Adding e-commerce to UK site
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Hi, I'm thinking of using concrete5 to develop an e-commerce site. I've only ever used Shopify for this but now that I've built a few c5 sites thought that it might be possible for me to start dong it here.
Does the c5 e-commerce Add-on (is there only the one?) fully support British payment systems?
I've also had problems with Shopify in that, for the UK at least, it's got quite basic delivery options (price per weight or value only, no distance/bulk variables etc...). How are things like this dealt with by concrete5, are there plenty of options?
I just don't want to go down the road of developing a site only to find that there are pretty major stumbling blocks when you actually implement it (like Shopify). Any advice very gratefully received. Thanks.
Does the c5 e-commerce Add-on (is there only the one?) fully support British payment systems?
I've also had problems with Shopify in that, for the UK at least, it's got quite basic delivery options (price per weight or value only, no distance/bulk variables etc...). How are things like this dealt with by concrete5, are there plenty of options?
I just don't want to go down the road of developing a site only to find that there are pretty major stumbling blocks when you actually implement it (like Shopify). Any advice very gratefully received. Thanks.
Thanks John, that's a big help.
For someone like me who can design a website from scratch but has never done anything in e-commerce (other than Shopify which hides a lot of the complexity) how easy is it to design your own e-commerce website with c5?
Can I assume that I design and build my site as normal for all pages such as About Us, FAQ etc... but have product boxes or buttons which link to product pages which are basically pre-defined templates added like normal c5 blocks?
Sorry, I'm just struggling to get my head around how it works. Thanks for your help.
John
For someone like me who can design a website from scratch but has never done anything in e-commerce (other than Shopify which hides a lot of the complexity) how easy is it to design your own e-commerce website with c5?
Can I assume that I design and build my site as normal for all pages such as About Us, FAQ etc... but have product boxes or buttons which link to product pages which are basically pre-defined templates added like normal c5 blocks?
Sorry, I'm just struggling to get my head around how it works. Thanks for your help.
John
e-commerce provides blocks for product list and individual products. The edit interface for list comes with lots of options about how to filter, sort and display. So you can use any other blocks you like on the product listing and individual product pages. You can slip product blocks into other pages, and you can have non-product pages just like on any C5 site.
The default block views are table based. There are also some more flexible div based views that can be a better starting point if you want to do something that doesn't list products in a grid. Some themes include e-commerce specific product view templates, but you don't have to use such themes. E-commerce will work within most themes.
If you look through the showcase sites for e-commerce sites, there are a great variety of ways in which designers have used these.
Products are added through the dashboard. Its a bit like the file manager, but for products with sets and attributes etc. There is an option to auto-create individual product pages when a product is first entered (you cant do this later). There is also a bulk product importer add-on (I have not used it).
The cart page follows the site theme, but the ajax popup cart (when enabled) is a bit bland.
The main weakness I found was that carts are not persistent between browser sessions. Close the browser and you loose your cart, even if a registered and logged in user. Greg and Ryan gave me some tips on how to make a cart sticky and I hacked a viable solution for the site I needed it for. I believe persistent carts is one of the enhancements that will be in the next version. Whether your customer needs persistent carts or not depends on their business model.
The default block views are table based. There are also some more flexible div based views that can be a better starting point if you want to do something that doesn't list products in a grid. Some themes include e-commerce specific product view templates, but you don't have to use such themes. E-commerce will work within most themes.
If you look through the showcase sites for e-commerce sites, there are a great variety of ways in which designers have used these.
Products are added through the dashboard. Its a bit like the file manager, but for products with sets and attributes etc. There is an option to auto-create individual product pages when a product is first entered (you cant do this later). There is also a bulk product importer add-on (I have not used it).
The cart page follows the site theme, but the ajax popup cart (when enabled) is a bit bland.
The main weakness I found was that carts are not persistent between browser sessions. Close the browser and you loose your cart, even if a registered and logged in user. Greg and Ryan gave me some tips on how to make a cart sticky and I hacked a viable solution for the site I needed it for. I believe persistent carts is one of the enhancements that will be in the next version. Whether your customer needs persistent carts or not depends on their business model.
Thanks again John for the info. I suppose I need to get into e-commerce properly at some point so I'll maybe give it a bash. It's just a worry when you've never done it before and you end up being in a position where you have to look like you know what you're talking about with a client (and it directly involves their money...). If it works for you hopefully it should work for me.
Thanks!
Thanks!
http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/zone-based-shipping/...
For payment, I have only built using the standard PayPal payment method that comes with e-commerce, but there is a Sage add-on available.
http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/ecommerce-sagepay/...