Item in two stores within one website

Hi - I'm building my website and looking for a better way to do it than I currently have it set up.

So we have two stores - one for the public, and one for the those "in the trade". The in the trade store is password protected, and they have to contact us to "sign up" and receive the password. This store will have ALL items available before they are released to the public, and the public page will have "new" items released every week that are not sold in the trade store.

The way this is currently set up, I have to create the items in BOTH stores.

Is there a better way to have two "storefronts" one of which being password protected? I feel like I may have an issue with inventory and potentially selling an item that is sold.

Thanks!

bump

Hey there, did you get any answer on this?

I am in the exact same situation. And I cannot create the items 2 otherwise the stock quantity would be a mess to manager...