I want to set up a e-commerce solution where one master database of items can be sold from multiple storefronts. I need it to be customizable so that we can add some cross store sales commissions and other bells and whistles. I have been looking at Smart Win but they seem too old and complicated. I think X-cart seems like a decent place to start, has anyone used its multi-store module? I would like to keep the costs down. Magento is too expensive.
Magento is fantastic for multi-stores, it's very easy to set up cross domain stores and so on. Magento community edition is Free and will do everything you need.
I was at same situation before i started my ecommerce with AJ Shopping Cart. After that i got all user friendly facilities from AJ Shopping cart software. It is much easy to start your ecommerce shopping cart. I just wanna suggest this to you. http://www.ajsquare.com/products/ecom/index.php
We just used Prestashop with Agile multistore to create our thecoffeelocator.com Very happy with results and support Store front looks like this - thecoffeelocator.com/market/vendor/9-caffe-bonani
Magento in the community edition is for free and very professional. It does what you want and leaves you with a start for a professional environment - we use it as multi store as well and it works great.
Magento is a work horse when it comes to multi-store setups. A simple tutorial for the setup of multiple storefronts on Magento can be found here http://www.ecommercegorilla.com/how-to-set-up-multiple-store-fronts-with-magento/ Hope this helps