How To Setup Multiple Magento Stores

There are numerous ways to setup multiple Magento stores that all share the same codebase and backend, but what method you use depends on your needs.

This article is written with cPanel in mind, though the methodologies listed below apply no matter what control panel you’re using.

Jump To Section

1. URL Structure
2. Shared Hosting Caveat
3. Adding Another Store In Magento
4. Parked Domain Method
5. Addon Domain Method
6. Subdomain Method
7. Subdirectory Method
8. Managing Multiple Stores
9. Secure Checkout For Each Domain

URL Structure

The actual URL structure of your stores is a matter of personal preference. You can, for example, have two entirely different stores running on the same domain that share the same instance of Magento:

• mall.com/shoes
• mall.com/shirts

These stores could also be setup on their own domain and still share the same instance of Magento:

• shoes.com
• shirts.com

Another example would be a mall type setup, where your primary domain is the portal to access various stores:

• mall.com
• shoes.mall.com
• shirts.mall.com

Regardless of the URL structure, the method for setting this up will pretty much be the same, and the result is what we’re really after, which is to have one codebase for all of your stores, and one backend to manage all of these stores from.

Shared Hosting Caveat

If you want each store to have it’s own SSL certificate and don’t want to share a single checkout, e.g. you don’t want visitors leaving domainA.com to checkout on domainB.com, then you will not be able to do this in a shared hosting environment.

The reason why you cannot do this is simple. In order for a website to have an SSL certificate, it requires a dedicated IP address.

There’s no way to allow an addon or parked domain in cPanel to have its own IP address. Instead, it shares the IP address of the primary domain.

You probably think you could sign up for two shared hosting accounts, so each one has its own dedicated IP address, but that won’t work either.

Since it’s shared hosting, there are security measures in place to prevent one user from reading the files of another user.

So for shared hosting clients, you’re limited to the following scenarios:

1. All of your stores do not have a secure checkout, which is fine if you’re using PayPal, Google Checkout, or a similar third-party service that handles the processing of card data on their website. For example, visitors to any of your stores are redirected to a third-party website for card processing.
2. All of your stores share a secure checkout point. For example, you own three domains: mall.com, shoes.com, and shirts.com You use mall.com as your primary domain and have an SSL certificate associated with it. The other two domains would be either addon or parked domains, and visitors to those sites would be redirected to mall.com to checkout.
3. All of your stores are setup as subdomains, and you’ve purchased a wildcard SSL certificate, which is roughly $1000/year and is for legally registered businesses.

If you do need an SSL certificate for all of your domains, you will need to be in a dedicated hosting environment, such as our Dedicated Container, which comes with 5 IP addresses. In this type of environment, all five domains will be able to access the same set of files.

Related posts:

1. How to add SSL-support in Magento
2. Run Magento Code Outside of Magento
3. Magento – Filter by multiple categories
4. Installing Magento on GoDaddy Hosting
5. Magento Features