In Detail

Drupal is a free and open-source modular web application framework and content management system (CMS) written in PHP that can run in many environments, including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. Drupal e-Commerce is a free, open-source, feature-rich, flexible package of modules that seamlessly adds full e-Store capabilities to Drupal.

Drupal e-Commerce is the combination of Drupal, the award-winning Drupal 5 content management system, and the e-Commerce package of modules that can be plugged into it, bringing a wealth of e-commerce functionality to the software.

In this book you will learn how to use the Drupal content management system along with its e-Commerce modules to set up and manage an online shop. We will install the software, have a look at its features, plan our shop, create our shop, look at customer management, create a design for our shop, and cover security, taxes, shipping, and even marketing our business!

If you're new to Drupal and want to set up a powerful e-commerce system, this book is for you. If you've some experience of working with Drupal and want to understand how its e-commerce options can be used to power an online shop, this book will also prove invaluable.

What you will learn from this book?

• Why to choose Drupal for e-commerce

• Installing and configuring Drupal and its e-Commerce module

• How Drupal and its e-Commerce module work

• Creating and managing content

• Creating and managing user accounts, roles, and permissions

• Things to think about when planning to sell online

• Structuring your site, your product catalogue, and framing a shopping process for users

• Framing business policies to handle legal and professional issues

• Branding your site by customizing default themes

• Installing new themes and creating a custom theme

• Customizing the checkout process for processing orders

• Creating a better selling experience

• Attracting customers with discounts, coupons, auctions, donations, flexicharges

• Working with taxes and shipping rules in Drupal e-Commerce

• Drupal e-Commerce's shipping API modules

• Securing and maintaining your site (deploy, backup, restore)

• Creating and managing invoices using the Invoices module

• Integrating CiviCRM to manage appointments and log phone calls

• Improving traffic with Search Engine Optimization

• Advertising programmes, newsletters, and viral marketing campaigns

Approach

The book starts with the basics of Drupal and then steps you through the creation of an online shop, exploring Drupal further as needed. Only the features of Drupal relevant to the e-commerce application will be covered.

Written in a straightforward, easy-to-understand manner, the book provides the essentials of getting your e-commerce website up and running with Drupal.

Who this book is written for?

This book is for people who want to start selling online as quickly as possible, and want to see how to use the proven Drupal platform to achieve this.

The book is ideal for use in a small business with only basic in-house technical skills. It will also be useful for developers who not only want to create an e-commerce site, but also want a CMS platform for expanding the site in the future. No prior knowledge of Drupal is required. No PHP experience is expected, although it will be useful. Basic knowledge of e-commerce will also be useful, although the main concepts are introduced and covered as required.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 7 Ratings

Good Introduction - 2008-07-07
Reviewer Rating:
Technology books are generally expected to be on the shelves shortly after major releases of a particular software and therefore do not receive the most thorough editing possible. They're also quite expensive considering they have a relatively short shelf life because they're only really in demand until the new version of the software is released. Given that this book delivers on both counts and exhaustively details the cheesy example of Doug's Dino store, it's still a worthy read.

Well, it won't do you much good to simply read it. This book steps the reader through the process of setting up a website to sell goods and/or services over the internet. The book tells the story of a web-developer/designer(you) that contracts with the owner of a physical store to set up a website to sell his products and services on-line.

In the first chapter, the author explains how to install Drupal 5.x and the e-Commerce module, the most recent versions of this e-business duo. If you are interested in Ubercart, e-Commerce's other Drupal competitor, you're reading the wrong book. Micheal does a fair job of pointing out the pitfalls of downloading and installing the software. I wished he had directed the reader to download all the modules that would be needed for later chapters even if they wouldn't be installed until later. There is no one place in the book you can find a list of all the modules you will need for a particular store implementation.

In the next couple of chapters, the author explains the basics of Drupal and planning the store including even legal requirements. In my experience, these chapters and the chapter on theming were really lacking. My experience with customers suggests that they usually want to start with how the site will look. Granted this book isn't about theming, but even considering that, the look and feel topics are really sparse. Customers relate their online experience to how they want their physical store to look. All this form following function jargon is something for the developer and designer to juggle, the owner wants pretty first. Another problem I have with these chapters relates to the decision not to use CCK and the image field to display the products in the catalog. Although he suggests later that it might be a good idea to use CCK, it seems that a product catalog might be a perfect application of this popular module, and would ease the administration of a dynamic e-store.

The chapter about users, roles, and permissions is a must. This chapter alone will save countless hours of head scratching, and could single-handedly save the book. Many of the ways that users, roles, and permissions and creative uses of the taxonomy module can be implemented will allow the user to use, create, and sell almost limitless types of products and services.

The next chapters direct the reader in set up the shopping cart and checkout functionality, including detailed explanations of taxes, shipping, and payment gateways. I would like to have learned more about secure checkout, and security in general, it seems like a pretty important topic to a store owner and his customers. A small section of one chapter was spent on the CiviCRM module, it should have been skipped or covered in much greater detail. In the last chapter on Marketing Your Business, the author provides an extensive list of ways to market one's business, but doesn't describe how Drupal could be used to automate the process, or even recommended other products for the job. I bet there are a number of things that Drupal can do to help promote one's business.

Bottom line: Selling online with Drupal e-Commerce is a great introduction to the process of setting up a Drupal website for an internet based business. The author does a great job pointing out places where your intuition can get you into trouble, and points you in the right direction to modules not included in be basic Drupal: e-Commerce installation, but if you are new to selling, period; require a knock-out store design, or need help advertising your site, you are going to need a few more books. To it's credit, it's not a book simply about Drupal, but leads the reader through the whole process and discusses all the processes and services a store-owner will need to set up his store. I can't give it a big thumbs up, but a worthy read none-the-less.

Drupal has moved on... - 2009-04-25
Reviewer Rating:
This book was probably great, in it's time, however it is all about Drupal 5, and Drupal has moved on to Drupal 6. I initially thought that I'd be able to work with the differences, and the diffs between D5 and D6 are easy to deal with (re: applying D5 concepts to D6). However, the E-Commerce module (required for the book to be useful in a concrete way), is rather 'stripped-down' in its D6 variant. So much of what is discussed cannot be reproduced in the current D6 environment (ie. product variants).

In an abstract sense, all the conceptual information is still valid and useful -- but, again, in an abstract sense.

Raunchywear loves Drupal - 2008-07-23
Reviewer Rating:
Drupals' ecommerce offering is now very competitive with Mambo and Virtuemart. This book is an excellent tutorial for those wanting to use Drupal as an ecommerce solution. What we particularly like at Raunchywear Swimwear and Lingerie is the apparel specific focus of Drupal.

This book is well laid out and even includes hints and tips about connecting Drupal with CRM and marketing options.

Well worth the read for anyone considering an ecommerce site using open source solutions.

It's also crammed into only 245 pages.

Awful - 2010-02-13
Reviewer Rating:
I am having trouble fathoming how someone could write so many words while telling so little of value. The book is largely pointless. Here's an example. Do you want to theme your shopping cart? This book tells you how to make elementary changes to a Drupal site, in a very generic fashion. But doesn't say a word about theming Ubercart, which the book is about.

So it's not useful. Get a basic Drupal book, or just read the online docs. They will be more helpful.

Drupal e-Commerce - 2009-06-28
Reviewer Rating:
I know my way around drupal fairly well and the book helped still. The book covered some of the basic Drupal stuff but was very helpful in explaining order of operation on things such as payment options; ubercart setup and things. I gave it 3 stars it was a good read, but I was hoping for a little more techy stuff.

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