Showing different "website" on a subdomain

Technical Q&A
1

I soon will have to start building 2 new websites for a company I work with.

Long story short, I have to build the main website. Let’s call it “Website01” and a second website(“Website02”).

They come from the same brand, same everything except they sell 2 different categories of products. 01, will sell physical and retail products. 01, will sell box subscriptions through ReCharge(Shopify Plugin).

Requirements:
-They MIGHT, have the same customers(ex: I buy on 01, well I might maybe order a box on 02).
-Delivery, cannot be mixed(ex: Buy a product on 01 and also buy a box on 02) since Shopify will not separate the orders(If you can, please tell me.)

-Theorically, the CSS/(or SCSS for us) will be different. Thanks to @David_SGA I would load 2 different css file and theorically manage that part like so.

The question, or problem:
Doing this causes me to force my employer to buy 2 Shopify subscriptions(We need advanced) which means 80$USD(107$CAD for us, since we’re canadians…) x2, 160$USD per month BECAUSE, of the box plugin and the delivery problem mainly.

My theorical solution:

  1. Run a complete platform on Website01 and run Website02 on a subdomain.

Example: [www.website01.com(Base](http://www.website01.com(Base) website) and [www.website02.website01.com(Box](http://www.website02.website01.com(Box) platform)

The subdomain would be using a different CSS file. But as i’m writing this, another problem surfaces. Cart and product page management. Showing a different menu wouldn’t be a problem, but managing the cart that cannot be matched or mixed with(Box + Product).

As you might be reading this, from my point of view I still think 2 Shopifys is the best and healthiest way to run this. I know on different platforms it’d be different, but we insist on going with Shopify.

So what would be your solution around this?

What is your opinion?

Greatly appreciate,

-Patrick

2

Hey Patrick

I ran into this with a few clients as well.

You can do the 2 domain/subdomain solution which is practical if budget is a factor.

In my case I was a bit luckier where they wanted both subscription and physical product on the same domain and didn’t mind the separate carts. But overall the cart problem remains the same.

In my opinion, you’re going the correct route by using 2 instances.

If someone has another budgeted opinion, I’d love to know too.

3

Hey there!

I used to work for Shopify as a Plus Guru, we saw this often. So recharge is actually sorta built for this. If they buy Just a subscription. Recharge. If they buy a non-subscription. Shopify Checkout. If they Mix and Match. Recharge Checkout will handle it all. https://support.rechargepayments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008683094-ReCharge-overview talks about it some more. In addition they have a New Beta as well so you can randomly add one time purchases to your next outgoing subscription. https://support.rechargepayments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008683834-One-Time-Products

So in theory you could run it all through one store. In addition, for shipping. You could use Advanced Shipping Rules, Along with Carrier calculated shipping ($20 per month or free on advanced or annual plans) to control the rules of shipping each product. So subscription products get one set of rules, Non subscription get a different set. And adds them together and blends as needed While still all running it through a single store. https://apps.shopify.com/vendor-shipping-rules-1

Also slight correction. You said you needed advanced plan on both stores at $80 each. Thats professional :wink: Advanced is $300 each store :wink:

Feel free to let me know if you need to bounce any idea’s. Always happy to help.

4

@Rob_Hinch Thank you for your opinion, it’s reassuring to know i’m not the first one facing this problematic. Misfit supplied a nice answer just below you if you want to consult it!

@Misfit_Code_Dev Waking up to an incredible answer like yours, wow.

I was actually aiming at ReCharge, but didn’t even saw they could manage the checkout part(wow!). I contacted their support for further questions before starting to develop.

Just to rectify in order to be sure I understood well(i’ll mention your answer as the solution), i’ll need:

-ReCharge

-Advanced Shipping Rules

(Custom liquid code for the SCSS part and subdomain)

5

Thanks @Misfit_Code_Dev !

ReCharge was one of the apps I wanted to bring to my client too. It’s good to know they handle both.

6

@colemvn with advanced shipping rules, you should not need 2 domains. You can setup Shipping X for Subscriptions and Setting Y for non-subscriptions, and Setting Z will be made as a Blended version for when they order both done by the app itself.

7

Small update for the ones following this topic.

I contacted someone at ReCharge regarding multiple questions and I also contacted a local dev. team that did something similar.

In summary, ReCharge handles a lot of good stuff.

edit: I forgot to mention, I really appreciated their help and they supplied a lot of documentation. The part I disliked a bit, was(my own words) “you can’t do this”. Other than this, they do a lot of followups on the development and are curious about how it’s going. The downside, no phone support. Which means, emails, emails, emails, delays and it goes on. It’s burning a lot of my time, which sucks a bit. On the contrary, with Bold I have a phone appointment. It may take 30 minutes, 1 hour or 2, but it’s gonna be done.

On the other hand, the local dev. team suggested to use Bold Subscription which I also looked into.

The difference between the both of them, would be the development liberty. For now, I have booked an appointment with a developer at Bold Subscription to talk about my more specific and technical questions.

–

My main issue, for the moment. Would be how free I am to code through their plugin. Like I mentionned previously, I have a good background in programming, but not with Shopify. With both plugin companies, I was replied “You’ll have to work with the Dev. Api and host your own code on your own server”. This doesn’t speak to me.

For the moment, i’m starting the development with Slate and Accentuate.IO(custom fields). Accentuate.IO is probably the custom fields I prefer the most. It’s really similar to Advanced Custom Fields in Wordpress(Documentation-wise, coding-wise). Everything from it, is freshly done, well presented and well explained.

thank you all!

8

Hi Patrick,

How did you get this to work?

“-Theorically, the CSS/(or SCSS for us) will be different. Thanks to @David_SGA I would load 2 different css file and theorically manage that part like so.”