E-Commerce Solutions and Third-Party Integration Options within Drupal Ecosystem
Drupal has several options and solutions to develop different types of websites including e-commerce portals. Drupalers have redefined the way e-commerce sites used to operate by developing a range of plugins and modules for high-end security, tailored web content, third-party integration, and other utilities. These modules primarily aim at enhancing end users experience, providing a user-friendly interface, flexibility, and reliability.
There are several e-commerce options within Drupal along with options to integrate third-party APIs, which I’ll discuss in a later section. Let’s first discuss the options available within Drupal — Ubercart, Drupal Commerce, and Magento-Integrated Drupal.
Ubercart
Ubercart is an open source e-commerce solution that comes with a set of modules, designed for running multiple stores on your Drupal site in multiple countries. Driven by two major emphases of flexibility and usability, it has various options like product catalog, shopping cart, and checkout, order, shipping, etc. that can be extended to meet all store requirements.
Drupal Commerce
Drupal Commerce empowers online stores of different sizes with easy configuration and better management, allowing retailers to enhance their customer interaction. The latest version — Drupal Commerce 2.X — comes with a range of new features and contributed modules. It is well suited for online stores targeting niche market where product attributes need tailored content to bolster their business.
Magento Integrated with Drupal
The integration of Magento with Drupal and Acquia’s Acquia Commerce Manager can be used to create a full user commerce experience for your customers. This will not only deliver highly personalized, content-rich experiences across every touchpoint but will allow marketers to collaborate with merchandisers.
Third-Party API Integration at each stage using Drupal
Every enterprise has their own unique need. We need to know that one solution cannot work for all size and types of company. To overcome this, we need a solution that can be easily integrated with other solutions. Given below are a host of such integration options in the Drupal ecosystem:
Enterprise Search
Apache Solr: Apache Solr Search module can be used as a replacement for core content search and boosts features as well as performance. Additional features can be added as per the project requirement by extending the module. Valuebound contributed two modules in the process — Multisite Solr Search and Custom Solr Search.
Ankiro: Ankiro — a search solution — provides user-friendly search tools by using a unique combination of language databases and enabling users to find exactly what they are looking for. Ankiro Enterprise Search Integrationmodule help s with the integration with Drupal.
Sajari Search: Sajari Search is a highly customizable search engine for complex web applications. Search API Sajari module helps to integrate Sajari with Drupal for enabling its use from PHP.
Inventory management
Commerce Brightpearl module integrates Brightpearl to Commerce Stock and Drupal Commerce allowing retailers to manage orders, inventory, customer data and accounting in a single, reliable retail management system.
Oracle Integration module is used to connect to Oracle databases using Drupal’s familiar database functions and classes. Oracle Driver, another module, also allows Drupal to use an Oracle Database as the primary backend.
Stitch Labs API module provides API integration with StitchLabs.com which is an inventory and order tracking platform.
Payment Gateway
Paypal: Commerce PayPal module integrates Paypal into Drupal Commerce payment and checkout system. It supports both off-site and on-site payment systems.
Braintree: Commerce Braintree module is used to add Braintree payment functionality to Drupal Commerce for payments and to store customer data in the Braintree vault for future processing.
Cashpresso: Commerce Cashpresso integrated with Drupal Commerce gives users an option for easy payment in installments.
Amazon Pay: Amazon Pay makes it easy to log-in and pay through your Amazon account in an E-Commerce site based on Drupal. Commerce Amazon Pay module integrates Amazon Pay and lets you log into Amazon with Drupal Commerce.
Paytm: Commerce Paytm module integrates Paytm with Drupal Commerce payment system, for hassle-free e-commerce payments in India.
Order Fulfilment Services
Order Management Systems (OMS): Commerce Fulfilment via OMSmodule integrates Drupal Commerce with OMS and is being used for production. It currently provides web services like ExportOrders, GetStockOrders, and CreateSalesOrder.
Shipwire: UC Shipwire module allows shipping integration of Ubercart and Shipwire with various API methods like order placement, real-time stock update, and status tracking.
Shipping Gateway
FedEx: By extending Commerce Shipping API, Commerce FedEx module adds FedEx shipping calculations functionality with Drupal Commerce.
ShipEngine: Commerce ShipEngine provides the rates for services configured for ShipEngine. It also delivers labels that are visible on order page.
United Parcel Service (UPS): Requiring a UPS.com account, the Commerce UPS module allocates UPS shipping estimates in conjunction with the Commerce Shipping and Commerce Physical modules.
DPD Shipping: If you are looking for France-based parcel delivery service, Commerce DPD shipping module will enable the most common DPD shipping services to your Drupal Commerce Site. It includes sub-modules like “commerce dpd shop delivery” and “commerce dpd classic predict”.
E-mail marketing
MailChimp: Commerce MailChimp module adds the e-commerce 360 feature to Drupal Commerce in order to track store statistics for marketing emails sent via MailChimp. Also, MailChimp E-Commerce helps to merge MailChimp with both Drupal Commerce and Ubercart.
Marketo: Marketo module provides integration between various Drupal components and the Marketo email marketing system. Marketo MA, another module helps your website track marketing automation and capture user data during registration and form submission.
Analytics & Personalization Service
Google Analytics Integration: Personalize Google Analytics Integrationmodule provides integration of the Personalize module with Google Analytics. It can be used to report the activities of Personalize module and Visitor Actions module to Google Analytics as custom events.
SharpSpring: SharpSpring Personalize module makes SharpSpring user data available to the Personalize module for conditional rules. It depends upon the SharpSpring module for tracking data that helps to add sharpspring tracking to your webpage. API credentials can be stored here to be used for other advanced integrations.
Acquia Lift: Acquia Lift Connector module helps firms to bridge content and customer data in order to deliver a tailored experience to customers. This module integrates with the Acquia Lift Service for an enhanced optimization experience on the front-end of your website.
Web Notification
Urban Airship: Urban Airship Web Push Notifications module connects your Drupal site to Urban Airship to deliver live notifications to your site visitors.
Firebase Notification: Firebase Push Notification module implements Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging to deliver notifications to Web and mobile devices. Relying on the Firebase Platform, another module called Google Firebase Push Notification delivers a feature set to send out push notifications to Chrome and other browsers as well as IOS & Android devices.
iZooto: Izooto Integration module adds iZooto Integrations for Web Push Notifications. Izooto allows businesses to create and send personalized notifications to their customers and web users using their mobile devices and desktops.
Integrations with Amazon / eBay:
Various modules of Drupal that provide integration with eBay and Amazonare:
Amazon Module: Amazon Module helps to achieve product advertising API functionality for Drupal using advertisement API. Its central “Pure API” components interact with Amazon and optional modules to handle expanded data for other features like wishlists, customer reviews, etc.
Amazon Store Module: Amazon Store helps you to have an Amazon Associates Store along with an Associates ID. It provides a window to search content, product pages and also manages a shopping cart.
eBay Integration: eBay Integration bridges Drupal E-Commercemodule and eBay. It allows you to create a special type of product, which will be listed on eBay automatically.
Commerce eBay: Commerce eBay module lists Drupal Commerce products on eBay along with automated stock management.
Drupal has a number of powerful tools to develop e-commerce sites, as we discussed above. It provides integration with various third-party tools at each stage to make your e-commerce site user-friendly. We at Valueboundhelp developing commerce solutions by combining various sorting options, delivery modes, payment gateways, tax calculations, etc. to best accomplish your tasks.
Need assistance in building an e-commerce site? Get in touch with our Drupal developers today to enhance your site’s user engagement.
This article was first published on valuebound.com and Abhinav Pathak contributed for this article.
