Hello ERPNext community
E-commerce enhancements were being worked on for some months now. From inspecting it’s current state to designing better approaches to development and finally approval, an improved E-commerce experience has been released in ERPNext version 13.11.0 !
Why did we need this?
- We wanted to start building a dedicated E-commerce module that gave more deserved attention to the existing portal.
- All website related information was kept in the last section of the Item master (too much scroll), making it very hard to get it’s attention and even access it.
- Not all desk users will deal with setting up the website.
- We lacked some modern basic features that a web shop would be expected to have.
- To keep up with the version 13 Redesign
Well these are just from the top of my head.
So what’s new ?
Each section has the link to its documentation for feature details.
The E-commerce module was a new addition along with:
1) E Commerce Settings
- The legacy ‘Shopping Cart Settings’ and ‘Products Settings’ pages are now consolidated into a single E Commerce Settings page.
- All your web shop related configurations can be found in one place now.
2) Website Item
- The Website information about an Item is now moved to a new DocType called Website Item.
- You can publish a regular Item by click on the Publish in Website button under ‘Actions’ in the Item master.
3) Product Listing
- The Product Listing now has a Grid View and a List View. Additionally there are auto-computed Discount Filters.
4) Shopping Cart
- The Shopping Cart has a refreshed UI and a Payment Summary section to avoid scrolling to view the total payable amount.
- A screen freeze is added on cart interactions for better user feedback about an ongoing update.
5) Shop by Category
- ERPNext offers a Shop by Category [
/shop-by-category
] page out of the box, where users can navigate to relevant products based on their needs without having to use filters right away. - You can choose to use this or create a custom Web Page instead.
6) Wishlist
- We also have provision for a Wishlist in the new refactor that can be enabled or disabled in the E Commerce Settings.
7) Reviews and Ratings
- Reviews and Ratings can also be enabled or disabled in the E Commerce Settings.
- Only text reviews are allowed as of now.
8) Search
- All Product Listing pages contain a Search bar that lets users quickly search for Website Items or Item Groups.
- It also stores recent searches that you can click on and reuse.
Pricing Rules and Item Pricing work just as they used to.
Don’t we need more improvements ?
This refactor isn’t the destination at all. It’s a step in the right direction.
There’s quite a lot of things that were not in the scope but will be covered soon:
- Variant Selector refresh
- Product sorting in the listing
- Allowing guest users to add to cart and Wishlist (reducing friction for B2C customers)
- Multiple payment methods
- Enhancement of Coupon Code selection at Cart (popup with valid/invalid coupons)
- Optimisations in performance
Along with these short term goals, we do want to add more ambitious features like a modular web page builder, easier AutoCAD integrations for 3D view of products, etc. These will probably have a much longer ETA
You can find the documentation here. Do go through the docs, there’s much more detail about the features.
Please feel free to suggestions or comments, we thrive on your feedback :))