I am not sure I understand your answer correctly.

Are you saying that a master store with 10 mutli-store setups is considered to be one installation.  And that an extension is good for all 11?

Or are you saying it is considered to be 11 installations?

Carl,
I believe your decision to have separate installs is the best  in that each of your stores would have totally different inventory items.   It seems to me the multi-store advantage is when you have the same vendor with several locations.  Then the inventory and it's descriptions etc are consistent across all the locations.

Domain names are very inexpensive and giving each store their own unique cart would seem to have a great marketing advantage to them.  The trade off from your side is that you will need to upgrade each cart independently.  But that might be good too,  you'll only mess up one cart at a time (she says laughingly!)

There must be a way to make a "master" store that is configured optimally and then use that as a basic install for each of the stores as they come on to your system.  That way all the great features that you've discovered and setup would already be setup and you would only need to change the url, database location, etc.  I am going to investigate that aspect once I learn about more of the features and get them configured for my project.

As to your Master Marketing page - I also will be working on something like that, at least for the multi store setup.  If I come up with anything that works,  I'll let you know. 

Just another Abantecarte user!

Thank you for the information.   I would like to continue the conversation just a bit as I still have some confusion here.

First let me say,  I am not opposed to paying for the Google,  my concerns were more along the lines that the explanation on the extension doesn't tell one about that necessity.  And that until a couple of months ago Google API1 was a free service,  then they changed to API2 and made it only a paid service.   It's the concern with being tethered to Google services as they are prone to changing their way of offering services. 

Next,  there seems to be something that is installed with abantecart version 1.1.7  that does do translation if the settings are done correctly - setting them to on in the correct places.  It does function upon editing of a block.  So what is that?  How does it differ from the Google API2?

If one installs the Google,  how could one roll it back to what's initially included in abantecart?  It is just a matter of turning off the extension and changing the setting in Text Translation Method: back to the  Default method is a straight copy of source language text  on System > Settings?

Thank you for more details on this issue. 

No it's not cache issue.  I added this comment on the original post = but I think you were answering while I was adding


Oh,  I figured it out maybe -  It picks up the image associated with the last sub-category.   So now my question would be how to change that to choose the one I want to use.

So in this case I have three sub-cats,  if I arrange the sort order so that the one I want to show graphic is the last one,  it works.
But that is an unusual way to handle.

Carl,  I am just beginning to understand multi-store setup myself.   But I do know that you can set up users for each store and restrict those users to what they can access.

It is found in System > Users   and then you can setup User groups and/or users.

That gives the Master Admin control.

Additionally you can control any of the categories, products etc  by either having the checkbox for the store on or off.
So if you have product 1 and select Store A and Store B,  both will see product 1,  but they can each set their own pricing.
If you have product 1 and only select Store A,  Store B won't see it in their products listing.

Now what I am still looking to figure out is if Store A sees there is  Store B in the dropdowns.  I think they do,  but haven't tested completely yet.

Hope this helps a bit.

Ok  I've attached a screen shot of my settings:

Note - that there is nothing in Text Translation Box except 'Copy Source Language Text'

I tried editing
Home :: Languages :: Edit  Language - Español
I tried loading (button at the bottom)

I don't see where to get the Google API for Espanol,  it doesn't appear in the extensions store - so maybe directions to how to do that will solve the issue.

If I put something in fresh (not edited)  I get both English and Espanol,  but edit doesn't seem to function correctly.

I am missing something -  I just don't know what

Thanks for keeping at it.

Ok,  I found the language settings,  it looks like some things translate - others do not.

For instance,  I changed the Testimonials Block (on the footer of the html5 template) on the English -  to Events and changed the text. but when I switch to Spanish it is still Testimonials, but in Spanish.

On the Categories -  I changed one on the demo cart,  the English is presented on both languages?
I added some description in the category -  it shows up on the English home page,  it shows up in English on the Spanish Edit pages,  but doesn't show at all on the Home page when Spanish is selected. 

How to I get all those places to translate?  How do I get it to be consistent in where it translates?

Thank you.

Small suggestion:  perhaps it would be good to add that information to the documentation at

Home > Documentation >Admin User Manual > Catalog menu > Multistore set up