Multi-store support
This would allow a site admin to create differently branded stores on different domains or subdomains which can have their own URL and skin design, a subset of categories, products and versions, and other unique content. It would be possible to run any number of such stores from a single install of Kartris, however, all payments, enquiries and support would be handled centrally from the 'master' store.
We don't have multi-store support at present, but are working on it.
Multi-vendor support
MultiTypically, the requirement is to be able to build an online mall, where various different merchants rent their store but everything is stored in a single shared database.
There are a number of practical problems with doing this. Firstly, it is a very significant modification; while it may seem a relatively small step, it requires that every category, product, version, option, attribute and so on is tagged as to which store it belongs to. Similarly, customer accounts - in some requests the requirement is for single customer accounts to cover the whole mall, in others the intention is that each store has its own customer database.
With shipping, if there are multiple vendors, then each will want to set their own shipping prices and policies from their location. This means that any front end customer cannot purchase from multiple stores and checkout, because you'd need to calculate shipping for each merchant separately. You will also have problems if a customer purchases in one order from multiple vendors, one of whom does not deliver. In this case, the customer may charge back the credit card payment, which will then affect all the other vendors - they fulfilled delivery, but lose their order because one other did not.
Payments for each vendor would need to be stored separately, each would need to be able to view their account. Each needs to have a completely isolated back end, where they see only their own products, categories, customers, and so on.
Each vendor would need to have a unique location to upload their skin to, or some other way to customize it.
Overall we have determined that multi-vendor is not something we want to deliver as we feel in practice it is not workable.