Virtual mall/multiple storefronts

Hi All

I have a concept, but only an concept at this stage and am not sure where to start. Basically, I want to create something which is similar to etsy.com for our local market. So the front end is a virtual store where you can buy from multiple shops. Each shop has an individual login and the ability to load their own products.

I know this'll probably be a tough road, as despite years in IT my programming knowledge is pretty much nill. I am a quick learner though!

Any ideas would be appreciated.

There are a few carts out there that allow you to design multiple storefronts with a single administration back end. I used to work for a shopping cart called Modular Merchant that allows just this type of design and vendor administration. There's a forum post on ecartreviews about how to make multiple storefronts that I've included below.

http://www.ecartreviews.com/forums/i...showtopic=1490

An example of somebody using the multi-vendor support:
http://www.decktracker.com

In the decktracker example, you can see that customers can login and sell (digital) cards to each other through one storefront.

Other carts you might want to try for these features:
X-cart (not sure that they support the multi vendor login though)
Magento (this cart is in beta still I think)
CRE Loaded (might have to be custom programmed)

Awesome, thank you SO MUCH for your help! I was googling and looking around but couldn't find anything that made much sense. DeckTracker looks to be using pretty much what I need :D

ETSY.....who is that site built through?

Thanks.

Etsy was (I believe) developed privately. As they're a large company now I don't think they're using packaged software somehow :D

I have had a look closer at Modular Merchant, and it does look good, but the cost puts me off. I'm really a noob at all this stuff, but is it typical to pay a monthly fee for the software? I would have assumed that you could purchase as a one off?

What sort of time and costs do you think would be associated with developing something myself? Obviously with the help of someone else as I wouldn't have a clue. I'm thinking it'd be easier to take someone on board as a partner to do the development side?

This is more what I was looking for, much more basic than Etsy which IMO is a little over the top for my requirements:

http://www.craftmall.com/index.html

Found (kinda) what I was after, am going to get X-Cart Pro :)