Two shops, one basket one checkout ?

[rayr]

I would like to have two shops with specialist products but allow the user to put products from one site into a common basket, then hop over to the other site and add more products, then view the common basket and proceed to checkout.

Can this be done??

'Add to basket' button in site 2 feeds basket on site 1??

Obviously need to:-
Remove basket bounce
Store site identity as session cookie or something so returning to the site the product was choosen from is possible
Keep banners and navigation consistant.

Has anyone attempted this??
Any ideas greatly appreciated
Ray

[wjcampbe]

One shop - two departments - one basket, one checkout.

[rayr]

Departments is one approach however with two domain names not sure how this could work. Trying to achieve the benifits of two specialist sites with an option to jump to other sites with associated products rather than one big generalist site. Could I use sub domains to hold the two sites but use the common cgi-bin pl scripts for basket and checkout?

[leehack]

Actinic shops/sites are standalone always, no exceptions. Something they need to add for multisite users, be a great addition, who knows V9 maybe? nah not a chance but the thought is there.

[pinbrook]

Departments is one approach however with two domain names not sure how this could work.

its the only way to do it with a combined checkout.

you can't run the site on separate domains as the basket will empty on swapping from one domain to the other.

the only option is a third generic domain and point the ns of the specific domains to the relevant sections - whilst keeping the site on the 3rd URL

[RuralWeb]

There is already a long thread on this subject somewhere

[Duncan Rounding]

I think it was this thread:
http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=31732

[OriginalTouch]

Crumbs - this is a major issue for me and I've just purchased Actinic!

Setting it up on the site linked in my signature (spcb.co.uk) is no problem as it is a stand alone industrial site.

However work soon to start on another generic 'retail website'. I have different specialist ranges on different urls that link together.

It is imperative that a customer will be able to choose from the different sites and place products into the one basket.

Pointing URLs to another site is no good for search engines?

[pinbrook]

It is imperative that a customer will be able to choose from the different sites and place products into the one basket.

you will not be able to do this. An Actinic site has to sit on one domain.

The suggestions above are your only solution

[RuralWeb]

It is imperative that a customer will be able to choose from the different sites and place products into the one basket

As jo says it cannot be done with Actinic - infact it would be difficult to do with any cart software except a bespoke one.