Running separate stores in single catalog (& ISP's)

[Jeff Jones <jeff@canadianbiz.com>]

Hi,

I have been looking for shopping cart software for a while now and MV seems
to be one of the best free or otherwise and the one I want to go with.

I have a couple questions regarding my application.  I want to create a
site much like the standard MV demos where the user can enter, and log in
with a user id and  password.  The shopper would have a choice of "stores"
(my clients) to choose from (like a mall). When it came time to order, the
customer would drop items into the basket and checkout and then move on to
purchase from another store. The purchase order would then go to an email
address, a separate address for each store.

I have sifted through the FAQ's and other docs, and the most likely way to
do this would be to have each item from each store tagged for "Custom Order
Routing", but this wouldn't barr customers from inadvertently placing items
from other stores into the basket. (I know this requirement seems odd given
that MV would route the orders properly, but it is what I need). I have
also run into the MV concept of sub-catalogs but I am not sure if that is
the answer...

Of course the best way would be to run multiple catalogs. But I  have 2
problems: 1) I need the user data to follow the customer without the need
for multiple logins. And 2) I will most likely use a MV friendly ISP to
host (at least until the site cashflows well enough to afford otherwise)
and they seem to limit the number of catalogs to two.

Any advice would be very much appreciated. Also, suggestions and comments
regarding ISP's would be helpful. I have read in the archives that
superb.net seems reasonable (though I wonder how heavily they tax their
servers).  Curiously, I didn't stumble across many comments regarding the
obvious, minivend.com.

many thanks,

Jeff Jones