Hey'all I need to create an e-commerce to a client but I'm running out of options related to platform... OpenCart sucks (sorry for those who likes it, you suck as well - ♥), Magento is PITA, hard to understand and slow and I don't think that it fits well to a small e-commerce. Is it advantageous to create a custom e-commerce on top of Laravel? Or there's a platform on the market (open source) that is similar to Laravel (in concepts etc)? Thanks in advance.
Agreed on Magento being a pain. And I used to be a huge fan of it. I don't know of anything based on Laravel or similar. You could always start off with something like this: https://cartalyst.com/manual/cart/2.0
You'll need a subscription to access the code, and it's just a basic cart that you have to build from. It does not provide anywhere near all the functionality that an e-commerce site would need, but it's a start.
EDIT: This sounded condescending when I read through it. It's not meant to be. Just advice from someone who's overdone things in the past :)
It depends what you're building. Don't over do it if it's a small site with local coverage.
Do you really need 180 currencies, shipping to 196 countries, discounts, coupons, recurring payments and the "kitchen sink"?
If you really do, then it's probably a big job and worth a proper feasibility study, rather than a forum post. :)
Or does the client just have unrealistic aspirations? Sometimes you've got to be realistic. Most ideas are NOT the next big thing.
On the other hand, if it's your local plumber or restaurant, you can easily create a very light shopping cart and payment system in short order with Laravel. One that you know inside out - and doesn't require infinite resources to run it.
EDIT:
By the way, I don't know what you have against OpenCart, but many moons ago when I did that type of work, OpenCart was much easier to work with, more stable and ran on much lesser hardware than Magento. I don't really care what the architecture was, at the time it just worked and with very few problems. Maybe things have changed.
@sitesense - Thank you - I decided that I will stick with Laravel, I talked briefly with the client and what she wants is something simple. She is selling clothes and things that she does. - I'm gathering information in order to make the business model, as it is simple I will try to make it as scalable as possible and if she wants to change something on the future it won't be a pain... we never know but I will avoid overdoing as you mentioned above. - My (and of others around the globe) beef with OpenCart cross the boundaries of unboundedness, don't worth mentioning.
you start with a project fullfilling all current requirements and after some time you have to change or add something. It's usually easier and less time consuming if you've written the program by yourself.
I've checked out some of the carts/ecommerce programs at http://packalyst.com/ but didn't find anything fitting my expectations.
This package can help you get started:
Or some older ones:
Check out moltin - you'll need to write the views and hook in to their API, but it'll save you from writing a whole lot of the logic and just concentrate on customising the app's look and feel.
They've recently updated their pricing structure, too. 30,000 hits and 200MB of storage for free, which should be enough for a small site initially, then scale it up as you need more.
A few months ago I made an e-commerce site based on Laravel. It's not released as an open source solution but I've blogged about the packages it uses.
@freekmurze Thanks for the link to the blog post. A shopping cart is something I'll be looking into soon. It's a nice professional looking website too.
@frezno - Thank you, it will help a lot - @deringer - I don't know, I always take a step back with services like that, I prefer to see the code and change, have the control of the situation. @freekmurze - Just beautiful beautiful, I've seen Polkadots before, can you believe that? I found amazing - I will be following your blog, I hope it helps me. Thank you for that.
I recently built a custom solution using http://packalyst.com/packages/package/moltin/laravel-cart, this was not an easy task at all has many products had different sizes and stock levels, this caused a interesting challenge, but I got there in the end and this also made me think outside the box, thus making me a better developer and an interesting learning curve.
So depending on the size of the project and whether you need to have multiple currencies I would say have a go at building your own.
@lstables could you show what you have made? Or even the source code.
I've built a few e-commerce site using this package "http://packalyst.com/packages/package/gloudemans/shoppingcart" It's a pretty easy package to work with and I haven't had any major issues. Although I've only used it with Laravel 4. Here are some of the sites I used it with: https://sevensons.net https://fullcirclerealfoods.com
@ opencart
I gave up on that cart system after being heavily involved and active on their forums around the vMod finally started to pick up.
The underlying framework is actually very good and Daniel did a great job taking the phpPro (I think that is what it was called ... Forgot actually) and going forward with it and using the technology at the time.
After literally going through the whole system I kept having issues that warranted the idea of finding a better foundation that could go beyond what Daniel did. This lead me finding Laravel. Stylus on symfony at the time wasn't really ready at the time.
Looking at opencart today, I would only consider it I needed a full blown ecommerce system. But a few years ago, it really was good and in ways better than the competition.
I look forward to when something that is built on Laravel that compares to opencart.
Anyone Wants to try using my Laravel E commerce App.
I am trying to convert now an app into an package and admin module.
Take a look at this Codecource tutorial. It's not a finished package, but it looks really promising
No mention of prestashop. It ain't bad if you need an eCommerce cms. Have used it for the last 5 years to setup a number of stores. Though its worth considering only when weighing between cms options. For "custom" solutions no cms usually fits the bill :)
Thanks for sharing word to pdf
Please or to participate in this conversation.