The plan is to build a lightweight, basic e-commerce system in TikiWiki by making good use of existing features and by adding a few things. E-commerce
. Please read Skype log below for debate/discussion.
A typical use will be a mostly informational website to sell a few products & services.
For this, the overhead of a full-featured shopping cart like ZenCart is not necessary.
. Wiki pages are used for product information and the tracker forms are filled thanks to
. Also, some rewrite-rules were used to handle https. It's sufficient for this project but it's clunky. And it only works for single item shopping. There is no connection to a payment gateway. No calculated totals.
There are some efforts underway for a full-fledged integration with ZenCart. This will be the option for people with more advanced e-commerce needs (upsell / cross-sell, multiple currencies, inventory, discounts, etc.) and it will require more work to install and maintain.
We need something better than the forms we have but not to the level of a standalone shopping cart.
For the new lightweight Tiki Cart or (Tiki Commerce?), from current code base, we'll use:
3:03:15 PM *** Marc Laporte added mlpvolt, Nelson Ko, sylvie-g to this chat ***
3:05:09 PM *** Marc Laporte added André Proulx, djamel202, Dave Thacker, dumarestca, Franck Martin, gary.cunningham-lee, Louis-Philippe Huberdeau, luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek, pjalajas, Vincent Brousseau, Wesley Willians, Xavi to this chat ***
3:07:10 PM *** Marc Laporte added Alain Désilets, Etuate, Jean Georgiadis to this chat ***
3:16:14 PM *** Marc Laporte added bmeunier, Fábio Rampazzo Mathias, Greg Coyne, jean.francois.pelletier, kerrnel, René Lewandowski, Marc-André Lanciault, Hugo, Martin Cleaver, Norman Daoust, olaf-michael stefanov, pioneermiles, Régis Barondeau, Rodrigo Sampaio Primo, Kate Milberry, vigneault.guy to this chat ***
3:16:29 PM Marc Laporte says: Hi! Sylvie & I are having a planning discussion about adding Shopping Cart / E-commerce functionality to TikiWiki. I added you to the chat because I thought you may be potentially interested. Just quit if you are not. I am picking Skype instead of IRC because I can see the logs of the discussion.
3:17:18 PM Marc Laporte says: Some background info:
http://dev.tikiwiki.org/shopping+cart
3:18:41 PM Marc Laporte says: The idea is not to become a full-fledged (short term anyway) e-commerce / shopping cart solution but to re-use existing features where appropriate and to add some missing stuff to have a basic solution
3:19:16 PM Marc Laporte says: Trackers can be used for product management. User trackers can can be used for user profiles/preferences.
3:19:23 PM Alain Désilets says: It's a good idea, but I don't really have time to contribute much.
3:19:33 PM Alain Désilets says: But there has been a lot of usability work done on shopping carts.
3:19:41 PM Alain Désilets says: Most important thing I think is:
3:20:25 PM Alain Désilets says: Make sure that people can do the following without having to first register:
3:20:28 PM Alain Désilets says: - Put stuff in the cart
3:20:41 PM Alain Désilets says: - Find the price of something before they put it in the cart
3:20:51 PM Alain Désilets says: - See what they have in their cart and how much it costs total.
3:20:57 PM Alain Désilets says: - remove stuff from the cart.
3:21:20 PM Alain Désilets says: Registration should only be required at check out time, and then again, only if the user hasn't logged on yet.
3:21:50 PM Alain Désilets says: The alternative is similar to having a store where the first thing they do when you come in the door is to ask for your home address and credit card number.
3:22:31 PM Alain Désilets says: Most people want to window shop first, and don't want to waste time providihng this sort of data at that point.
3:22:52 PM Alain Désilets says: Oh, and PLEASE...
3:23:13 PM Alain Désilets says: ... Make it so that the system can recognize my credit card number no matter if I put spaces or not.
3:23:17 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: why don't work on a 3rd part software support, i mean, do not code a new one, make a plugin to integrate with an already existent one ?
3:23:21 PM Marc Laporte says: (this advice is much appreciated)
3:23:26 PM Alain Désilets says: There are spaces on my physical plastic card.
3:23:30 PM Alain Désilets says: There is a reason for that.
3:23:36 PM Alain Désilets says: Makes the number easier to copy and verify.
3:23:43 PM Wesley Willians says: I agree with fmathias
3:23:49 PM Alain Désilets says: So many web sites still require you to type the number without the spaces.
3:24:46 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: marc?
3:25:02 PM Marc Laporte says: I am reading
3:25:09 PM Louis-Philippe Huberdeau says: the way I see it, payment is likely to be handled by a third party, like paypal
3:25:22 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: yes....
3:27:13 PM *** Marc-André Lanciault left this chat ***
3:27:28 PM Nelson Ko says: this problem can be approached in 2 ways in parallel - (1) integrate with shopping cart (some work to link with Zen cart will be done very soon) and (2) provide a tracker based system for lightweight functionality.
3:27:37 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: fmathias, weslwywillians: sorry, i'm in work rush but just quickly: i don't know any usable FOSS which could be integrated... there's zen-cart but it's way too big mysql only solution
3:28:06 PM Marc Laporte says: 100% certain that PayPal (which can handle credit cards as well) will be an option. Most probably first option as we then don't have to worry about currency, security, no need to stock CC card numbers, etc. and we want
http://dev.tikiwiki.org/PayPalSubscription to be able to subscribe to groups and offer content based on groups.
3:28:14 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: (sorry, no tab completion here like in irc)
3:29:52 PM Marc Laporte says: One of the use cases is Registration and payment for events. A lightweight alternative would be very nice. This is an example:
https://reseau-environnement.com/inscription
3:30:20 PM Wesley Willians says: i must go now.
3:30:26 PM *** Wesley Willians left this chat ***
3:30:28 PM Marc Laporte says: This can already be done with trackers but it's clunky (not possible to register to several events)..
3:30:35 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: luciash: i don't know the software, do you know this one
http://www.oscommerce.com/ ?
3:31:00 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: fmathias: yes, it sucks even more than zen-cart ;)
3:31:06 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: hehehehe
3:31:15 PM Marc Laporte says: I think Zen is a fork of OSC
3:31:28 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: i think zen-cart is only one usable
3:31:33 PM Nelson Ko says: ditto luci's comment on OSC
3:31:44 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: the point is....why do we have YAES (Yet Another Ecommerce Software) instead evolving an already existent one?
3:31:47 PM Nelson Ko says: i don't really like zen cart
3:31:56 PM Nelson Ko says: but there aren't much better around
3:32:02 PM Nelson Ko says: I evaluated magento - still too raw
3:32:08 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: fmathias: because there' no one to evolve ?
3:32:14 PM Nelson Ko says: anyway, I met the zen cart core members recently
3:32:24 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: i mean, let's code OSC and make it rule....and with tikiwiki support
3:33:16 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: ...or make own ecommerce solution integrated in tiki and rule them all ;)
3:33:21 PM Nelson Ko says: they are working hard on baking vastly improved new version
3:33:28 PM Nelson Ko says: anyway, I agree that a lightweight solution is needed
3:33:39 PM Marc Laporte says: Bitweaver forked ZenCart to BitCommerce and it's GPL (so we couldn't bundle)
3:33:40 PM Nelson Ko says: that does not depend on a full-fleged cart
3:33:45 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: and remake the wheel
3:34:33 PM Marc Laporte says: These are excellent discussions. I am glad to see an interest!
3:34:38 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: +1 for lightweight shopping cart solution integrated in tiki
3:35:08 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: i'm think we as a open source developers need to converge energy...
3:35:15 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: (cut the 'm :P)
3:35:41 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: (totaly wrong english, my bad :P)
3:38:33 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: w00t, we're 20:
http://www.last.fm/group/Tikiwiki/members 
3:38:49 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: marc doesn't like music ? ;)
3:39:01 PM luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek says: ok, gotta go...
3:39:09 PM *** luciash d' being aka Lukáš "luci" Mašek left this chat ***
3:40:08 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: i can't see a lightweight shopping cart solution... solving problems
3:40:37 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: i mean, ok to basic shopping it's really ok, but if you grow up a little bit.....buy a software
3:41:07 PM Nelson Ko says: I am right now working on zen cart integration already
3:41:20 PM Nelson Ko says: but for a lot of people, installing another s/w etc... is too much
3:41:33 PM Marc Laporte says: All options are on the table for now.
3:41:38 PM Nelson Ko says: I see it as two separate options.
3:41:55 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: that's a point
3:43:14 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: in my opinion, having a lightweight ecommerce is not that bad if you have an integration to handle a more featured one....like OSC, ZenCart,whatever....
3:43:46 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: so u can startup with a basic one and can grow (without loose data ;)) to a particular one....
3:45:08 PM Marc Laporte says: I expect that most of my stuff will be ok in lightweight. Who would be using full solution? I mean, in 5 years, no one has ever released a working bridge of TikiWiki with any e-commerce solution. What it too difficult? No need? etc ?
3:46:04 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: a company who sells websites like 3rcorp ?
3:46:19 PM Nelson Ko says: Marc: the minute you sell multiple stuff, you need a real cart
3:46:29 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: thats the point.....
3:46:33 PM Nelson Ko says: or multiple currencies domains, etc...
3:46:58 PM Nelson Ko says: or multiple payment methods
3:47:04 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: let's do a real cool stuff to rule....
3:47:11 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: and takeover the world :P
3:49:33 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: this is a great disscution, cause handle much interesting point.... i'm glad to participate
3:49:44 PM *** Louis-Philippe Huberdeau left this chat ***
3:54:08 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: oh sorry
3:54:11 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: i have to go right now
3:54:28 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: thanks for the opportunity
3:54:28 PM Marc Laporte says: you can leave open an read log when you come back
3:54:36 PM Fábio Rampazzo Mathias says: ok
3:58:01 PM Marc Laporte says: Multiple currencies and multiple payment methodes, I can see a full-featured cart. But for multiple stuff, I was think of it being cart of the lightweight solution. wikis & trackers for product management. An shopping cart form which remembers that you have 5 items of trackeritemid #6 and 3 items of trackeritem #9 It calculates total and provides you an order form. Order form sends you to Paypal for payment. In some cases, there is no payment (B2B), it just sends an email to someone (with
Community Currencies to the customer) informing them about the order information.
3:58:45 PM Nelson Ko says: yeah - I meant multiple types of stuff with upsells, related products, bundles and all sorts of that kind of things
3:58:50 PM Marc Laporte says: For this b2b case, I can do now with trackers except for the part where the order is kept in a cookie as I shop around on the site and select my quantities
3:59:05 PM Marc Laporte says: ah yes, I fully agree.
4:00:19 PM Marc Laporte says: items with subSKUs for colors, sizes, etc would be better handled by full solution, but just to sell books or registration to a cocktail, simple solution would work.
4:00:45 PM Nelson Ko says: right.
4:01:44 PM Marc Laporte says: Should Lightweight solution maintain a history of orders? Or it's just fired off in an email?
4:03:26 PM Nelson Ko says: my original hunch was yes, but now that you asked it- I'm not so sure anymore - esp. if something like Paypal is already keeping some kind of history.
4:03:57 PM Nelson Ko says: it sure is a nice to have
4:07:01 PM Alain Désilets says: Hate to say this, but Tiki trackers suck even when used for tracking things.
4:07:16 PM Alain Désilets says: I can't see how they will be usable when used to implement a shopping cart.
4:07:22 PM Alain Désilets says: Had to say it ;).
4:07:33 PM Marc Laporte hugs Alain
4:10:02 PM Marc Laporte says: The idea is to use trackers to manage the product list, but the products are in wiki pages. We use a template to show structured info in the various wiki pages (price, type of product, etc). This template is another wiki page so you can change layout of your cart. Each wiki page has an add to cart button
4:10:59 PM Marc Laporte says: But once you have added to cart, you are no longer in trackers. You would be in a yet-to-be-developped tiki-cart.php page
4:12:12 PM Alain Désilets says: Sounds pretty kludgy to me.
4:12:42 PM pjalajas says: just dropping by, fwiw, my use case would be a 1) small retail shop in town (or an online mall for multiple small shops in town with distinct style for each store).
4:13:03 PM Alain Désilets says: For example, the product list will probably have a header that says "Tracker Items" as opposed to "Available Products".
4:13:25 PM Alain Désilets says: When you right click on a tracker item, the menu will tell you about trackers instead of products, etc...
4:13:46 PM Alain Désilets says: If Tiki used an object oriented architecture, I could see this work.
4:13:50 PM pjalajas says: also, I hope to work with sylvieg to put some good TRACKER plugin example images into the tiki docs so that folks see their full power in action
4:14:12 PM Alain Désilets says: There would be some base class "list of items", which could be used to implement both the Tracker list and the Product list.
4:15:12 PM Alain Désilets says: Both subclasses would override appropriate behaviour, so that the TrackerList would look and behanve like a list of tracker items, and the ProductsList class would look and behave like a list of products.
4:15:25 PM Nelson Ko says: Alain: I think the magic will happen at the level of the TRACKER plugins, which embed the tracker contents within a wiki page, hence showing it in the context of the wiki page based on parameters submitted
4:15:35 PM Alain Désilets says: But I'm not sure it will be that easy to customize a list of trackers to make it appear like a list of products.
4:15:51 PM sylvie-g says: Alain - not pb
4:15:55 PM Nelson Ko says: it is possible to write tracker plugins in an object oriented way
4:16:05 PM Alain Désilets says: Nelson, I don't know the Tiki arthitecture well enough to say. I'll take your word and Sylvie's on this.
4:16:11 PM Nelson Ko says: actually that may help - to have "sub-class" tracker plugins
4:16:19 PM Nelson Ko says: so to speak
4:16:26 PM Alain Désilets says: You mean there are actual classes in Tiki ;)?
4:16:37 PM sylvie-g says: Alain
http://iscpif.csregistry.org/tiki-index.php?page=publications is a TRACKERFILTER only
4:17:28 PM sylvie-g says: and a link and a header at the top
4:17:34 PM Alain Désilets says: I take it all back! This page certainly doesn't look like a tracker.
4:18:01 PM Alain Désilets says: Gotta go now.
4:19:14 PM Marc Laporte says: thanks Alain!
4:29:30 PM Marc Laporte says: If we don't use Paypal (in b2b scenario, or free event), we'd be without an order log. So maybe it's a bit more than a nice to have.
4:31:29 PM Marc Laporte is now on :
http://www.last.fm/group/Tikiwiki/members
4:57:30 PM Etuate says: hi guys i just got this chat today
4:57:35 PM Etuate says: in the morning
5:00:13 PM Franck Martin says: me too ;)
5:00:17 PM *** André Proulx left this chat ***
5:00:37 PM Franck Martin says: don't forget google pay system
5:00:40 PM Etuate says: looks like a very important discussion
5:01:35 PM Franck Martin says: we need plugins to put in the wiki that put stuff in the cart
5:03:28 PM Marc Laporte says: This is what I have in mind for lightweight:
http://www.thewatchmakerproject.com/cart-demo/index.php
5:04:07 PM Marc Laporte says: simple code:
http://www.thewatchmakerproject.com/journal/276/building-a-simple-php-shopping-cart
5:13:15 PM dumarestca says: thank you
5:14:42 PM Etuate says: good stuff
5:16:01 PM dumarestca says: I agree that it doesn't make sense to redo from scratch - just find the best open source one out there in PHP and MYsql and integrate it
5:17:13 PM Etuate says: i think the minor problem is understanding the code to find out if it does not cause harm to the current security of tikiwiki
5:20:21 PM djamel202 says: mmm very interesting
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