I currently have a small e-commerce website using merchello and taking paypal payments..it was painful and i am not happy with it tbh. For a free solution it did the job.
But i think merchello deprecated now and has its fair share of bugs.
What e commerce options are there for use with umbraco?
I see there is vendr which i find confusing is this just a backend option..or a whole package?
I also have seen uskinned merch get mentioned but that template seems to be dead now? I cannot find it
What e-commerce do people recommend and use? Maybe something with a backend and frontend theme like a whole package would be great but not sure exists yet?
Do not mind paying ££ to get a good looking and working site as its now picking up traffic and my business has expanded.
That's great, I hope one of our solutions work for your requirements.
We provide access to support and update packages for a period of 1 year after the date of purchase. This tends to be the norm with commercial packages.
If you require support and update packages beyond the first year then you repurchase the product when you feel like you require more support or updates.
The products we sell would never become unusable after a year or two. We have customers who have purchased a Umbraco V7 theme back in 2015 and they still successfully run their website from that very theme. They've never required an update since then because the products we release are built to be future-proof.
I would take a completely diffrent approach and go for a headless e-commerce solution. I have created www.AsoRockFood.com which is running Umbraco with Snipcart. (Snipcart.com)
And I really really really love it.
Its very easy to install in to anywebite. - I went through the whole trying out merchello, then toying with some of the other Umbraco Packages, and I just found that the support was lacking what you need for an e-commerce solution. -
There was always some kind of compatiblity issue in terms of you are forced to use X version of Umbraco becuase the package doesn't support the lastest version or the one you want to use.
Taking a headless approach means you keep your CMS and E-commerce soultion completly separated, so you can replace either one with out impacting the other.
I have been snipcart for almost 2 years now, and it has tones of features. It isn't free but is very cost effective, and supports mulitiple payment types. The development team is very responsive if you need some help.
I know it sounds like I work for snip cart LOL... I don't, I just really think its a great product.
At the moment, I am making version 2.0 of our ecommerce website, we are still using umbraco, but we are making a REACTJS front end insted of razor pages. I don't need to worry about chaging anything on the e-commerce side of things.
Later in the year I am upgrading the version of Snipcart I'm currently using, again I don't need to worry about Umbraco.
I love Umbraco, but untill I see a package that is created and mantained by Umbraco HQ. I will be sticking to a headless solution.
Having said that I have heard good things about vendr, I haven't used it my self though.
Interesting i will look into this..i take it that it just has apis that you can use to pass and get information for the FE..there aint no umbraco back office for this is there
The e-commerce part of it works by creating "add to cart buttons" under the button you have all the information about the product. Description, Price, options for the product etc.
When a user clicked add to cart that product is added to the users cart.
The way I have it set up is, I store all the products in formation in umbra co as regular nodes and then when I render the products I dynamically create the "add to cart" buttons.
In terms of a back office for orders, customers, etc... that is all stored inside your snip cart dashboard. - The good thing about this they do all the hard work for you in terms of managing orders. For example if you need to refund an order you just log in to your snip cart dashboard and refund it.
They also have a load of web hooks, for events, for example when you refund an order, or when an order is complete they can call your custom code so that you can then take action, like sending a confirmation email or kick off some other process.
You have features like discount codes, subscriptions and support for digital goods like gift cards. All the things you would expect in an e-commerce platform.
Let me know if you want help setting it up initially. I will point you in the right direction, but everything is pretty clear in the documentation.
I have recently written my own shopping cart for Umbraco. Currently running on umbraco 14 with uSkinned 6.1 as the thyme base.
Its designed around being an add on for uSkinned.
The main reason for writing my own was that I get frustrated as a small business paying monthly fees or fees based on transactions.
It has integrations to eWay and square for payment gateways.
In Australia we have GST on certain products and not others so can set weather a product is GST applicable or not.
My client running it sells there products with a deposit on order and balance on delivery. This is one feature I haven't seen available in any other eCommerce product. Deposit can be done by percentage or a fixed value at product level.
The package is very much in the development testing stage with the plan to sell for $2550+GST AUD as I one of price and updates for 1 year.
No termination on how long the product is used for. Similar to the way uSkinned cell and support there product.
Future developments include
1. support for umbraco 14,15/uskinned future releases
2. paypal payment gateway
3. a addon to interface to xero account package.
Building e-commerce website
I currently have a small e-commerce website using merchello and taking paypal payments..it was painful and i am not happy with it tbh. For a free solution it did the job.
But i think merchello deprecated now and has its fair share of bugs.
What e commerce options are there for use with umbraco?
I see there is vendr which i find confusing is this just a backend option..or a whole package?
I also have seen uskinned merch get mentioned but that template seems to be dead now? I cannot find it
What e-commerce do people recommend and use? Maybe something with a backend and frontend theme like a whole package would be great but not sure exists yet?
Do not mind paying ££ to get a good looking and working site as its now picking up traffic and my business has expanded.
Thanks for the help in advance
Hi Naveed
We no longer sell the Merch theme. This theme was for Umbraco v7, this is now a legacy version of Umbraco and as such, the theme is now legacy too.
Our sole focus now is our product, uSkinned Site Builder.
We provide out of the box Ecwid eCommerce integration with uSkinned Site Builder for Umbraco 8. This is great for a large number of our users. You can find out more about how we use Ecwid here: https://uskinned.net/support/how-to-setup-ecwid-ecommerce-in-umbraco/
If Ecwid is not right for you, then we have guides that can help you integrate many other solutions here: https://uskinned.net/search/?search_field=ecommerce
After we release our Umbraco 9 ready version of uSkinned Site Builder this month (Feb 2022), our focus will move to more eCommerce options.
We will be releasing an update that will integrate Vendr eCommerce with uSkinned out of the box — Vendr is a great Umbraco eCommerce package.
If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to reach out: https://uskinned.net
Thanks
Paul from uSkinned
hi Paul,
thanks for the reply yes i am currently looking in ecwid to see, just noticed that your themes you stop giving updates and support etc after 1 year.
very pricey for something which may be deprecated and then unusable after a year or 2.
Hi Naveed
That's great, I hope one of our solutions work for your requirements.
We provide access to support and update packages for a period of 1 year after the date of purchase. This tends to be the norm with commercial packages.
If you require support and update packages beyond the first year then you repurchase the product when you feel like you require more support or updates.
The products we sell would never become unusable after a year or two. We have customers who have purchased a Umbraco V7 theme back in 2015 and they still successfully run their website from that very theme. They've never required an update since then because the products we release are built to be future-proof.
Thanks
Paul form uSkinned
We are currently using Vendr for several of our projects and it seems to be working great.
https://vendr.net/ - you can look into this here.
Thanks im looking into that. Are you using umbraco 8 or 9?
Works for Umbraco v8 & v9.
Hi Naveed,
I would take a completely diffrent approach and go for a headless e-commerce solution. I have created www.AsoRockFood.com which is running Umbraco with Snipcart. (Snipcart.com)
And I really really really love it.
Its very easy to install in to anywebite. - I went through the whole trying out merchello, then toying with some of the other Umbraco Packages, and I just found that the support was lacking what you need for an e-commerce solution. -
There was always some kind of compatiblity issue in terms of you are forced to use X version of Umbraco becuase the package doesn't support the lastest version or the one you want to use.
Taking a headless approach means you keep your CMS and E-commerce soultion completly separated, so you can replace either one with out impacting the other.
I have been snipcart for almost 2 years now, and it has tones of features. It isn't free but is very cost effective, and supports mulitiple payment types. The development team is very responsive if you need some help.
I know it sounds like I work for snip cart LOL... I don't, I just really think its a great product.
At the moment, I am making version 2.0 of our ecommerce website, we are still using umbraco, but we are making a REACTJS front end insted of razor pages. I don't need to worry about chaging anything on the e-commerce side of things.
Later in the year I am upgrading the version of Snipcart I'm currently using, again I don't need to worry about Umbraco.
I love Umbraco, but untill I see a package that is created and mantained by Umbraco HQ. I will be sticking to a headless solution.
Having said that I have heard good things about vendr, I haven't used it my self though.
Good luck!
Interesting i will look into this..i take it that it just has apis that you can use to pass and get information for the FE..there aint no umbraco back office for this is there
The e-commerce part of it works by creating "add to cart buttons" under the button you have all the information about the product. Description, Price, options for the product etc.
When a user clicked add to cart that product is added to the users cart.
The way I have it set up is, I store all the products in formation in umbra co as regular nodes and then when I render the products I dynamically create the "add to cart" buttons.
In terms of a back office for orders, customers, etc... that is all stored inside your snip cart dashboard. - The good thing about this they do all the hard work for you in terms of managing orders. For example if you need to refund an order you just log in to your snip cart dashboard and refund it.
They also have a load of web hooks, for events, for example when you refund an order, or when an order is complete they can call your custom code so that you can then take action, like sending a confirmation email or kick off some other process.
You have features like discount codes, subscriptions and support for digital goods like gift cards. All the things you would expect in an e-commerce platform.
Let me know if you want help setting it up initially. I will point you in the right direction, but everything is pretty clear in the documentation.
Ayo
can you please provide your Email Address i want to talk with you.
Hey everyone
Paul from uSkinned here.
As of uSkinned Site Builder version 4.1.0, we now have a full integration with Snipcart — the headless e-commerce provider mentioned by @Ayo.
With our integration, you manage your product content within Umbraco but let Snipcart handle the order management side.
You can find out more in our tour: https://uskinned.net/ecommerce/
Read more about the 4.1.0 release in the blog post: https://uskinned.net/blog/product-update-site-builder-410-is-out-now/
Watch us discuss and demo the release on UmbraCoffee: https://uskinned.net/blog/we-joined-marcin-on-umbracoffee-live-to-discuss-all-things-uskinned-and-umbraco/
Take a frontend demo of the integration for a spin here: https://demo-shop.uskinned.net/
Any questions, please feel free to reply here or reach out to support: https://portal.uskinned.net/contact/
Thanks
Paul
I have recently written my own shopping cart for Umbraco. Currently running on umbraco 14 with uSkinned 6.1 as the thyme base.
Its designed around being an add on for uSkinned.
The main reason for writing my own was that I get frustrated as a small business paying monthly fees or fees based on transactions.
It has integrations to eWay and square for payment gateways.
In Australia we have GST on certain products and not others so can set weather a product is GST applicable or not.
My client running it sells there products with a deposit on order and balance on delivery. This is one feature I haven't seen available in any other eCommerce product. Deposit can be done by percentage or a fixed value at product level.
The package is very much in the development testing stage with the plan to sell for $2550+GST AUD as I one of price and updates for 1 year.
No termination on how long the product is used for. Similar to the way uSkinned cell and support there product.
Future developments include 1. support for umbraco 14,15/uskinned future releases 2. paypal payment gateway 3. a addon to interface to xero account package.
Customers website running my eCommerce package https://qualitypasturefedbeef.com.au/shop/
is working on a reply...