Linked Shops - B2C Microsites or B2B2C

If you want to set up one or more other websites which are websites that are linked to your main website, you can do this through AB Commerce - and the product data on the main website (the master website) will automatically be available on the microsite (the linked website) - e.g. if you change a price or the stock levels change on the master website, they will automatically update on the linked website, or if you change the product description or upload a new product image, this will automatically update on the linked website.

A linked website contains a subset of products from your main website (and possibly additional products that are not on your main website).  For example, you may want to set up a separate website for a specific brand with it's own URL and then have your product information automatically sync with this new website.

Or if you are a B2B website, you may want to offer your customers the option of having their own website with your products automatically appearing and updating on their website.  And they can also add their other products to their website too.

How it Works

To do this, you just need to use the same product code as on the master website for the products / versions that you want to sync. You can add additional products to the linked website that are not on the master website as long as they don't have the same product code as a product on the master website.

If you want to override a field, just enter a value for it's field on the linked website and this will be used instead of the corresponding value on the master website. For example if you want to display a different short description, once you enter characters on the linked website for this product, these will be used instead.  Or if you want to override the price, you can enter your own price.

What Fields are Synced with the Main Website?

The following is the product data that is synced with the linked website automatically:

• Price and Promotion Pricing
• Tiered Pricing
• Trade Pricing
• Discounts Disallowed
• All Product Images
• Video URLs
• Stock Control Levels
• Active / Inactive
• All Short Descriptions
• All Long Descripitions
• Version Level Custom Fields
• Rating
• Shipping Fields: Weight / Free Delivery / Is Bulky
• BarCode & SupplierCode
• Icons: Clearance, Further Reduced, Exclusive, BestSeller, IsNew

Keeping Stock Levels Accurate

Note that the stock levels are pulled from the master website (if the linked website stock levels are zero) but are not pushed back to the master website when items are ordered on the linked website.  Therefore, it's important to include your linked website sales when downloading web orders from the master website by also downloading the web orders from the linked website and then sending back accurate stock levels to the master website (which the linked website then automatically picks up).

Adding Products from the Master Website to the Linked Website

You can add products quickly from the master website by going into a category on the linked website in the web admin screens and clicking Add Linked Products.  You then just enter the list of product codes separated by commas and then click Add and they will add to the linked website for this category.
- NOTE that if the product has versions, it will also copy across the versions list from the master website.

The Approval Process

For the linked website, It's important to view this article: The Approval Process / Products Missing Images - and configuring your website to only show approved products.  This is so that as products automatically download onto your website, they don't go live to the website users until you view them yourself and approve them one by one.

Similarly, for the master website, the Linked Categories above only brings down approved products so you will need to use the approval process for products on the master website too.

For more information about pricing for an additional website and the steps to take to have this linked website set up and configured to link with your main master website, contact the Help Desk.