Discussion on MODX and E-Commerce (Started 2013-04-06)

Discussion Questions

1. What is an e-commerce solution? What is it not?
2. With the number of potential solutions already out there (see Background Information below), is there a need to create another one instead of modifying an existing solution?
3. If a new solution were to be created, how much would be a fair price to charge?
4. With existing solutions (or a new one) what is the best way to market this so that those who are looking for an e-commerce solution in MODX know that one exists and that it is available?
5. What other discussion points should be included here that I haven't thought of?

Background Information
In another posting (http://forums.modx.com/thread/?thread=83497&page=), the discussion of e-commerce came up.

The thread was starting to lean off-topic (partially because of me), so I decided to start a new thread on the topic.

I myself have never used an e-commerce solution in development (just because what I do with MODX doesn't get into e-commerce), but out of interest, I wanted to start (or continue) the conversation so that we could discuss prospects of e-commerce and how it could help MODX take off.

From doing a bit of research, it seems that there are some options already available to developers and that what you'd choose depends on your needs:
Quote from: redtoad at Apr 06, 2013, 01:16 PM

As far as e-commerce goes.... for a lot of smaller businesses that don't have high volume, integrating something like FoxyCart or Mals-e.com is very simple and meets their needs. We use Mal's for the nonprofits we work with and some of the smaller vendors and it's just golden. The caveat is inventory management. For something like that, implement a full platform.

Quote from: eighthday at Apr 05, 2013, 02:18 PM

simpleCart is not a million miles away from being a very good ecommerce solution, and there is now miniShop 2, people are closer than you think.

Others mention Magento (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magento) and FoxyCart (http://forums.modx.com/forums/thread/16892/flexibility-of-foxycart-modx-multiple-users-mini-stores-general-web-store)

Another option which may not be known to people is that there already is a paid Extra to MODX, which was developed by Bert Oost's team at Oost Design (http://www.oostdesign.com/). He announced the creation of the Extra in this forum post (http://forums.modx.com/index.php?topic=67270.0
):

Quote from: bertoost at Jul 31, 2011, 11:03 AM

Hi all,

A great day! I just finished up SimpleCart component. Thanks to eRage (Martijn van Turnhout), wich made development possible!

With this component you're able to create a shop in MODx Revolution all configurable and customizable with chunks etc.

For Dutch people; here you can find some benefits
http://www.oostdesign.nl/modx-revolution-cms/modx-extras/simplecart-webshop/

The English version are coming soon; I'm working on that!

For those who have interests in this component; just contact me!

Regards, Bert

More current information available here: http://www.oostdesign.com/modx-revolution-cms/modx-extras/simplecart-webshop/#features


Another option comes from mojopeasc: http://forums.modx.com/thread/?thread=83288&page=1 which according to claims is set to come out May 1, 2013

There is also a JQuery cart, http://simplecartjs.org/ with PayPal and a couple of other payment options already built in. It's just a matter of giving div and other elements the proper classnames to get it working.

Quote from: sottwell at Apr 06, 2013, 04:14 PM

There is also a JQuery cart, http://simplecartjs.org/ with PayPal and a couple of other payment options already built in. It's just a matter of giving div and other elements the proper classnames to get it working.

Hi Susan,

I was there yesterday and I saw their demo. I was quite impressed with what I saw. My concern is that, based on what I heard on the videos at the MODXpo in November, that the hardest part of any solution is determination of taxes and shipping costs, which is where the real problems come into play. However, I could very well be wrong.

Yes. While you can have hidden fields with these values to send on to PayPal, calculating them would be up to the developer. That's where my ShopX shopping cart solution years ago got hung up. Everything was based on snippets with a specified naming convention, but the individual calculations was something I could not automate, nor could I support individual demands for these calculations.

Quote from: sottwell at Apr 06, 2013, 04:30 PM

...the individual calculations was something I could not automate, nor could I support individual demands for these calculations.

If there were a new solution created, I think a requirement would be that it would have to support taxes and shipping through something which could be extended. My thinking on how to implement this would be the equivalent of a web service that calculates taxes and shipping from source to destination. This could be centralized and available to "subscribers". This is just my own musings though, and perhaps some of the other options listed have already taken this into account. If not, this would make for a really cool pay-per-use service.

I like the way OpenCart handles the shipping problem, allowing for custom shipping calculation modules to be plugged in: http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=extension/extension&path=4.

Quote from: absent42 at Apr 06, 2013, 04:42 PM

I like the way OpenCart handles the shipping problem, allowing for custom shipping calculation modules to be plugged in: http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=extension/extension&path=4.

Thanks for the link on this Dan!

That's a great idea where the shipping area is well defined and the shipping costs for the goods to be shipped are fairly easy to calculate. In the discussion at MODXpo, some raised concerns about the idea that in continental Europe, you may ship to one of 15 countries, all with their own tax and shipping rules and rates, which may keep changing. I'm thinking that the maintenance for each developer to keep this up to date might be taxing (no pun intended).

I have been using E-Junkie for years and I like it but we need more options now. For one, it doesn't have an option for a customer to sign up. They simply place the order, and are given a link that shows the order. Very simple. Embedding cart buttons into the page is much like Foxycart. Both are actually similar but Foxycart is more advanced. My site www.pong-o.com uses Revo 2.5 and E-Junkie.

I want to learn more about Opencart and how it might work with Revo. From what I gathered so far, Opencart is a CMS much like Modx. Installation is similar: http://docs.opencart.com/display/opencart/Installation

This leads me to believe that I can't have both Modx and Opencart on the same page??? Please correct me if I'm wrong. If I wanted to implement Opencart on Pong-O.com and still keep Modx I would have to put it in a subdomain like shop.Pong-O.com??? If so, it seems that Modx and Opencart are not very good friends. If they were to join forces, we would end up with MopenCart. So now I'm wondering what the limitations are for Opencart compared to Modx. What if I just went with Opencart? I really like Modx but what is best for the eCommerce business. In a perfect world, MopenCart would exist and this thread wouldn't. Anyone help me sort this out: Can Opencart and Modx coexist?

thx.
Mark

Hi Mark,

Opencart does look like a CMS for sure. MODX and OpenCart should be able to live together...

Front end: your template would be an OpenCart template in MODX Revo manager
Back end: you'd still have the MODX manager and OpenCart manager at two different locations, and they'd be two distinct pieces (unless someone thought integrating them would be worthwhile).
Database: since you can prefix the MODX tables with whatever you'd like, i can't see name collisions happening.
File structure: put the OpenCart files into wherever they fit?

When I get a chance, I'll try to do this, but I'm sure it won't be really soon (MODX is still my hobby not my full-time job yet).

Regards,
Tom

Tom,

Thank you for the reply. Have you tried to install OpenCart on the same domain as Modx? I don't have a good enough understanding of these systems to know why or why not this will work. My gut is saying no because both systems are responsible for building the page that is being displayed. But if you are suggesting that we strip out certain pieces of Opencart and put them into the Modx template, then this is interesting and would like to try it.

Mark