The Guide To Setup Prestashop Multi-Store In Versions 1.6 & 1.7

Ever since PrestaShop came into being, it has been one of the preferred eCommerce development platforms among developers and businesses worldwide. And yes there are valid reasons behind – it’s powerful features and functionalities.

One such feature is the ability to create and manage multiple stores within one installation. But why would anyone need multi-store functionality? Well, depending on your business model, I’ve listed some of the major reasons why setting up a PrestaShop multi-store is recommended.

• When you want to run both retail and trade stores while selling products at different prices to both retail and trade customers respectively.
• When you want to offer your products at different prices depending on country or customer group.
• When you wish to have multiple stores with different branding and layouts. Prestashop multi-store allows you to install and run completely different themes/modules and content depending on which store you are in. This means you could have two stores selling entirely different products or having two totally different target audiences all managed within one installation.
• When you wish to own a discount clearance store alongside a full-price store.

Of course, you might have a different reason behind, these are some of the popular, or rather I would say sought after ones.

Now, without wasting any time, I am going to help you set up multi-store for both PrestaShop 1.6 and 1.7 – you can choose the version that’s apt for your business.

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STEP-WISE GUIDE TO ENABLE MULTI-STORE IN PRESTASHOP

Before you create new stores, you need to enable the PrestaShop multi-store mode. It’s not turned on by default when you install PrestaShop but turning it on is very simple…

VERSION 1.6.X.X

• Log-in to your Prestashop admin area.
• Go to: Preferences > General
• Find “Enable multi-store” option and set it to Yes
• Don’t forget to save your changes

VERSION 1.7.X.X

• Log-in to your Prestashop admin area.
• Go to: Shop Parameters > General
• Find “Enable multi-store” option and set it to Yes
• Don’t forget to save your changes

Once you have done this, You’ll find a new Multistore option in the Advanced Parameters menu. Click on it to start creating your multi-stores.

Note: This is same for both 1.6 and 1.7.

Now, you will come across three main sections:

• Multi-store Tree: This tab displays a tree layout of your shop groups, their respective shopsand various URLs associated to a single shop. By default, there is only one shop – the “master shop”, the one you have been using up until now.
• Shop Groups Table: This includes all the available shop groups. In case you want to share your customers, productsor orders between any new stores you create, make sure the settings for your shop group(s) are correct as it’s almost impossible to change some of them once enabled. You can have as many groups as necessary but remember group’s settings only apply to the shops that are inside it and you can only have a shop associated with one group. However, you can edit them by clicking on the ‘edit’ icon to rename them.
• Multi-store Options: It includes all the available options for the existing shops. The ‘Default Shop’ is the one which will serve as the master for all the other shops you create, shares its details with other shops (such as products, customers, categories etc.) and is the one that appears by default when you log in the admin dashboard.

Next step is,

ADDING A NEW SHOP IN MULTI-STORE MODE

To add a new shop, find and click on the “Add a new shop” button to the top right of the PrestaShop multi-store interface. Now, you’ll be taken to a new screen with the following options:

• Shop Name– Enter your new shop name here.
• Shop Group– Choose the “default” group shop you wish to associate your new shop with.
• Category Root– You can either use the same root or use any category of the catalog as its root.
• Associated Categories– Choose which categories you want to associate with your new shop from default store.
• Theme– You can choose any of the available themes as the theme for this new shop.
• Import Data– Here you need to choose whether or not to import data from an existing shop. This needs to be switched to Yes if you want to Import Data from the main shop.
• Now click the Save 
• Wait for the new store to be created – Once this process has been completed, you will be able to select different shops/shop groups in the drop down option in the main menu at the top of the screen.

Once you are done with this, you’ll find a new shop in the list of shops, click on “click here to set a URL for this shop”.

Now, specify a new URL for the new shop along with other options:

Click save once you have set everything.

Please note: You don’t need to add http:// or https:// to any of the URL’s you might setup as Prestashop will do that for you, depending on whether or not you’re using SSL on your PrestaShop site.

I hope the tutorial helps you understand the process of enabling and setting up PrestaShop multi-store in versions 1.6 and 1.7. If you still have any queries, feel free to get in touch with our PrestaShop Developer. We are ready to assist you with everything PrestaShop.