It’s always been known that Drupal is a great choice for e-commerce websites. The cool online stores built with Drupal are a proof of that. However, in Drupal 8’s younger, shy days, described in our interview with the famous drupaler Andypost, the new e-commerce functionality wasn’t fully ready. At that point, it didn’t make sense to build online shops with “the great eight.” Those days are long since gone! On September 20, the long-expected Drupal Commerce 2.0 for Drupal 8 has been released. However, even before the steady release, over 1,500 websites have begun using it.
Drupal Commerce 2.x has so many cool features that it makes you dizzy, like looking at the window display at a luxury store. The recent release candidate 1, release candidate 2 and release candidate 3, with their fresh updates, have become the final steps towards the stable Drupal Commerce 2.0. Now it’s time to celebrate — Commerce 2.x parties are starting across the globe!
Let’s look through some remarkable features of Drupal Commerce 2x, as well as point out a couple of the freshest improvements.
“New arrivals!” or some benefits of Drupal Commerce 2.0
Easier installation: Ludwig as an alternative to Composer
Traditionally, Drupal Commerce 2.0 is installed with Composer, but it is not always easy. Maybe a handy GUI will be built in the near future, but right now, a fresh alternative to Composer has been released by the Commerce creators. Now you can use Ludwig to manually install the required libraries.
Over 30 payment gateways and handy integration
Improved APIs for Drupal Commerce 2.x significantly reduce the web development time for integrating payment gateways. In addition, over 30 special modules make it easy for Drupal 8 e-commerce sites to work with the payment gateways, and all of the modules have been freshly updated and are ready to go!
Which payment systems do you prefer? The choice is as broad as an online store’s product range! PayPal, Authorize.Net, Payplug, Braintree, Square, Stripe, Ingenico, Alipay and Worldline are just the beginning of the list. Other payment methods are also possible like cash on delivery, card on delivery, check, bank transfer and more.
Handy user interfaces are provided for managing payments. To ensure better payment security, there is tokenization support (replacing credit card data with so-called tokens that are useless to trespassers and are handled by the payment provider).
Cool checkouts
On your Drupal 8 online store, you can configure multiple checkout processes for different order types. This includes the number of steps required from the user, the information they have to provide, the possibility to buy with no registration and much more. By the way, for a better user experience, addresses can now be reused for your returning customers.
“Smart” taxes
The right taxes will be automatically included in the product prices. This is due to useful plugins with a whole collection of tax rates, third-party services like Avalara, and the ready logic for using it all. Your online store’s home country, its country of registration, the user’s location, the physical or digital product type and other factors can be taken into account. Configuration options are really flexible.
Multiple stores
Handling multiple e-commerce stores is a breeze now. You can define special settings for each online store (contact information, default currency and more). Cross-selling the same products in different e-shops is also possible.
Products and their variations
You can comfortably create and edit product variations, different by such product attributes as color, size, pattern or whatever. Each product variation has its own machine-readable ID, or SKU. There are great opportunities for inline editing.
And more
Other Drupal Commerce 2.x niceties include an improved UI to create discounts and coupons, better currency management, helpful Twig templates, and so much more.
It’s time to see your e-shop cart bursting with orders!
Well, this has been just a brief review of Drupal Commerce 2.x novelties. Believe us, your shiny, modern, easy to use, and powerful Drupal 8 online store will be capable of absolutely anything! For building one from scratch or adding Drupal Commerce 2.x functionality to your existing Drupal 8 site, contact our web developers.
PS. Attention for the most tech-savvy readers! Much water has passed under the bridge since 08/2016 (the times of Drupal Commerce 2.х beta 1), but we still cannot help offering you this blog post by our developer with instructions on setting up an online store with Drupal Commerce 2.0. Click on it, and take the best from it.
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