Customer / Shopper Group Segmentation

[Hammerhead]

Looking for some suggestions on 'best practices' for how to segment our clients.

I have a VM installation for a friend who wants to group his customers into three types, and show each type of customer only the products that pertain to them.  We are using Virtual Domains to alter template styles and content contingent upon URL that corresponds to the three different types of customers.  Now, we want to feature VM items on-the-fly depending on that URL.

Specifically, we have:
www.conditionred.us
www.emsacademi.com
www.cprny.training

We also use other components like ACYMailing which will likewise have segmented mailing lists for each type of customer.  What we're after is to present only specific products to each type of client.  For example, the clients who come for CPR training are not going to need (or be interested in buying) tracheotomy kits and combat gauze.

I'm not sure if I should be using Shopper Groups, Categories or another method to achieve what we're after.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[GJC Web Design]

my first thought is why mix it all up in a single shop if as u say the clients from one branch aren't interested in products from another?
where's the advantage?

why not 3 VM shops..?

[Hammerhead]

Ease of administration.

Three different shops would require three different Joomla installs, three different Admin panels, three different sets of content, three different sets of components, and so on.  That would be a lot to ask of anyone, let alone a novice user.  This unifies the management in one location for all aspects of the business.

[jenkinhill]

In that case I'd start off with shopper groups, and assign products to groups. It does mean that all shoppers have to register first to see the products assigned to their groups.