Good evening,
I’m new to RapidWeaver and wondered if you could help me.
I’m winding what e-commerce solutions are available these days for rapidweaver.
I can see Ecwid coming up quite often but the free version only allows 5 products and RapidCart doesn’t seem to be updated anymore.
I’d be looking at a solution for 10-20 products, physical goods, some membership products (can just be a standard product) currently using woocommerce for some websites.
Any suggestions would be great!
Thanks,
Dan
Hi @marsdend,
Other than Ecwid, which is a solution that includes a complete storefront, there are multiple so called carts available for RapidWeaver, as well as a way to include WooCommerce into a RapidWeaver project.
Full storefront solution
A full storefront solution (like Ecwid) will automatically generate category pages, product pages and a navigation encompassing those for you. You simply display these on your RapidWeaver page. If you add, modify or remove category or product, you do so in a backend supplied by the solution and the change will be immediately visible on your webpage. Since this is all self contained, you do not need to republish your RapidWeaver project (or page), and you can do it from any device with a modern browser.
You can integrate Ecwid with the free plugin in the marketplace, but this only adds a page to your existing project that opens the storefront that you designed in Ecwid. You can also go for EcwidPro ($70, Axyn Technology), which is a set of stacks that allow you to fully integrate elements of the Ecwid storefront on an otherwise RapidWeaver-built page in your project. These stacks also allow full control of stuff like the fonts used, colour palette and the width of the elements, as well as hide elements that you find unnecessary and really only benefit the makers of Ecwid, where the free plugin doesn’t allow you to do any of that.
Other than Ecwid, you can integrate Magento, CubeCart and various other hosted solutions in a similar fashion. This works fine, but does take a bit of effort in getting the storefront to match the rest of your site visually. Or just go nuts and give the storefront its own identity - this can work too.
Cart solution
A cart solution adds a shipping cart to any RapidWeaver page. The rest of the store is built using standard RapidWeaver pages, optionally using Stacks. This means that you need to republish the project if you add, modify or remove products or categories.
RapidCart was such a solution, but is no longer actively developed. VibraCart Pro ($60, Vibralogix) is a solution similar to RapidCart though, as is WebShop.stack ($60, SDS82 Software).
You build out pages for your categories (if needed), and a page for each of your products. This looks a bit like this:
As you see, you’ll need to build out a complete structure in some cases, and in this example a product falls under different categories. I use partials for that, so the a product only needs to be built once and can then be put under pages in different categories.
You then add the cart stack (or code snippet) to that page -or in my example: partial - to display the “Add to cart” button and the shopping cart itself. The cart solution takes care of the ordering and payment process, and will send out confirmation emails to the user. You’ll see the orders recieved in a backend supplied with the cart solution, which allows you to setup your own expedition process quite easily.
Although you need to republish the page if you modify or remove the product/category, and add a page for each new product/category, a good cart solutions does offer management of stock, pricing, shipping, tax and templates for the automated mail communication. You can access that backend from any device with a modern browser in the world.
Some cart stacks do not manage stock, which is fine if you have unlimited amounts of a good (for example digital goods or goods delivered through drop shipping), but cumbersome in all other use cases.
WooCommerce in RapidWeaver
If you prefer to include WooCommerce, you can do so as follows:
WooCommerce and WordPress work as they normally do, so with all the perks. downsides and security shenanigans that they bring; it’s only the presentation that is impacted (it’s visually integrated into your RapidWeaver page or project).
In this way, it’s very similar to how Ecwid is integrated into RapidWeaver using the standard plugin.
I myself use Vibracart Pro with Sitelok from Vibralogix. While Sitelok is not required to use Vibracart Pro, being able to have a login system allowed me to let my customers be able to redownload their purchases without emailing me and causing unnecessary support emails.
