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Laravel Ecommerce System


JcMagpie

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Laravel Ecommerce System

Is this the next big thing for ecarts?

There are a number of new ecarts being developed using the Laravel framework. They appear to have a very short development cycle many are 1 or 2  man teams producing what look to be very slick carts in 12-15 months!

They typically come fully loaded and ready to use out of the box. Looks like things are geting intresting in the ecart arena over the next few years.

If you want to find out more about Laravel framework you can here https://laravel.com/

and here https://github.com/laravel/laravel

Typicaly offering:-

  • Easy Installation (Built-In Installer)
  • 8 Theme for Storefront
  • 2 Home page layout
  • Home page banner sections
  • Beautiful & Powerful Admin Panel
  • Multiple Locales
  • Multiple Countries
  • Multiple Currencies
  • Third Party Integration for Updating Currency Rates
  • Scheduled Currency Rate Updating
  • Advanced Home Page Customization
  • Advanced Search
  • Algolia Search Engine Integration
  • Product Options
  • Product Attributes
  • Advanced Product Filtering
  • Guest Checkout
  • Customer Panel
  • Sales Analytics Chart
  • Search Log
  • Advanced System Report
  • Custom Static Page
  • Unlimited Nested Categories
  • Scheduled Special Product Price
  • Country, State, City, Zip Based Tax Configuration
  • Minimum Amount for Free Shipping
  • File Manager
  • Drag & Drop File Uploader
  • Custom CSS/JS
  • Custom 404 Page
  • SEO Optimized
  • Fully Responsive
  • And More…

 

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Its good to see any new cart being developed but it must give store owners what they want to run a business in todays world. The problem with any new cart is that it has to attract developers first so addons get coded, then it has to attract store owners. One without the other will not work. Store owners will not move carts unless they can get what they want and if its not available they will either stay where they are, or look at something else.

Developers also have to learn to listen what store owners want, rather than what they can give store owners. Store owners know their business and what that business needs, developers dont.

Store owners have to get out of the mindset of only using something if its free. If they were to invest in the software more development work can be done and the product improved.

Its a vicious circle that is hard to get right.

REMEMBER BACKUP, BACKUP AND BACKUP

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58 minutes ago, 14steve14 said:

Store owners have to get out of the mindset of only using something if its free

😂 Funny so many people think nothing of spending £500-600  or more on a mobile phone but expect the e-cart software to be free!

I think things are now changing many of the new carts are comming with many of the fetures we use add-on's for built inas stock, but with very good app stores offering paid add-on's that add real value which people are willing to pay for.

 

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@JcMagpie I do like the look of some of the laraval based stores that I have looked at. A quick google search found a few. Like you say that may be the way forward. The trouble is that as it is new, there will be a learning curve for anyone involved.

I have been saying to deaf ears for a long time that any new ecommerce package will need to give store owners what they need to operate effectively a store in todays world, not 10 or 20 years ago as some do. If they have to be bought and paid for then so be it. There has to be a way for the original developers who put a lot of time and resourses into the software to make some money from their efforts otherwise they wont do it.

REMEMBER BACKUP, BACKUP AND BACKUP

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12 minutes ago, 14steve14 said:

There has to be a way for the original developers who put a lot of time and resourses into the software to make some money from their efforts otherwise they wont do it.

You are 100% right on that. It's upto HPDL to put this right by allowing developers to offer good quality apps in a paid section of the app store.  HPDL please take note this is well over due!

This will help bring new developers to osC as well as keeping current one's happy.

It will also help store owners as they can go and select good quality apps directly rather that having to trawl through all the free ones hopeing to find something good!

The apps store should be updated to allow people to rate/review the apps and also show download numbers. This will give people and developers more feedback and help improve app quality.

 

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The trouble with this old oscommerce code base is that it is so old no one is interested in it outside this place. HPDL is not here. Gary is trying to do something but it will never really work as he openly admits. There needs to be a move away from this old fashioned code and go to something new. There is only so long that something can be kept alive before the sticking plasters start to fall off.

Sorry to say that, but coding something from the ground up using laravel is probably the best way forward. Start afresh and get people interested from outside. No current addon would work with any new code so everything needs to be written from the ground up, so why not start again. The answer to that is that no one coder can do everything on his/her own, and the more people you get involved the more discussion takes place as everyone has their own agenda and nothing gets done.

REMEMBER BACKUP, BACKUP AND BACKUP

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6 hours ago, 14steve14 said:

Start afresh and get people interested from outside

That is the single most difficult thing to do. Of all the plethera of failed new carts you will find gathering dust in the archives, most failed because they failed to gain traction with users. The software is not the hardest part! it's geting a community of users to use it and switch to it that is the hardest part of this.

You can have the best code in the world but if only a few use it you may as well not bother. The key is going to be to make the path for existing osC and other cart users, too easy for them to ignore. If it's going to be as hard as moving to any other cart then they can do just that.

Why did I stick with osC? well the switch from 2.2a to CE was just as easy as switchig to any other cart so you stick with what you know! I think most users will follow this path, nobody like to make life hard if they can avoid it.

I  see some of the newer carts are building data import into cart from the get go. So far all I have seen is CSV import but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before one of them builds in direct db import and that will be a game changer. You dont need to do it for all just pick the 1 or to big wins and if they can simply pull in the existing db switching will be a no brainer.

I see 1 or 2 have teamed up with cart2cart to offer this service not sure how well that is turning out. I have tested the CSV inport and it good but not perfect. It's none stock db that cause the main issues. My simplistic approch would be just suck in the db as is and present it in a provisional edit table in admin for the user to sort out to make it match the new format. But then I'm not a db expert so may be over simplfying the process. 😊

 

 

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for the none coders. As posted on codeclouds blog. It covers all the key points very well.

Laravel is a PHP mvc framework that speeds up the development process with its elegant and simple syntax pattern, database migration and schema builder tools, simple and secure authentication mechanism, and many more. This is what makes Laravel the best PHP framework.

It has been 6 years after the initial release of Laravel, and since then it has taken the web-world by storm. PHP is a language quite dynamic in itself and with the help of Laravel, it has become powerful and simpler. There are 14 versions of Laravel already available and the latest version 5.5, has been released in August 2017.

Although Laravel is just 6 years old in the market, it has brought many advancements to the PHP community. With every new version updates, it is disclosing new innovative features to the developers, making their tasks much easier. It also takes care of the security issues. Laravel was made to strengthen security, speed up database migration without data loss, and make the entire process of creating a web application a much easier process.

Here are the top 10 benefits of using Laravel framework.

Clean Documentation and MVC Support

The documentation of Laravel is clean, organised and easily understandable. The Model View Controller architecture is supported in Laravel and it helps in bringing a variety of built-in function to select from a better development architecture.

Composer Feature

Laravel uses composer dependency manager for the installation and upgradations of different third-party packages. This feature allows developers to easily manage all the required dependencies instantly. This is very useful for any developers to create applications of any sizes.

Quick Pointer: What you should know about the Composer Tool

The composer does not manage packages, but only handles it. In fact, it allows a developer to manage the packages. The purpose of this tool is not to act as a package manager, but as a dependency manager that helps to declare, install, uninstall, or update the library dependencies. These are the small things that make Laravel the best PHP framework.

Internal Templates

Laravel uses Blade, a lightweight yet powerful templating engine which is pre-installed in it. The blade templates are compiled into plain PHP and cached for optimal performance.

Object Oriented Libraries

Laravel is the only framework that includes a variety of pre-installed libraries. The most popular and useful library of Laravel is the Authentication library. This library has very advanced features for login and database securities.

What are the best authentication features in Laravel’s Authentication Library?

Some of the main features include routing, HTTP authentication, user authentication, and login throttling.

How many Libraries does Laravel Include?

Laravel has over 20 high-level libraries pre-installed.

Artisan Included

It’s a CLI included with Laravel that helps us with a wide set of commands. These commands help us to either make a controller, model, service providers etc. or migrate the database, produce test data using tinker etc. We can view the entire list by typing “php artisan list”. Also, we can create our own command using “php artisan make:command MyCommandExample”.

Database Migrations.

While using Laravel there is no need of database replication for every changes that is being made. Therefore, with no replication needed, a developer cannot logically lose any data. This is how Laravel has made the database migration step just a bit faster and secure. Laravel uses a smart Bcrypt algorithm for encrypting database passwords which eventually makes it the best php framework.

Faster Caching.

With a variety of tools supported, Laravel provides a faster solution to web caching. By using certain pre-built support already available in Laravel for applications like Memcached and Redis, memory caching speed up immensely.

Direct Testing.

Making life just a bit easier for programmers, Laravel has considered the usual mistakes that can happen while programming. The unit testing tool ensures that any new updates made on the application, won’t break it. This saves development time, project money, and personal stress. Direct database testing is one of the best time-saving tools included in Laravel.

Laravel Scout.

This is a unique tool of Laravel that allows a full-text search on all Eloquent ORM modules.

Dynamic Use.

Laravel allows the developers to create small as well as huge applications. This makes Laravel a great and stable framework for any developer working on any size of project. Laravel offers a secure API building structure that can promote building the Hybrid Applications. That is to say you can easily create web and hybrid applications using Laravel’s API feature.

There are several Laravel framework benefits that makes it one of the most affable PHP frameworks. It has done an amazing job by providing all the essential features that developer require for creating web applications, backend database work, and authentication issues. As analyzed above, PHP is known for its ability to integrate with many databases and is a very dynamic language. It has increased the security and productivity at the same time, making Laravel the best PHP framework.

 

 

 

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With Laravel there is no need to start with a blank page!. You can start with Vanilo.

What Is Vanilo?

Vanilo is an E-commerce Framework for Laravel. It's like Magento or Sylius.? 

You can read more about it here   https://vanilo.io/docs/0.4/what-is-vanilo

Alternatives

Name

Based on

Version (Nov 2018)

GetCandy

Laravel 5

Unreleased

Aimeos

Laravel 5

2018.10.2

Sylius

Symfony 3.4 or 4.1

1.3.3

ORO Commerce

Symfony 3.4 (<3.4.15)

1.6

Magento

Zend 2.7

2.2

If you are interested in the trend’s in e-carts in recent years then this blog is a good start it's a little out of date but still gives you the back ground to what's happening and as you will see thing are alive and kicking.

https://blog.fortrabbit.com/ecommerce-status-quo-2016

take a look at the demo of Aimeos

http://laravel.demo.aimeos.org/default/en/EUR/list?l_type=grid

image.png.00317ff1f07d16da5d73c43e11acd7cf.png

 

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@JcMappie, Ok Magento but for a little company go in this way it's crazy; The problem for this tool is the development and the maintenance. It's very expansive and need a specific knowledge if you want good performance.
It's cool to present a framework like Laravel, or e-commerce platform like Magento, but there some solution like OpenCart, ClicShopping,  LiteCart ... can make a  best job without a big investment.
Now the shopowner must evaluate what the need and what the evolution it wants.  It doesn't want to do anything, Shopify or similar can be very good,  to be more independent, it's another tool.
The last thing is to take into consideration is the technology ecosystem and the maintenance for this ecosystem. Some tools can be good in a first approach, but in the time o be a disaster when you make a migration (example, prestashop) or an upgrade (odoo).
 


Regards
-----------------------------------------
Loïc

Contact me by skype for business
Contact me @gyakutsuki for an answer on the forum

 

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Demo sites always looks better - minimal functionality, clean and fast - the perfect cart or not?

Lets add like a thousand products, couple categories, bit of customization, couple of enhancements.

I doubt it will perform as the demo.

As a novice in coding, oScommerce was the best option, the easiest, most free available and usable add ons.
With the newest ce version for me is running really fast, if it is slow - change to a better service provider(my own experience).

I always say its what's happening in the background that makes sense, users browsing your site does not see the master piece behind the curtains, the science to have a proper working site.
You will always need custom coding and changes.
There are a couple of very good talented developers here, keep up the excellent work!

You are using oscommerce, a 24hr salesman for you, does not rest or gets tired, you have a business to take care of, dealing with customers is the most difficult part.
The customer part is where most fail!
So support oScommerce developers, they can build you a dream.

 

 

Getting the Phoenix off the ground

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Some of the new developments beeing introduced by some e-carts!

"Gone are the days of creating pages and managing site content using HTML and CSS. Now you can create new pages, enrich products and categories, and launch content updates quickly and easily without the help of a front-end web developer."

So no more code editing or playing "sudoku" with numbers to get the layout you need! Simply drag and drop to make or change your page layout.

 

 

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Laravel to me has borrowed a lot of concepts from Rails, but for PHP instead of Ruby. I remember all the talks about Ruby on Rail back around early 2000. Since Magento 2, I found a few Magento stores had went to Shopify instead of Magento 2. It probably make better sense in terms of total cost of ownership...just my guess...

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This true Tim but nothinng wrong in borrowing a good idea! I do it all the time, most of the add-on is osC come from borrowed ideas.

3 hours ago, clustersolutions said:

I found a few Magento stores had went to Shopify instead of Magento 2

This is allways going to happen with any cart. As I mentioned before only in the last few months we have had people come to the forum try and use CE get frustrated and go with another cart! That's just life what can you do.

 

3 hours ago, clustersolutions said:

It probably make better sense in terms of total cost of ownership

I'm not convinced by this, I've got Magento sites running and the cost is no more no less than anyother. I use the community edition it works fine, I've not had any issues and only needed 1 or 2 paid add-on's the rest of the functions come as stock out of the box. I guess it's all about expectations.

The same is true of CE it works fine out of the box and again all I needed was 1 or 2 paid add-ons to get the shop I needed. I think these days with any cart people just have to accept they need to spend a few dollers to get a good working e-cart.

From what I have seen with the new boys is they are all changing the buissness model they are using. Nearly all I have looked at are still opensource but they also offer a premium option, be that buy a pro version or get a pro version with a paid hosting or support plan in addition to a paid app store. This is probably the right way to go as it will offer the developers a much needed revenue stream while leaving the option open for those that choose to go it alone and do their thing.

 

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I've got Magento sites running and the cost is no more no less than any other ==> Don't agree with that. Magento needs a specific skill to use this tool correctly and completely optimized. 

Yes, the business model has evolved since long time now. osC is an exception where all is free. The problem with the open source, it's the people think everything must be free and doesn't invest to make something with their need. In this case, their need has no value for them else it make the investment. You can see the problem with the commercial post.

As I mentioned before only in the last few months we have had people come to the forum try and use CE get frustrated and go with another cart! ==> Agree with that.
 


Regards
-----------------------------------------
Loïc

Contact me by skype for business
Contact me @gyakutsuki for an answer on the forum

 

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Yeah, I ran a few Magento stores on an AWS micro or Digital Ocean $10 instances. Yeah, you want something more powerful during the development, but once it goes production with cache configured you can run them in micro instances. In a sense it is no more difficult than any carts. But should you need to run them in a cluster, it is a whole different ball game especially in terms of costs. Also, hiring a "good" Magento engineer/developer most likely will cost more than other carts. And as much as Magento has an awesome upgrade feature, but there are a few changes between V2 and V1 that are not making it easy on V1 with lots of customized features when it comes time to upgrade. So enter Shopify...running an eCommerce site is just that, and it should not be about "builiding software"...and let's pay someone else to worry about keeping my cart running in the cloud....

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3 hours ago, clustersolutions said:

it should not be about "builiding software"...and let's pay someone else to worry about keeping my cart running in the cloud....

So true, which is why it's good to see some of the new carts trying to be plug and play with the cart owner NOT expected to be a coder in order to make the shop work on a day to day bases. Updating is simply click update button and thats it. Installing an add-on is simlply select and press install and nothing more. Making pages and changing layout is a simple as select basic template then drag and drop changes and save. It's nothing new other software has been doing this for year's.

It's only a matter of time before one of the new carts perfects this and makes that critical jump required to be a market leader. This is why using the right framework is so important as it can carry much of the backend workload leaving the developers to concentrate on making the cart as feature rich as as possible.

 

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Magento stores on an AWS micro or Digital Ocean $10 instances

The case of there is a hosting platform, the price is less. It's very good when you start a new e-commerce and you don't want to know the technics. Shopify has a nice success on that.
The problem appears when you start to make some money when you begin to have some visitors or a specific need in function of your business model.
It's always the same thing, when you begin to have more success you want to improve the production and competivity. For that, you must customize the tool and the problem begin.
It's right the tool has now an upgrade, wordpress system is very good under the condition your respect to not change anything inside the tool.
the current osc2.3.x does'nt allow that. The 2.4 yes but ...
In summary, there is always an advantage and an inconvenient. Now what is acceptable for you ?


 


Regards
-----------------------------------------
Loïc

Contact me by skype for business
Contact me @gyakutsuki for an answer on the forum

 

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On 1/23/2019 at 5:19 PM, JcMagpie said:

Oh and lets not forget our friends at Magento! Looks like they have a clear path for moving forward in 2019.

https://magento.com/blog/magento-news/magento-2.3-new-tools-fuel-your-growth-2019

I really liked the Magneto news, such as:
PAGE BUILDER (similar to Microweber)
and PWA STUDIO

Hopefully these improvements and others can be incorporated into Oscommerce. But for that we have to have a place where the developers can sell their addons, but that only @Harald Ponce de LeonHarald Ponce de Leon (or maybe Burt) knows when it's going to happen.

I recommend you see this software: LiteCart, it seems to be very innovative.

Kiss

Valqui

:heart: Community Oscommerce fan :heart: You'll find the latest osC community version here.

 

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12 minutes ago, valquiria23 said:

But for that we have to have a place where the developers can sell their addons,...

This is not necessary for a successful cart IMO. In the old days we all knew who the quality developers were, and contacting them for paid work was a matter of hitting the PM button.

Honestly things don't change that much that fast. The fact that 20 years later we are still using the same osC is testament to that.

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