Need an E-commerce solution that works well with PW and offers the ability to sell digital music

[pwired]

Yes OpenCart 2.0 is another step forward and now comes with standard responsive front.

But it has just been released and not 100% stable yet. I stick for a while with v.1.5.6.4

cause that one has been proven rock solid.

(disclaimer, don't want to hijack this thread into opencart webshop)

(OpenCart is worth to mention because internally it comes close to pw)

[Joss]

Thinking about things like opencart and so on, one thing I think could be very important with a PW cart is that it does not necessarily come with too many customisations via admin.

So, in its basic form, you would customise the way it renders just as you would with any other processwire site, rather than have to create bits of layouts that then have to be chosen in the admin and so on.

It is not that I think those are a bad thing in themselves, but that sort of customisation can make the file/template system a nightmare. 

One thing that I always like about the early paypal cart system was that you shoved one line of code where you wanted the button for each product in your static site. That made things pleasant!

So, I think there could be two levels here:

Apeisa's approach where the creation of the catalogue and how it works is down to you and the hard-core functionality is supplied by modules.

A profile based on the above that has a prebuilt catalogue system and maybe more of the look and feel functionality of Opencart, Prestashop and so on.

I think for a lot of people in here the first would be popular because we each have our own idea of how a catalogue should be structured

[Ivan Gretsky]

The first is the description of what Antti did and the second is what he is saying he is doing (but noone is sure, 'cause it is in development for a while).

So it seems like Joss is wrapping up this topic. We got what we got )) Integrating OpenCart into PW seems like a task noone is really going to do (or is sure has to be done). I was thinking about integrating the cart and checkout part from OpenCart, read some code, and realised that I am not ready for a task of such scope yet. I did not hear from anyone about development of any kind of modules, alternative  to Apeisa's.

I have not seen any medium-to-large retail online store built on PW. I am not sure current Shop module is suitable for that. If Antti or anyone could comment on that it would be really usefull to hear.

But I'm still hoping to use PW as an E-commerce solution, because it is so good at everything else))

[Joss]

I share your problem - I am great at coming up with the wish list, but useless at the ability to do something about it!

[joer80]

I dont have much to add to this convo other than, I cant stand opencart and love processwire, and dread the day I have to do another ecommerce store because I am going to need to make this call.  

[Joss]

To be honest, part of this is plain laziness - by all of us.

What I keep trying to find time to do is to create a really good catalogue as a starting point - and that can be done in PW without any additional tools.

And THEN look at what I need. 

I suspect that the hill will be less of a climb once the first bit is done.

So, perhaps the REAL conversation should be: what is the ideal catalogue structure in PW? And then go and do it.

[Oliver]

I think we would have to put together kind of an active “Shop Development Group”. I love coding, but I’m definitely not that much a developer to lift a task like this. But I have some ideas on how to structure the modules to achieve a maximum of flexibility regarding how to layout your shop within the page tree. Splitting the challenges is small packages may be the key to success here.

I’ll try to sketch my ideas. Could be a point to start. Maybe, when this thing gains some momentum, we could create an own github account for this where all shop modules are bundled and specific discussions on functionality can happen in the issues section.

Who would be interested in contributing to a project like this?

[Ivan Gretsky]

Let's do it, Oliver! Why don we start with creating a separate topic for that. I do not want to steal your credit for the idea, so go ahead and do it if you will. Not sure where this shall lead us, but it is the only way possible, as noone is going to do it for us.

But if someone is already doing it for us, please uncover yourself and join us (or let us join you) .

[Soma]

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/1732-shop-for-processwire-apeisa/?p=77642

[dazzyweb]

I think most of us here know about apeisa's new shop module that he is working on and good luck to him.

The only thing I can say is that it doesn't look like a community project but appears to be a private enterprise as it is in 'closed beta testing' and has a price tag on it.

I have no problem with that and might purchase it myself if it is what I need but it would be great to get an open source working project out there that we can all work on and contribute together a bit like virtualmart for joomla even though I know it is a mammoth task.

[Ivan Gretsky]

Yes, we all know that. There are several links to this topic from this one already (just read a couple of previous posts). But I think this group is still a good idea, because:

1. Antti's new shop offer is not out yet and is delayed (as you pointed with that link).
2. His new shop is not going to be free (I guess still open source but not free to use). I think it is good to have a free alternative in you pocket.
3. The communiy discussion will benefit us all (Antti's shop included) even if will not turn out as a separate product.

@dazztweb - those are the same point as yours - need to learn to type faster ))

[joer80]

As far as scaffolding, I like the bootstrap grid as a starting point.   Makes it so easy.  It looks like opencart when with it as well for their 2.0. 

Anyone else have any strong feelings about the layout?

I also think paypal payflow pro and express are good to support out of the box.  This gives the traditional on site invisible merchant checkout option, as well as a good guest checkout option if the user wants to use express.

[Joss]

I suggest that whatever you do you stay away from any fixed scaffolding framework. The point of ProcessWire is that people can use whatever layout structure they want. 

For instance, many like Bootstrap and Foundation as complete solutions, but many others find them large and cumbersome and too limited. If you have a large framework with lots of JS and CSS and then people want different JS for different slideshows or product display and so on, you can end up with an inflated beast.

So, I would suggest you stick to the functionality in a very agnostic way and make sure it is done in such a way that people can create the template files it as they wish.

[dazzyweb]

I didn't try it yet but for anyone that is interested there is a new e-commerce platform just released today as open source called Mothership.

"Mothership is open source web retail software, combining e-commerce with Electronic Point Of Sale (EPOS) into a single, unified platform. It is based on over 10 years experience, yet it is entirely new, containing zero legacy code, making it a perfect platform for developers."

http://mothership.ec/

[pwired]

Hey Darren, that's a real good find that you made there,

and the download is only 314 KB

http://www.message.co.uk/mothership/

http://www.message.co.uk/how-to-match-the-apple-store-epos-experience

https://www.facebook.com/mothership.ecommerce

"quotes"

Design exactly what you want, not what the system lets you!
Super-flexible template system puts zero restrictions on your creativity.

[adrianmak]

Yes OpenCart 2.0 is another step forward and now comes with standard responsive front.

But it has just been released and not 100% stable yet. I stick for a while with v.1.5.6.4

cause that one has been proven rock solid.

(disclaimer, don't want to hijack this thread into opencart webshop)

(OpenCart is worth to mention because internally it comes close to pw)

There are not much document for developer of opencart

[pwired]

There are not much document for developer of opencart

Actually you can find answers on the opencart forum http://forum.opencart.com/

Also if you search with google you will find many sites and tutos dedicated to help

opencart users. Latest version of opencart is a major step forward in clear and

functional design. It has also been made responsive. You can find tons of

modules and extensions for opencart. And last but not least, under the hood

opencart looks very familiar to processwire. That's why I like it so much.

[Krlos]

The original Apeisa store module is still available for download ? I'm trying to build a simple catalog and I'm having a hard time thinking how to do it.

[cb2004]

Look at https://www.padloper.pw/

[Krlos]

Look at https://www.padloper.pw/

I know about padloper, but I don't need a full feature shop, i only need to study it. I'm working only in the catalog part with a quotation form.