Multiple vendors accessing same product catalogue

-- HikaShop version -- : 2.3.2
-- HikaMarket version -- : 1.4.2
-- Joomla version -- : 3.3.3
-- PHP version -- : 5.4.7
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Chrome 36.0.1985.143

Hello HikaShop-Team,

some time ago I bought your HikaShop/HikaMarket-Bundle. After doing a some other work at my website I am now starting to set up the e-commerce part.

The website will have many different vendors which will all sell wine.

I like to have one master catalogue where all the avaiable wines are listed. I planned to this with "Your Vendor" in HikaMarket. This vendor will not sell any products. Its only aim is provide the master catalogue of products. Afterwards I created some product categories and products.

Then, I created a test vendor. In the vendor control of the test vendor I like to like to have the same products like in the master catalogue. So that the test vendor can change for example the quantity and than list it under is products.

At the moment I see all categories from the master catalogue but cannot see any products I added there. I tried different approaches like changing the category options in the HikaMarket-Menu or enabling the duplicate products plugin for the master catalogue. However, nothing worked.

Could you please point me in the right direction?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Hello Jerome,

thanks for the quick reply.

Like I read in your reply I was on the right track with using the "duplicate products" plugin. I had a look at the plugin code.

I need the plugin to do the following things:

1. When a new vendor is created he should have access to the master catalogue. This catalogue is shared by all vendors. There copying the current master catalogue to the vendor directory migth a solution.

2. If a vendor creates a new product, this product should also be avaiable for all other vendors. Duplicating the product after creation to all other vendors and the master catalogue might be the way to go.

3. If a vendor edits a product, this update should be avaiable for all other vendors. Same solution as in point 2.

4. It might be nice, if I (the admin) could confirm new products/edits of vendors, before they are published (duplicated) to all other vendors. (I think the most difficult feature)

Do you see any problems or unwanted effects with this requirements and your current shop infrastructure?

Since I already did some alterations on your software, I would like to implement the features on my own. This way I get to know your software better. However, I would be happy if you could help me to check the finished plugin for any bugs or problems?

Best regards,

Hello Jerome,

I saw that you have updated the HikaMarket component. Thanks a lot for putting the work into the duplicate products plugin.

Unfortunately, there are two problems:

1. The second SELECT-Statement in the duplicate products plugin has two syntax errors. I think you need to do a join of the product_category and the product table to access all necessary columns. In addition, the opening bracket for the last WHERE-argument is missing.

Original:

$query = 'SELECT a.product_id FROM ' . hikamarket::table('shop.product_category') . ' WHERE b.product_vendor_id = 0 AND a.category_id IN '. implode(',', $categories_id).')';

Fixed
$query = 'SELECT a.product_id FROM ' . hikamarket::table('shop.product_category') . ' AS a RIGHT JOIN ' . hikamarket::table('shop.product') . ' AS b ON (a.product_id=b.product_id) WHERE b.product_vendor_id = 0 AND a.category_id IN ('. implode(',', $categories_id).')';

2. Currently it is not possible to delete vendors. When trying to delete a vendor you are forwarded to the confirmation screen, but after confirming you get an error message "INCORRECT_DATA".

I will try some things with the plugin an let you know my experience.

Regards,

Andreas

Hello,

I tried you changes regarding deleting a vendor and now it works again. Thanks!

However, there is still something strange. Like before the change you always see on the confirmation screen a row with the vendor you like to delete and below a second row which is empty. For example:

1. Vendor 1
2. empty

Regards,

Andreas

Hello Jerome,

thanks for the quick update. I have installed the new versions and everything works smoothly.

However, I like to make another suggestion for the hikamarket package which you could think about for future releases.

The duplicate products plugin helps me already a lot. Since my vendors are using often the same products. I think I am not the only hikamarket customer who uses the package an has vendors selling the same product. You emphasized that it is important that every vendor has its own product version, therefore the duplicate products plugin creates a new version for every new vendor. I had a look a the product data table and in the case of multiple vendors selling the same product it would be very useful to split the table in for example "product_maindata" (like name, descrption, weight, size and so on) and a "product_vendordata" (like sale_start, sale_end, max_per_order, min_per_order, waitlist and so on). This would heavily reduce the amount of duplicate data in the product table, since the maindata and vendordata tables could be joined before a request.

Best regards