EE Insider

ExpressionEngine E-Commerce Comparison Chart

Speaking of comparison charts, Exp:resso put together a comparison chart of e-commerce options on ExpressionEngine.

The apps covered in the chart are: their own Exp:resso Store, Cartthrob, and BrilliantRetail. It is a comprehensive chart and even includes Buy Now links at the bottom for each add-on.

Awesome.

CartThrob 2 Production Ready, Now Bundling

Over the weekend, CartThrob 2 was deemed “production ready” in an announcement on the CartThrob website.

CartThrob2 is now production ready and available for purchase here at CartThrob.com. Though it’s been fun building a Google-style perpetual beta, CartThrob2 has really grown and is ready for release. Over the last few years we’ve refined every feature and interface, added tons of features, updated docs, templates, and everything in between.

The sweetheart of a e-commerce system for ExpressionEngine was first released for ExpressionEngine 1 and has been revamped for EE2. If you haven’t used CartThrob before, check out the video walk-thru(.mov file) for a general overview.

If you were one of the customers that particpated in the paid CarthThrob 2 beta, then your license is automatically upgraded to the production ready version.

CartThrob is also now bundling their add-on will other add-ons, like CTAdmin, Export it, Securit:ee and Backup Pro.

CartThrob 2 is $149.00 and available now.

Preview of Striper E-commerce Module

Today, Jack McDade (Lobster War Machine and Structure) posted a sneak preview of his new module Striper. I know what you’re thinking because I was, too. Jack has been rocking out to some 80s glam rock. But that’s not the case at all. Jack has been working on a simpler e-commerce module that has more features than the Simple Commerce Module but not as much as other tools like Cartthrob or BrilliantRetail.

I haven’t played with the module myself yet but judging from the video this looks very nice. I’m looking forward to trying it out.

New EE Store Will Use BrilliantRetail

In the last couple of years we’ve seen a lot of movement in the e-commerce space for ExpressionEngine. It used to be that you had to use a solution that wasn’t exactly a good fit…but it worked. We now have Cartthrob, BrilliantRetail and others.

In a big win for Brilliant2, EllisLab is switching to their BrilliantRetail software for their store. They hope to launch the new store before EECI, but they’re not certain if that’ll happen. From Leslie’s blog post at EllisLab.com:

We’ve been working with David and Tony from Brilliant2 to relaunch the ExpressionEngine Store on BrilliantRetail, their excellent ecommerce add-on for ExpressionEngine. They’ve been a joy to work with and we’ve given them permission to release all the custom work we commissioned into future versions of BrilliantRetail. We can’t be more specific about this until the store launches. Honestly we’re not sure if this will happen before or after EECI, but we’re doing our best to make it before.

I know what you’re thinking…why not Cartthrob? Me too.

Store e-commerce module

Yesterday, add-on developer Exp-resso released Store, another offering for doing e-commerce on ExpressionEngine.

Two years ago we had very few options for e-commerce. Other than the Simple Commerce Module we didn’t even have a solution that worked with and inside of ExpressionEngine. In the last year and a half we’ve seen a mini explosion of options, like Cartthrob (released last April) and BrillianRetail, which was released earlier this year .

So, while they felt it necessary to explain why you might need another e-commerce app for ExpressionEngine, I don’t think there’s any explaining to do. There’s room for more, and the more options we have, the better. We now have three robust e-commerce options. That’s hardly too many.

One of the marketing points of Store is ease of use. From their write-up:

We also felt that the template tags should be easy to learn and remember. For this reason, we have only 7 tags to learn, and most sites will only need to use 3-4 of these. We have also included a full set of example templates with the install, which you can use as a basis for your checkout process.

Just like with, for example, Cartthrob, Store is fully integrated into ExpressionEngine and uses Channel Entries to store your products. It also includes support for inventory management (pretty cool).

This release is a paid beta ($20) but they consider is stable and production-ready.

New, free e-commerce add-on

EESuite is a new ExpressionEngine 2 add-on that allows you to “start selling premium digital goods or member subscriptions from your website.” Some of the features listed on the website are:

• Memberships
• Digital Goods
• Order Management
• MSM support

From what I could tell from the videos, EESuite only supports PayPal in this initial free version. If you are exploring e-commerce options, you should definitely watch all 4 videos and get an idea of how the add-on works.

Here’s the first video that shows the process of managing products:

EE Insider has not yet tried or tested this module. EESuite is free and available now.

Cartthrob Announces EE 2 Upgrade Options

When the EE 2 version of Cartthrob is available, the team behind the e-commerce software will be offering no-cost upgrades for new licenses.

EE 2.1 still ships with 1.6x as an available option, so you can still buy and use CartThrob. When we complete the 2.1 compatible version, you will be able to download the new version at no extra cost.

If you’ve already purchased a Cartthrob license you’ll have the option to upgrade to the EE 2-compatible version for $49.99.

Anyone that purchased CartThrob before 7-10-2010 will be able to purchase the EE 2.1x compatible version of CartThrob for $49.99 when we release it. For now there are no upgrades available to purchase on the site. We will add an upgrade option when we release the 2.1 compatible version of CartThrob.

Cartthrob haven’t said when the new version will be released but noted that “it will launch before EE stops supporting 1.6x” and there won’t be any issues with forward compatibility with Cartthrob tags you’ve used under the EE 1.6 version.

Read the forum post with the entire announcement: Cartthrob and EE 2.1

EECI 2010: E-commerce on EE

On Wednesday afternoon, Matt Weinberg of Vector Media Group gave a information-packed talk on everything (and I mean everything) you need to know about doing e-commerce and doing it on ExpressionEngine.

Matt didn’t talk about Simple Commerce Module or how to use PayPal but instead focused on more robust implementations of e-commerce. He talked about payment gateways, merchant accounts (including suggestions for merchant account providers), PCI Compliance and some EE-specific solutions.

Matt has made his slides available to all (ZIP file).

EECI 2010: ExpressionEngine, Entrepreneurship & Economics

On the first full conference day, Adii Pienaar gave a one hour talk on economics, entrepreneurship and making money in the world of ExpressionEngine. Adii is relatively new to EE so it was interesting to hear his take and observations.

Here are his slides:

Cartthrob License Winners!

A couple of weeks ago I announced a giveaway of 2 free licenses to Cartthrob, the new e-commerce solution for ExpressionEngine. Hundreds signed up for a chance to win and I randomly selected two winners from the list. The lucky winners are…

• Jason Ferrell of Natural Logic (and developer of the Champagne add-on)
• Jon Toney, a designer in Dallas, Texas.

Congrats to both of them! They’ve been contacted by Cartthrob to redeem their free licenses. Thank you to Cartthrob for their generosity. More giveaways coming soon!

Win a Cartthrob License

To help celebrate the launch of Cartthrob, they are generously offering up two licenses to give away to a couple of lucky EE Insider readers.

(To learn more about Cartthrob, check out my write-up on it from yesterday and be sure to read through their thorough and thoughtful documentation.)

So, how can you win a free license for Cartthrob? Well, it’s easy.

To enter, just fill out the form below to sign up for occasional informational emails from EE Insider (these could include future giveaways and special promotions, like discounts on add-ons). I will randomly choose two people from the list as winners.

If you’ve already signed up for the email list (like for our last giveaway, which is now over), you are automatically entered.

The contest ends on 4/16/10.

So, what are you waiting for? Enter here:

Cartthrob Released

As of today Cartthrob, the latest venture in e-commerce for ExpressionEngine, is released and available for purchase. Cartthrob was developed to be as flexible as possible while still allowing you to control your inventory and e-commerce site with ExpressionEngine.

I exchanged a few emails with Chris Newton of Cartthrob and asked for his take on the new release.

Let’s first talk about the flexibility. Chris says:

CartThrob forces very little on the developer, there are very few strict rules on how things have to be built. For EE people this will be a godsend… we’re already used to getting it our own way with EE, and that is the spirit of our development efforts with CartThrob.

Rather than the typical feature-benefit focused cart approach: “your product must have a title, price, this option set, two pictures, and a shipping weight, ” CartThrob lets you create your store however you’d like. You can store data in weblogs in whatever format suits you, repurpose existing weblogs, or just hardcode product data in the templates. Most carts assume a structure and flow for a customer’s business, CartThrob doesn’t.

You can get an idea of what Cartthrob can do by reviewing the example uses they posted in the documentation. Donation site, simple t-shirt sales interface, integration with third party shipper are all things you can do with Cartthrob.

And all of this uses the regular weblogs or channels in EE (watch this video for details on how to set up weblogs for products). This means that even your existing EE add-ons should play nicely with Cartthrob.

Chris again:

Another nice feature is that CartThrob, once configured is not something your client even need be aware of. Once set up, all of the Items, Orders, and Purchased Item data can be stored in weblogs. It’s not some custom interface that the client will have to learn.

If your preferred payment gateway isn’t supported, you can create your own to interface with Cartthrob. The documentation has an example gateway that you can use as a guide when building your own.

Cartthrob is currently only available for ExpressionEngine 1.6 but they are going to start working on the EE 2 version soon.

Subscription Billing in EE with Membrr

I’m not sold on the cutesy name but the offering looks promising.

Membrr is a new (still in private beta) service that allows you to offer subscription payments on your ExpressionEngine website. To connect to the Membrr service with ExpressionEngine, you need to install their EE module (available for EE 1.6 and EE 2) and choose from one of the supported payment gateways.

E-commerce and EE has always been a tough nut to crack. There are several companies trying (or have tried) to make this work. It’s nice to see Membrr not trying to be the “everything to everyone” solution but instead focusing on a often needed piece of e-commerce: recurring subscriptions.

As I mentioned, the Membrr service is still in private beta. If you would like to apply to join (I just did, but have not yet been accepted) there is a form to fill out on the homepage.

eecommerce Pro Now in Public Beta

For quite a while now, the team at PHP (UK) has been working on a huge undertaking: eecommerce Pro, a Magento-enabled commerce solution for ExpressionEngine. And now they want you to kick the tires.

The public beta is now open, which means anyone can download and beta test both the eecommerce Pro module and the associated Mammoth WebServices software.

Learn more from this announcement forum thread on the eecommerce website.

E-commerce with ExpressionEngine

It’s a popular question on the forums: How can I do e-commerce with ExpressionEngine?

The only built-in way to do e-commerce is using the Simple Commerce Module (SCM), a first-party module from EllisLab. This method is, of course, limited to using PayPal as a payment gateway and some clients are hesitant to do that because they (incorrectly) perceive PayPal to be an amateur solution and not secure. Also, SCM has limited functionality; it’s called Simple Commerce Module for a reason.

One of the features that is not in SCM is the ability to sell subscriptions. This is a frequent request on the forums and as of right now the only tool that is integrated with EE to do this is FoxEE by HCC Development.

FoxEE is an ExpressionEngine module that bridges the gap between EE and the Foxycart hosted e-commerce tool. With FoxEE you can use Foxycart to sell subscriptions, downloads or physical goods. It can also apply discounts to member groups. You can get a better idea of how FoxEE works by reading through the documentation.

Those are the only two integrated e-commerce solutions for ExpressionEngine that I know of. What am I missing? Have you used any others?