FoxEE and ExpressionEngine eCommerce Options

foxee: eCommerce module for ExpressionEngine
Presented by: Shannon Smith, web designer
Note: I’m a foxee user only, I’m not affiliated with foxee or FoxyCart in any way. I also do not get any commission or payment from the sale of any foxee or FoxyCart product.

eCommerce for ExpressionEngine
What eCommerce is available?
While you can always integrate or hack together a solution with any shopping cart out there, what is available that is designed to work with EE?
Currently this has been a bone of contention with the EE community; here’s what’s available & what I’ll briefly discuss
Simple Commerce Module (SCM)
eeCommerce
aMember
foxee
The future

Number 1: Simple Commerce Module (SCM)

Simple Commerce Module (SCM)
First-party module from EllisLabs
Advantages:
Free with commercial & personal license, Simple to use
First party module that works well
Utilizes Paypal Instant Payment Notification & supports Paypal encrypted payments
Can assign sale prices & mark items on sale
Allows purchases of items to change a user's member group
Tab delimited export of items and purchases

Simple Commerce Module
Disadvantages:
Limited to using Paypal
Client perception of Paypal often negative or clients have had negative experiences
Limited functionality:
subscription/membership purchases can sort of be done, but not fully automated
users must be members & logged in order for purchases to be recorded
no shopping cart included, third party one now available for sale
need additional modules to secure downloadable purchases
much must be done manually, such as calculating shipping, changing inventory
customer leaves site & goes to Paypal site to complete the transaction

Simple Commerce Module
Final thoughts:
Don’t discount this module
May work fine in many situations
Many have hacked it to do more than originally intended
Newly available 3rd party “cart” addon makes this module more usable

Number 2: eeCommerce

eeCommerce: ExpressionEngine + Magento
Third party module currently in final beta
Integrates EE with MagentoeCommerce software platform & meant to bring the full power of Magento into EE
Use EE’s templating system for features such as skinning, forums, & user reviews
Magento to handle things such as stock control and finances
eeCommerceLite is $149.99, eeCommerce Pro is $2499.99.
$2499.99 is an "enterprise-grade" ecommerce offering, which "has a matching support SLA and full multi-channel support"

eeCommerce: ExpressionEngine + Magento
Thoughts on this solution:
Currently not a lot of documentation yet
Seems well suited to large scale/enterprise projects
Web developer required to know Magento as well as EE
Magento very good & thorough platform, but lots of added complexity
Could get expensive, but “Lite” version may work for lower dollar projects.
Some sites will definitely require this level of functionality

Number 3: aMember

aMember integration for membership sites
A phpmemberhip script that you can purchase & add to your site
Required addons: Smartmember, EE aMemberplugin
Thoughts on this solution:
Bit pricey (aMember + addons ~$310.00)
My opinion: easy to use, clunky, showing its age, some documentation poor... But, widely used & many are very happy with it
My experience: Some payment gateways no longer seem to be working properly with aMember (particularly those that work in Canada)
Credit card information generally stored on your server, so PCI compliance & security becomes a factor
Membership software only, not a full eCommerce solution
Not a hosted solution, so no monthly shopping cart fees
Worth looking into for certain situations, good support from aMember

Number 4: foxee

The foxee Solution
foxee integrates FoxyCart and EE
What is FoxyCart?
Hosted shopping cart/eCommerce solution
Free during development then $15/month (no additional transaction fees)
Robust, very little downtime
All credit card information stored on FoxyCart servers
Security (quote from FoxyCart):
“We are PCI compliant, Safe Harbor compliant, have multiple security scans (PCI requirements 1, 5, 6), and adhere to best practices wherever possible. Our servers are all located in secure facilities (PCI requirement 9), and access to our systems are granted on a “need-to-know” basis (PCI requirement 7), as required by the PCI rules.”

The foxee Solution
FoxyCart Features:
Supports tangible, downloadable, subscriptions (including recurring payments) + unlimited product options
Coupons & discounting
One-page checkout & login
Multi ship-to addresses
Live shipping rates
Super tax feature
Custom checkout fields w/ validation
Supports multiple payment gateways & shipping carriers
+more (refer to: www.foxycart.com /2-minute-tour.html)

The foxee Solution
The foxee component:
foxee is what integrates FoxyCart with EE
You could integrate it yourself, but HCC Development already spent a lot of time doing it & they did a pretty good job
Full control of product catalog within the EE control panel
Cost: $165 (no additional fees unless you buy an addon)

The foxee Solution
foxee features:
Single sign on fully integrated solution
Member subscriptions with automatic expiry and renewal (recurring payments) + free trial periods
Integrated order reporting & tracking options
Related Items, Discounts and Coupons, secured downloadables
Sale Pricing and Limited quantity with live inventory updating
Inventory tracking, per product and per product option
+more (refer to: http://www.hccdevelopment.com/Web-Based-Software/Product/FoxEE/)

The foxee Solution
Thoughts on foxee:
Some not pleased with hosted cart solution: cost and limited control
However, less need to worry about PCI compliance or hackers stealing credit card information
$15/month decent cost for having them look after security & compliance + they continue to add features/gateways/shipping.
Young, still evolving product, so there may be bugs & documentation could possibly be better
Feature rich + you can sell subscriptions, downloadables, physical goods, donations

The foxee Solution
Current addons available to expand functionality:
Classified ads addon: sell weblog entries to your customers (set amount of times they can publish & how long post will be shown).
Bulk items addon: sell your products in quantity by the case, skid etc...; track your inventory by single item while selling in bulk
Sample sites using foxee:
http://hpcsport.com/store
http://www.dogcollars.ca/
http://prints995.com/

The future... What about EE2.0
foxee is working on their EE2.0 compatible module & promising further improvements and features (improved inventory control, even better member integration, etc)
Plus, more solutions coming down the pipe
EE2.0 is on CodeIgniter & this definitely opens up EE’s eCommerce options
From Leslie Camacho, President of EllisLabs:
"ShopIgniter, a stand-alone ecommerce system built on CI (currently in development) that is aimed expressly to leverage EE 2.0’s CI codebase. The level of integration they are aiming for simply would not have been possible with EE 1.x" (http://www.shopigniter.com/ )

Questions/Comments?
Questions/comments before we move on to the DEMO

FoxEE and ExpressionEngine eCommerce Options

by Lea Alcantara on Oct 26, 2009

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FoxEE and ExpressionEngine eCommerce Options — Presentation Transcript