Now you're probably itching to install your first Magento store. In fact, you probably have done that already and have been fumbling through the vast labyrinth of configuration menus and screens. If you're like so many first-time Magento installers, you might feel ready to uninstall and reinstall; to start all over.
Most of the time, this "restart" happens when users try to take advantage of one of Magento's most powerful features: managing multiple stores. It seems easy when you look at the store management screen until you begin setting up stores, configuring URLs, and assigning specific configurations to each frontend website.
Before you begin laying out your master plan for the various websites and stores you intend to create (and even if you're only beginning with one website), you need to master the Magento methodology for multiple stores. Magento describes this as "GWS," which stands for "Global, Website, Store." Each Magento installation automatically includes one of each part of this hierarchy, plus one more for "Store View."
The following diagram shows how each part of GWS is related to one another:
Global refers to settings (for example, stock management rules) and values (for example, product price) for the entire installation. Throughout your Magento installation, you'll find Global displayed next to various form fields.
In terms of installation planning, your Global considerations should include:
Will customers be shared among all sites? You can elect not to give customers the ability to register for one website and automatically be registered to all others.
Can I allow any user with Admin permissions to see all orders and customers from all websites and stores within the single installation? Without modification, Magento does not allow you to set up Admin users by limiting them to certain websites and stores. If an Admin user can see orders, they can see all orders for all customers.
Will all stores within an installation use the same rules for managing inventory? Inventory rules, such as whether stock is to be managed or whether backorders are allowed, are system-wide choices. (These choices can be changed, in some cases, at the product level, though that does mean paying careful attention to how products are configured and managed.)
In general, we recommend that you consider a single Magento installation only for multiple websites and stores that are similar in concept. For example, if your online business is selling drop-shipped furniture through several differently branded websites, then a single Magento installation is ideal. However, if you have two or more different businesses, each with a different product focus, company name, banking, and so on, it is best to use a separate Magento installation for each discrete business.
The website is the "root" of a Magento store. From the website, multiple stores are created that can each represent different products and focus. However, it is at the website level that certain configurations are applied that control common functions among its children stores and Store Views.
As described above, one of the most important considerations at the website level is whether or not customer data can be shared among websites. The decision to share this information is a Global configuration; however, remember that you cannot elect to share customer data among some websites and not others: it's an all or nothing configuration.
What can sometimes be confusing is that "Store" for Magento is used to describe both a store structure as well as a Store View. When configuring your hierarchal structure, "Store" is used to associate different product catalogs to different stores under a single "Website," whereas "Store Views" can be created to display a "Store" in multiple languages or styles, each with their own URL or path. Each Store View can be assigned different themes, content, logos, and so on.
Yet, throughout Magento's many administration screens, you will see that "Store" is used to define the scope of a particular value or setting. In these instances, entered values will affect all Views under a Store hierarchy. We know this can be confusing; it was to us, too. However, by following the processes in this book, you'll quickly come to not only understand how a Store and Store View is referred within Magento, but also appreciate the tremendous flexibility this gives you.