careful, this choice must be made now, you won't be able to return to it freely.
7. Choose the store from which to read this data to be imported.
8. List of data to be imported. By default, everything is checked, and this is not necessarily a good choice. For example, you may want to differentiate customers if they are in two very different areas of business.
9. Save to launch store creation.

Modifying a store group

After adding a store, we find ourselves in a new page with a very similar look, this time listing the stores (and no longer the groups). Confusion is easy:

1. Seize a virtual url, which will be added at the end of the physical url, to make up the final url. And declare it as the main address, as you need at least one per store. You can also declare other addresses for the same store, known as secondary.
2. Save

Clicking on the "Modify this store group" button (two images above) takes you to another page where you can define the characteristics of the group. Please note that some characteristics can no longer be modified after the fact. This is the case for sharing orders and customers, but also for sharing quantities when the group contains several stores:

Add an additional store group in PrestaShop

You can't do this from the various pages we've just shown you, you have to go back to the "Advanced settings" page and then "Multi shop". And click on the add group button.

And configure the new group with the same interface as the previous image. Again, be sure to read all the instructions.

Administering the multi-boutique catalog from PrestaShop

Once groups and stores have been created, note the new selector present at top right in PrestaShop 1.7, or top left in PrestaShop 1.5 and 1.6. It's thanks to this that you'll now be able to choose the working context, for displaying and modifying products and categories.

1. Click on the context selector.
2. Allows you to modify data in all stores at the same time.
3. To modify data in all stores in the same group.
4. Or to work in one store at a time.

Except that for quite a few versions now, choosing a store group gives an error, even though it was functional in PrestaShop 1.5:

There are quite a few other limitations or inconsistencies, for example if you want to manage your inventory in all stores at once:

Some examples of the power of multi-boutique management with the Merlin Backoffice module

Allows one-click association of products and categories to various shops

Here's a configuration of three stores. To associate or disassociate several products with one store:

1. Select all rows of products to be associated/unassociated.
2. In the column bearing the store number (1,2 or 3), simply click in one of the boxes; the effect is immediate and effective for all selected lines.

Free choice of stores modified at the same time

For example below, we've chosen to modify data in stores 1 and 3 only (not 2), even though they belong to two different groups:

Possibility of viewing and mass-modifying products on multiple lines, one per shop

In the example below, we can see that for each product, we have two different lines displayed, one for each of the two selected stores.

We then used the automatic line selector to select only the lines for store 3. Then applied a mass selling price increase of 5% to this store only:

Possibility of displaying a single line with changes saved in all selected shops

In the example below, the price of 3 products has been modified en masse, in two stores, while each product is only displayed once in the table:

1. Two boutiques are selected
2. "Multi-shop modification" mode is activated. In this mode, a modification made to a product or category, is automatically carried out in both stores.
3. In this mode, products now appear only once in the table, regardless of the number of stores to which they are associated.
4. We've selected 3 products to modify, so 3 rows.
5. Using the mass modifier by calculation.
6. Replace prices with the value 12€HT. This will be effective in both stores after validating the price change ("Save" button).

Grouped actions in multiple languages and stores at once

Two different working modes in the translation tables, i.e. one line per product - store - language triplet:

One line per product - language pair, with the "Multi-shop modification" mode allowing translation in several stores at the same time.

Import CSV file lines into the store(s) of your choice

Possibility of differentiating various properties of all products by store, such as their specific prices, cover photos, features.... For example, for photos:

1. Choose cover photo for store 1 for each product.
2. Activate or not each photo in Shop 1.
3. Choose cover photo for store 2 for each product.
4. Activate or not each photo in store 2 and so on for each store.

Complete video tutorial: manage multiple stores faster with Merlin Backoffice (in French)

Our mass administration module is natively thought is designed to handle multiboutiques. This tutorial takes you on a tour of the possibilities and facilities this tool will bring you every day. In particular, you'll learn how to:

• Manage store groups and shared quantities.
• Associate products and categories with the various boutiques (copy a product from one boutique to another).
• Modify products in one or more boutiques at a time.
• Differentiate parameters common to all boutiques from parameters differentiated by boutique.
• Manage multiple languages and translations in multiple boutiques at the same time.
• Manage multi-shop features.
• Set up and modify shop-specific prices.
• Activate photos in certain boutiques only.
• Import your product catalogs into a specific store or all stores.
• Define the root category for each store.
• Change the default store for products and categories en masse.
• Batch change the default category of products by store.
• Repair structures (tree structure) of multi-shop databases.

 Increase the resolution to 720p if the video is too blurry, replay it in Auto if it freezes.