How to assign/relate a Manufacturer to an account?

[Mjbigo]

Hi,
I am new to VM and I am running joomla 2.5.16 and VM 2.0.24c.

Basically I want my suppliers to manage their products.
I know how to create a 'Manufacturer' and how to assign a product to that manufacturer. But how can I create an account to a manufacturer, so they can login and add or edit their own products?

Is this how you guys do when you want to allow people to sell their products?

In short I need to be able to allow my suppliers to login and only edit/delete their own products or add new ones.

Can anyone give some clue. Or do I need something custom built to do that?

Thanks

[jenkinhill]

Your suppliers would be called Vendors in VirtueMart, not manufacturers, and VM2.0 does have limited muti-vendor capability in the forrm of administered multivendor. For an explanation see http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=107588.0

In default VM you could have multiple vendors log into the back end (BE) of the site to add products etc, but there is no separate payment (or order handling system) for vendors so it needs an administrator to sort out. Alternatively an administrator can take more control and add all products in the BE and allow each vendor to administer those products by access only to the front end. None of this is ideal for multivendor.  There is I believe a 3rd party multi-vendor extension for VM, and in time I'm sure that there will be more developed, but in the meantime a custom build may be the only reasonable option.

[Mjbigo]

Hi jenkinhill,
Thanks for your help and for the link.

May I clarify that I actually won't use payment or shipping details. The intention is not to have people selling stuff through my site.

The final order checkout will just be sent to my email and an order and I will process the rest.

I really just want the suppliers/vendors to administer their existing products and add new ones through the front end.

The intention is to have my prices (recommended price) and the products I can get from my suppliers up to date as much as possible.

I will have a look as you suggested for a 3rd part extension. But in case I can't find what I need. Would you be able to take on a project to develop something as I described?

Thanks again

[Mjbigo]

Hi jenkinhill,

I am trying the set up as you recommended. Using vendors as my suppliers but I can't figure out how to relate/link a product to an specific vendor.

under shoppers, I selected the user I want to be a vendor and clicked "Is a Vendor".
Then I went to the 'products' tab open a product. But I can't see where to assign that product to a vendor.

How do I do that?

Joomla 2.5.16
VM 2.0.24c

Thanks again

[Mjbigo]

Ok, I just discovered the answer to my question above.
I will post here as it might help someone else.

To assign a product to a vendor, first you need to go to 'configuration' on the 'Shop tab' in 'Advanced Settings' you select '
Enable Multivendor (experimental only for developers)'.

The. In order for you to be able to assign a vendor to a product, you need to go to'shoppers', select the shopper you want to became a vendor, click the green button 'is a vendor'. Then you have to edit that user account and complete the details of that vendor. The shop name and company name. Save.

Then if you open a product you should be able to select that vendor from the drop down on the right hand side of the screen.

And that is it.
I got a bunch of new questions related to vendors and their products but I will create a Ned post.

Thanks