Magento Questions

[LVScott]

We have decided to start a new business and we are going to use Magento for it.
I have some very basic questions about how we set this up and hoping you can help.
Once these basic questions are answered, we will look for someone who is an expert with Magento who can help us long term as a consultant and do some work for us.

We only have 20 or so SKUs but want to be able to do the following:
Have 20-30 separate domains and have each one have 15-18 different products on them, so not all will have the same products.
Want all domains to tie together in the backend to easily track inventory with the fulfillment center.
Want each to have it's own cart so if you are on domain123 and check out, it should look like you are checking out at domain123 and not the main site.
We want about 50% of the sites to be white hat and 50% of the sites to be black hat as far as SEO goes.
Want to be able to expand internationally in the future and have geo targeted sites so if someone from UK logs in, it shows them inventory from UK and not US on each domain.

Now as far as questions:
How does billing work with Magento?
Do we buy themes from a theme site or does magento provide them?
Is it a monthly thing and do we pay for one whole pkg or each domain separately?
If we have the black hat sites done at a different registry (godady vs enom for example) and put them on different servers, should the white hat sites be penalized when the black hat ones do?
Is it possible to tie them all together like I described?
Is geo targeting (hope that is the correct word) possible for the sites, reason is we will have 4 fulfillment centers around the world and want people to see product from the location closest to them?

Thanks for any help,
Scott

 

[jazzc]

We only have 20 or so SKUs but want to be able to do the following:
Have 20-30 separate domains and have each one have 15-18 different products on them, so not all will have the same products.
Want all domains to tie together in the backend to easily track inventory with the fulfillment center.
Want each to have it's own cart so if you are on domain123 and check out, it should look like you are checking out at domain123 and not the main site.

Magento supports these out of the box.

We want about 50% of the sites to be white hat and 50% of the sites to be black hat as far as SEO goes.

That 's irrelevant to the e-commerce platform.

Want to be able to expand internationally in the future and have geo targeted sites so if someone from UK logs in, it shows them inventory from UK and not US on each domain.

You 'll need a plugin for that.

How does billing work with Magento?

See for yourself: http://demo-admin.magentocommerce.com/index.php/admin/

Do we buy themes from a theme site or does magento provide them?

The community edition comes with the basic theme.

Is it a monthly thing and do we pay for one whole pkg or each domain separately?

CE is free, enterprise costs.

If we have the black hat sites done at a different registry (godady vs enom for example) and put them on different servers, should the white hat sites be penalized when the black hat ones do?

Depends on the details of the setup - read the forum.

Is it possible to tie them all together like I described?

Sure.

Thanks for any help

You now owe your second child to Microsoft

 

[jaerehan]

How does billing work with Magento?

Is geo targeting (hope that is the correct word) possible for the sites, reason is we will have 4 fulfillment centers around the world and want people to see product from the location closest to them?

Thanks for any help,
Scott

Extensions, usually paid ones work well, from paypal to 2co even to paid on delivery type of stuff

Extension again, paid or custom, probably there is already one for your requirement.

 

[ndks~]

Want to be able to expand internationally in the future and have geo targeted sites so if someone from UK logs in, it shows them inventory from UK and not US on each domain.

You 'll need a plugin for that.

Thought I'd add to this. Specifically you'll need a plugin/script which detects geo-location and creates routes accordingly (personally, i'd have this completely separated from Magento).

As far as showing different products to different locations - this should be possible out of the box with Magento.

You can set up different store views for each country (e.g. UK, US, EU etc). By appending a different base category to each view you can show different products per each countries store view. By doing a quick search for "Magento store views" you should be able to find relevant documentation/tutorials

 

[olystyle]

Alternatively you could hook up your magento install with OpenERP (an open source erp system)

How would you benefit from this?

- Open ERP is free of charge and you can easily find a free Interface to sync orders / customers from Magento to OpenERP
- For as you planned to run several shops with different products each you could set up a Magento install for each and every one of them and hook em up with Open ERP
- Of course Invoicing (and reminding if they don't pay) works out of the box with Open ERP
- In case your products are of a physical nature you can easily do Warehous Management, Purchase, (Manufacturing)
- Manage all your customers - OpenERP offers quite a good CRM
- If you have employees - OpenERP is great for Human Resources... Payrolls/Timesheets/...

 

[LVScott]

I really appreciate everyones help.

Can someone explain to me the difference between CE and enterprise?

Obviously a HUGE cost difference but why would I go with enterprise in my situation.

Thanks for your help again,
Scott

 

[jazzc]

Can someone explain to me the difference between CE and enterprise?

Because you can't be bothered to look in the official site where it has a features list and a comparison?

 

[olystyle]

Magento CE vs. Enterprise

The main differences are:
- Support
- Encryption
- Solr Search (pointless for that amount of products that you want to offer)
- Full Page Caching out of the box (there plenty of free plugins for caching the CE: varnish for example)
- Customer Segmentation (can be done with free plugins aswell)
- Reward Points System
- RMA
- Enhanced Catalog and Content Management System
- Staging, Merging and Rollback of Content
- Minimum Advertised Price
- Call Center with Assisted Shopping
- Private Sales, Events, Invitations
- Gift Registry and Gifting Options
- Price and Promotion Permission

Cheers

olystyle