Multi-vendor store with stock transfers and a role-based staff portal

The challenge

A retail business wanted to sell through several vendors on one online store, with products able to move between them. Working through an independent intermediary, it first needed a multi-vendor storefront in which products could be moved from one seller to another, with a record of each transfer.

Once the store was running, the business asked for a second, private system: a portal for its own people. Owners, managers and sales assistants each needed a different level of access, with sensitive information such as the lowest selling price visible only to the right roles. The portal also had to run a points-based membership scheme, handle product transfers and produce reports for management.

What we did

Phase 1: multi-vendor store (2014)

• Store setup. We set up our own multi-vendor OpenCart solution for the business.
• Seller-to-seller transfers. We added a custom feature for transferring products between sellers, with the related records kept up to date, and completed every change agreed in discussion with the client.

Phase 2: staff portal (2015)

• Three user roles. We built a separate portal with owner, manager and sales assistant roles, each with its own permissions.
• Price visibility rules. Lowest-price information is shown only to the roles allowed to see it.
• Membership and points. A points-based membership system managed from the portal.
• Transfers and reports. Product transfer tools within the portal, plus reports for management.
• Refinement. Between February and May 2015 we worked through layout and navigation fixes, including overlapping buttons, menu links and how transfers were displayed.

Tech stack

PHP, MySQL, OpenCart, cPanel