I have developed a site over the last 1 1/2 years. It’s first incarnation was in Freeway Pro. I then switched to RapidWeaver and have been using it for about a year now. I found that in many respects it lent itself to quicker development and, as is the case with FW, it has an excellent support community.
And with the development of Stacks 2 for RapidWeaver, it became an even better solution that it had been previously.
However (there’s always a ‘however’ isn’t there), I find that there is still more freedom of design/layout with FW than with RW.
We’re about to embark on a redesign of the site, and I thought that this might be a good time to take another look at FW before starting the new project in RW.
My biggest concern is the online store we have. It works just fine using a RW plugin called RapidCart. It’s a pretty standard store using PayPal or just a credit card depending on the users’ preference and it functions well.
But in addition, we are instituting an office delivery program where the customer enters an order from the same store that’s already set up, that is, the same products and prices, though we have no problem just duplicating those pages if necessary for the “delivery store.”
The main difference here is that the customer doesn’t pay when the order is placed. After placing the order he/she is taken to a page where they fill out a form with personal information and information about where the delivery is to be made. We get a copy of the order as with a normal cart and the customer gets a copy of the order. We also get a copy of the form they filled out after placing the order that has all the particulars for delivery to them.
So I have a few questions for any of the folks in the community who are experienced FW developers and who wouldn’t mind taking a few minutes to look over our site at
http://www.tennesseegrassfed.com.
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Does what I outlined for the store, above, sound doable in FW without an undue amount of bobbing and weaving? I willing, of course to put in all the hours necessary for the project, I just don’t want to bump up against a dead end.
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Are there good, flexible carts/e-commerce solutions available for FW?
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Is it easy to create forms in FW?
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Can someone direct me to a more or less central location where I can get a good overview of actions currently available for FW?
Just want to say thanks in advance for any direction you can give me that would help in making this decision.
Martin
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Hi Martin
You’re probably best looking at combining Mal’s ecommerce and Freeway to build a more comprehensive shop.
Mal’s works between Freeway and a payment gateway (e.g. Paypal) and takes your customers orders, address etc for you before passing the order to Paypal that takes the payment.
Tim does a set Freeway actions over at http://www.freewayactions.com/product.php?id=016 to do this.
This means you have more control over styling of your shop.
As for a central place for actions look over here: http://actionsforge.com/
David
On 7 Apr 2012, at 15:07, “Martin Rice” email@hidden wrote:
Are there good, flexible carts/e-commerce solutions available for FW?
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Thanks for the good leads, as usual, David. I appreciate it.
Martin
On Apr 7, 2012, at 5:49 PM, David Owen wrote:
Hi Martin
You’re probably best looking at combining Mal’s ecommerce and Freeway to build a more comprehensive shop.
Mal’s works between Freeway and a payment gateway (e.g. Paypal) and takes your customers orders, address etc for you before passing the order to Paypal that takes the payment.
Tim does a set Freeway actions over at http://www.freewayactions.com/product.php?id=016 to do this.
This means you have more control over styling of your shop.
As for a central place for actions look over here: http://actionsforge.com/
David
On 7 Apr 2012, at 15:07, “Martin Rice” email@hidden wrote:
Are there good, flexible carts/e-commerce solutions available for FW?
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Can I say that I have noticed an issue with your cart.
I was trying to add multiples of Hanger Steak but after the initial 1 it would not let me add any more.
I didn’t try all your products - just noticed the problem with that one.
David
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Hi, David:
Good catch! The funny thing is that it was set up to only allow 1 Hanger Steak per order because there aren’t many of them. The error was that I neglected to put that into the description in a bold font the way I had intended. Thanks for calling that to my attention.
The store does work fine at this point. It’s the addition of a store that doesn’t collect money and communicates between the customer and us for arranging delivery (payment takes place at delivery) that I’m wrestling with.
Thanks again,
Martin
On Apr 7, 2012, at 7:03 PM, DeltaDave wrote:
Can I say that I have noticed an issue with your cart.
I was trying to add multiples of Hanger Steak but after the initial 1 it would not let me add any more.
I didn’t try all your products - just noticed the problem with that one.
David
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Just had a closer look at RapidCart and it does look quite interesting.
I am sure that they could develop an action for FW if there was enough interest.
The problem with any cart offering is that many people require them to do different things in different ways - as you have discovered - and it is almost impossible to please everyone.
As to creating an ordering method in FW. Sure you can create any number of forms that will do that for you - it is the integration with your RapidCart where the problem lies.
David
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On 7 Apr 2012, at 15:07, Martin Rice wrote:
- Are there good, flexible carts/e-commerce solutions available for FW?
Hi Martin,
I see you’ve been using RapidWeaver, as have I, although my allegiance is now, once again, to Freeway. My current site, which is mainly there in order to sell my books on RapidWeaver, is made with RapidWeaver and uses the Cartloom cart system. I’ve had no problems with it at all and I notice that, as well as the RapidWeaver plugin that I use, Cartloom is actually useable on any site, with any application. They give you code snippets which can, I’m sure, be used in Freeway via HTML or Markup items. I don’t know if it will suit you, and there is a monthly (reasonable) charge, but I thought I’d mention it; it’s well thought out.
best wishes,
Paul Bradforth
Buy my eBooks at:
http://www.paulbradforth.com/books/
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David, what you’ve written here sparked an idea that I think will work for me. Because the office delivery ordering does not go through any payment service, I think I could easily collect the information I need through forms without using RapidCart for this. I’m going to look into this more and start playing around with a quick prototype. And if I decide to go with FW — the way I’m leaning — I wouldn’t have to worry about any of the e-commerce solutions allowing me to do this.
Thanks again for the idea.
Martin
Thanks for the idea.
On Apr 8, 2012, at 7:24 AM, DeltaDave wrote:
Just had a closer look at RapidCart and it does look quite interesting.
I am sure that they could develop an action for FW if there was enough interest.
The problem with any cart offering is that many people require them to do different things in different ways - as you have discovered - and it is almost impossible to please everyone.
As to creating an ordering method in FW. Sure you can create any number of forms that will do that for you - it is the integration with your RapidCart where the problem lies.
David
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Paul, thanks so much for this information. I am leaning toward FW and the idea of using snippets is an appealing one. I will look into it right away.
Regards,
Martin
On Apr 8, 2012, at 7:38 AM, Paul Bradforth wrote:
On 7 Apr 2012, at 15:07, Martin Rice wrote:
- Are there good, flexible carts/e-commerce solutions available for FW?
Hi Martin,
I see you’ve been using RapidWeaver, as have I, although my allegiance is now, once again, to Freeway. My current site, which is mainly there in order to sell my books on RapidWeaver, is made with RapidWeaver and uses the Cartloom cart system. I’ve had no problems with it at all and I notice that, as well as the RapidWeaver plugin that I use, Cartloom is actually useable on any site, with any application. They give you code snippets which can, I’m sure, be used in Freeway via HTML or Markup items. I don’t know if it will suit you, and there is a monthly (reasonable) charge, but I thought I’d mention it; it’s well thought out.
best wishes,
Paul Bradforth
Buy my eBooks at:
Hi, it's ebOOxa
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Another Cart system you could consider for integration with FW is Ecwid http://www.ecwid.com/
I think Thomas has a screencast on setting it up.
D
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Yes, Ecwid is on my list to look at. In fact, in the very first incarnation of the site about a year and a half ago, which was done in FW, I did use Ecwid and it worked well.
Thanks again,
Martin
On Apr 8, 2012, at 1:47 PM, DeltaDave wrote:
Another Cart system you could consider for integration with FW is Ecwid http://www.ecwid.com/
I think Thomas has a screencast on setting it up.
D
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