Selling Online with Drupal e-Commerce: Walk through the creation of an online store with Drupal's e-Commerce module

264 Pages·2008·8.515 MB·English

by  Michael Peacock

Selling Online with
Drupal e-Commerce
Walk through the creation of an online store with
Drupal's e-Commerce module

Michael Peacock
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by lawrence rambert on 16th June 2009
2012 price st, , rahway, , 07065
Selling Online with Drupal e-Commerce
Copyright © 2008 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of
the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold
without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing,
nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to
be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: March 2008
Production Reference: 1180308
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-847194-06-0
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Nilesh R. Mohite ([email protected])
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Credits
Author Project Manager
Michael Peacock Abhijeet Deobhakta
Reviewers Project Coordinator
Bruno Massa Abhijeet Deobhakta
Gordon Heydon
Greg Holsclaw Indexer
Hemangini Bari
Senior Acquisition Editor
Douglas Paterson Proofreader
Chris Smith
Development Editor
Nikhil Bangera Production Coordinator
Aparna Bhagat
Technical Editor
Dhiraj Chandiramani Cover Work
Aparna Bhagat
Editorial Team Leader
Mithil Kulkarni
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About the Author
Michael Peacock is a web developer and senior partner of Peacock, Carter &
Associates (http://www.peacockcarter.co.uk) a web design and development
business. Michael loves building websites and web applications, and when he isn't,
likes to read, watch films, and occasionally take part in amateur dramatics.
I would like to thank everyone at Packt Publishing for making
this book possible, in particular Douglas Patterson for the idea of
the book, and helping me define a structure for it. Patricia Weir,
Abhijeet Deobhakta, and Nikhil Bangera for keeping me on track,
and Dhiraj Chandiramani for preparing the book for publication. My
thanks also goes to the reviewers (Greg Holsclaw, Bruno Massa, and
Gordon Heydon) who helped improve the quality of the book, and
made sure everything was in check.

I'd also like to thank my fiancée Emma for her support while
working on the book, and my business partner Richard for keeping
the business running during the times when I was writing about
websites as opposed to building them.

A special mention, and thanks is due to Martin Baker of Merrill
Valley Photography (http://www.merrillvalleyphotography.
co.uk/) for his contributions to the photography section in
Chapter 3.

Finally, I'd like to thank you, the reader; I hope that you enjoy this
book and end up with a fantastic website and store!
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About the Reviewers
Bruno Massa is one of the three authors and maintainers of the e-Commerce
module for Drupal. Graduated in Business, he is founder and president of Titan
Atlas, a Brazilian dotcom company. Massa is a national expert in e-business and
open-source software applications in Brazil.
Greg Holsclaw holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computational Mathematics and has
been developing intranet and internet web applications for the past five years. After
developing ASP applications for a large engineering division for a number of years,
Greg became acquainted with PHP and Drupal, first to develop personal projects,
which then led to a full time Drupal development position at a self-funded startup.
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by lawrence rambert on 16th June 2009
2012 price st, , rahway, , 07065
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by lawrence rambert on 16th June 2009
2012 price st, , rahway, , 07065
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Introduction and Installation 5
What is a CMS and What is Drupal? 5
What is E-Commerce and What can it do for Us? 7
What is Drupal e-Commerce? 7
Our Site 8
Installation 9
Downloading Drupal 10
Installing Drupal 10
Configuring Drupal 13
Administration Theme 13
Clean URLs 14
Date and Time 14
Error Reporting 16
File System 17
Image Toolkit 18
Input Formats 18
Performance 19
Site Information 21
Site Maintenance 22
The Drupal e-Commerce Module 23
Downloading the Module 23
Installing the Modules 24
Playing Together 26
Summary 26
Chapter 2: Getting Started with Drupal 27
Preparing the Content 27
Home Page 28
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Table of Contents
Contact Page 28
Dinosaur Section 29
Museum Section 29
Content Management 30
Creating Content 30
Title and Body 31
Input, Product, and Log 31
Final Page Options 32
Menu Management 33
Default Homepage 34
Creating the Content 35
Home Page 35
Contact Page 36
Dinosaur and Museum Sections 37
Other Content Modules 38
Contact Form 38
Blog 40
Photo Gallery 41
Summary 41
Chapter 3: Planning Your Shop 43
Planning to Sell Online 43
Legal Issues 44
Disability Discrimination 45
Distance Selling 45
Companies Act and Trust 45
Trade Descriptions 46
Spam Laws 46
Privacy Policies and Data Protection 46
General Planning 46
Product Types 47
Product Groupings 47
Product Information 48
Planning Our Shop 48
Product Lineup 49
Sample Product—Shippable Goods 49
Sample Product—Non-Shippable Goods 50
Sample Product—Apparel 51
Getting the Message Across 51
A Picture Says a Thousand Words 52
Equipment 52
Camera Settings 53
Setup 54
[ ii ]
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Table of Contents
Post Processing 55
How Not to Advertise a Product? 56
Example One—Detail 56
Example Two—No Photo 56
Example Three—Spot the Difference? 57
Customer Service 57
Summary 58
Chapter 4: Creating Your Product Catalog 59
Further e-Commerce Configuration 59
Creating Products 61
Creating a Shippable Product 62
The Finished Product 65
Creating a Non-Shippable Product 66
Repair Service 66
Education Information Sheets 67
Creating Apparel 69
Creating the Product 69
Creating Variations 70
The Finished Product 74
Grouping Products 75
Grouping the Products 75
Our Store 76
Product Listings 76
Product Information 76
Adding to the Cart 77
The Shopping Cart 77
Summary 78
Chapter 5: Customers and Staff 79
Users, Roles, and Permissions 79
Roles and Permissions 80
Settings and Rules 81
User Registration Settings 81
User E-Mail Settings 82
Picture Settings 83
Permissions and Taxonomy Access Control 84
What is Taxonomy? 84
Creating Categories 84
Categorizing Content 85
Restricting Access Based on Taxonomy Access Control 86
Customers 87
Customer Roles 87
Role Assignments 88
Reminder: Forcing Customers to be Users 90
[ iii ]
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Table of Contents
Customer Management 91
User Order History 92
Contacting a User 93
Staff 93
Planning 94
Creating Roles 94
Stock Assistant 94
Checkout Manager 95
Creating the users 96
Summary 96
Chapter 6: Branding Your Site 97
Themes 97
Minnelli 98
Marvin 99
Bluemarine 99
Pushbutton 100
Garland 100
Chameleon 101
Customizing the Default Theme 102
Color Scheme 102
Belgian Chocolate Color Set 104
Mediterrano Color Set 104
Shiny Tomato Color Set 105
Toggle Display 105
Logo Image Settings 106
Shortcut Icon Settings 107
The Customized Skin 108
Installing and Managing Themes 109
Installing Themes 109
Managing Themes 110
Creating a Theme 111
Template Files 112
Summary 114
Chapter 7: Checkout and Taking Payments 115
Finalizing the Store Ready for Customers 115
What's Missing? 116
Taking Addresses 116
Taking Payments 116
Let's Try Again 117
How the Checkout Process Works 120
How to Customize the Checkout Process 120
Checkout Screen Order 121
[ iv ]
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