Case Study: Drupal e-Commerce Sites and Applications

When considering various PHP open source options for ecommerce development, many shops turn to options such as Zen Cart or Magento. While these dedicated platforms have matured to offer everything needed to build out a full suite of commercial requirements, Drupal has a distinct advantage in terms of its backend CMS and flexibility.

Modern retailers actively look to branch their sites beyond direct commerce to increase traffic, perform more robust user experience testing and build more content rich sites. For developers looking for an e-commerce solution that scales, Drupal provides a rich user experience tied to a complete CMS.

Compared to other shopping carts, Drupal is search friendly, easier to secure, flexible and integrates well with a variety of open source libraries. Since it’s a fully open source project you aren’t locked down to a set of hosting solutions, SSL certificates or libraries – by contrast, users are able to access a wide variety of commercial tools and software. In fact, many common carts such as Os Commerce, Uber Cart and Zen Cart feature integration with Drupal so you can run the e-commerce engine natively or as part of the larger app.

Advantages of Drupal for Commercial Sites

At its core, Drupal offers a flexible structure which is ideal for e-Commerce development. With its flexible nodes, you can easily create a content class for products in addition to posts and pages – adding custom fields for popular product attributes such as weights, SKUs, prices and colors. As a result you can build out a complete e-Commerce engine for nearly every industry or retail type.  While many developers prefer to use a dedicated commercial engine linked to a CMS, there are a number of advantages to using a single backend to manage both content as well as checkouts.

Contemporary retail is driven by social media and content as much as by the actual shopping cart. Drupal provides a development library so you can integrate a complete set of modules and features into your e-commerce engine. Its extensive library of custom fields makes calculations (such as tax rates, savings and shipping) much easier while connecting with your existing user database so you can build out a newsletter or shopping preferences. Taking a lesson from Nike and other major companies, the site can allow you to build out a social community with a focus on commerce.

The most popular commercial solution for Drupal sites is Ubercart, which connects to Drupal natively. With the module you’re able to fully leverage the site’s security, database and content management features while hooking into a complete e-Commerce engine. A number of blue chip companies are using the combination for development including Warner Brothers and a variety of media companies.

An active developer community continues to issue new releases, features, patches and compatibility. As a result, the cart is fully compatible with a wide variety of solutions including most SSL certificates and payment gateways. In fact, Ubercart benefits from a combination of commercial developers focusing on its premium versions and support, which continues to drive the solution in the right direction with improved technology and more user friendly features.