Add-on Early Preview: DragonByte eCommerce

Do you run XPM just now? If so, do you run any add-ons? The importer I’m working on just now only imports from the core.
We use a mulit-vendor add-on that allows us to assign products to other PayPal addresses. We also had been using a category add-on but I think we have since disabled that.
 
We use a mulit-vendor add-on that allows us to assign products to other PayPal addresses. We also had been using a category add-on but I think we have since disabled that.
That's not something I would be able to import from anyway, since the payment profile system in XF2 doesn't allow for assigning different recipients. I'm not sure how it would work with a cart that has multiple products from multiple vendors, the PayPal API is the path to madness so I washed my hands of it.

I have the convenient excuse of "well if XF2's payment profile system doesn't support it, neither do I" :D


Fillip
 
Fair enough :)

My only concern is real-world data, seeing how it's actually used vs how it's used when I'm just testing, although it doesn't hurt to have a wee looksee :)


Fillip
My business partner owns a license to this if you'd like to play around with it as well: https://www.cs-cart.com/

He also has the multivendor setup iirc.

That's not something I would be able to import from anyway, since the payment profile system in XF2 doesn't allow for assigning different recipients. I'm not sure how it would work with a cart that has multiple products from multiple vendors, the PayPal API is the path to madness so I washed my hands of it.

I have the convenient excuse of "well if XF2's payment profile system doesn't support it, neither do I" :D


Fillip
You could do what GrubHub does, and only allow purchase from a specific vendor (bring up a modal warning them), or set it up so that each vendor has their own shopping cart, and they can checkout each shopping cart separately.
 
My business partner owns a license to this if you'd like to play around with it as well: https://www.cs-cart.com/

He also has the multivendor setup iirc.
I'll keep that in mind for when the work begins if I'm ever stuck, thanks :)

You could do what GrubHub does, and only allow purchase from a specific vendor (bring up a modal warning them), or set it up so that each vendor has their own shopping cart, and they can checkout each shopping cart separately.
It's an idea, a little bit user unfriendly though in my opinion.

That being said, it may end up having to be one of those configurations if I do decide to implement it :)


Fillip
 
I'll keep that in mind for when the work begins if I'm ever stuck, thanks :)

It's an idea, a little bit user unfriendly though in my opinion.

That being said, it may end up having to be one of those configurations if I do decide to implement it :)

Fillip

It would support more payment types, as not all payments allow some of the more complex options that Paypal has. It would also allow you to do per-store coupons so that user stores could have deals that are separate from other stores.
 
If I can find it, I have a bunch of documentation and case studies I put together when working with a multi-vendor game platform a while back, just have to sift through years of backups to find it.
 
I have just upgraded to XF v2 and still trying to sort all that out. The full user integration (user registration, login, logout) between XF v1 and CS-Cart works perfectly and I had no issues with it, cost me around $1,500 but I just need to get the XF installation of it upgraded to suit the new XF v2 Addon system. If anyone wants to do that please let me know, it should be very simple to do
 
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Development update: I'm currently in the process of testing the various permissions, and I discovered one logic issue that I feel like I should talk about.

As you may or may not remember from the video, there's currently three tiers of permissions; global (usergroup / user), per-category and per-product. Only certain permissions can be overridden per-product:
  • View products
  • View product images
  • Purchase products
  • Download products
  • Like products
  • Review products
What I wanted to do was set up a permissions hierarchy where permissions could "trickle down" from global to category to product. Sadly, that has proved to be impossible with my current knowledge of XF2 content permissions.
The way content permission checking works is; if there is no per-content permission setting, it inherits from the global scope. There is no functionality for inheriting from another content permission first, which in turn inherits from the global scope.

Therefore, for the permissions listed above, there will be a small logical inconsistency in certain scenarios. For instance, if "view products" is no (global), yes (category) and inherit (product), when viewing products the resulting permission will be no, even though you may expect it to be "yes".
When viewing the category, the resulting permission will be yes although it will not be possible to view any products unless they are also set to "yes".

This shouldn't affect the majority of potential users of this mod, but I know there's some power users watching this thread :)


Beyond that, I've also experimented a little with a design update for the product info page:
gfCUlMt.png


You might immediately ask yourself "why is the pricing info not underneath the short description like in other stores", and my answer would be stop asking so many questions I'm trying to finish this mod! :P
No but seriously though; I wasn't able to figure out the CSS for it, bearing in mind I have to account for mobile browsers as well. I can't go too fancy, after all :P

Lastly, the overlay showing the change log has gotten an action bar with some new features:

zwN8Td0.png


When opening the change log overlay via the "Your Licenses" page (or via the product info page with a valid license key parameter), the link to downloading this update is shown. If the product has a demo version and no license key parameter is found, the link lets you download the "lite" / demo version.

That's everything I have for you right now, now back to testing... yay... so much fun... send help


Fillip
 
Development update: After a few particularly boring days of testing, I've bumped the version string to Beta :D
Very little is new compared to the latest Alpha build, but there are a few changes.


First of all, the "product platforms / product filters" feature has been updated so that the platform versions are clickable when viewed in the front-end:
utmhfry.png

The platform filters are still accessible via the Filters menu of course, this is merely a shortcut. It even works with existing filters such as sort order.


Secondly, for free products, the wording on the product view page has changed:
bBQckGv.png

If there are add-ons available such as Branding Free, it will say "Get free / Purchase add-ons", and if the product itself cost money it will simply say "Purchase".


Lastly, for users with the relevant permission, there is now a "View licenses" link in the member info card and on a member's profile:
q5RBUZn.png

(In the future, there will be less wasted whitespace as a new template modification hook point will be added, so I'll move my modification and update the minimum XF2 version requirement.)


Other than those features, some bugs were fixed:
  • On the product list, the inline mod checkbox had a higher z-index than the Filter drop-down
  • Moving products via the front-end would produce a server error (but would still work)
  • Add-on products would incorrectly be included in the category's product count after moving products via the front-end
  • Filtering options did not display on the filter bar when browsing a category, rather than the store as a whole
  • Eliminated the potential for a database error regarding recalculating "amount spent" after importing
  • Products with the "Is Discountable" option turned off would still count towards automatic (bulk purchase) discounts
  • An empty address book would not show a "You have no addresses" message as intended

For the initial Closed Beta test, I'll aim to keep the number of testers small - too many chefs, and all that - while I work on additional components needed to fully move DBTech over to XF2 :)



Fillip
 
Quick question, would the forum be able to implement a system where a percentage of a sale (from something a member sold) goes to the forum?
 
Quick question, would the forum be able to implement a system where a percentage of a sale (from something a member sold) goes to the forum?
No, as member selling (Classifieds functionality) is not implemented. All sales, regardless of who is listed as the seller, goes to the paypal email address configured in the payment profile.

Because this system uses a shopping cart with XF2's payment profiles, it is not possible to have different parts of the same payment go to multiple different people - payment splitting is not supported by XF2.

Sorry I couldn't bring better news :(


Fillip
 
The video mentions tax, will it support EU VAT on digital downloads, ie VAT MOSS?

I use Taxamo for VAT MOSS reporting and there is a Taxamo plugin for Woocommerece which I'm currently using. If In was to switch to doing ecommerece on my xenforo site I would need to have this (as would many people I'm sure who are selling digital downloads inand/or to EU customers.
 
The video mentions tax, will it support EU VAT on digital downloads, ie VAT MOSS?
You can set any tax rate for any country, but if enabled, it will become a VAT system where it will pull the current rates from an API as well as give customers the option of entering a VRN (VAT ID) to skip paying sales tax :)


Fillip
 
You can set any tax rate for any country, but if enabled, it will become a VAT system where it will pull the current rates from an API as well as give customers the option of entering a VRN (VAT ID) to skip paying sales tax :)

For VAT MOSS it needs to differentiate between physical sales (either no VAT or VAT based on country of sale) and automatic digital downloads (VST based on country of purchase). The Wordpress/Woocommerce Taxamo pluigin does this and also enters the sales in your taxamo account.
 
For VAT MOSS it needs to differentiate between physical sales (either no VAT or VAT based on country of sale) and automatic digital downloads (VST based on country of purchase). The Wordpress/Woocommerce Taxamo pluigin does this and also enters the sales in your taxamo account.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. According to this site: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...pplying-digital-services-to-private-consumers the rules you quote no longer apply as of 1 January 2015. VAT should now always be charged based on the location of the consumer.

For that reason, we require address input for all purchases in order to determine VAT liability.


Fillip
 
Development update: One Month Without Updates Edition

It's been a busy month for me; I realised I had to write a ticket support companion to the eCommerce system before DBTech could work towards updating to XF2. This companion piece won't be released alongside the main eCommerce mod, at least not at first. At the moment it's very janky and makes some sweeping assumptions about your forum structure (it uses threads; prefixes as categories, thread fields as ticket info, with some custom extensions). Maybe I'll be able to clean it up enough in the future, maybe it'll remain bespoke, I don't know yet.

I've also worked on a new DBSEO to XF2 redirect script, which will be released but will be unsupported. More on that will follow once DBTech has actually upgraded to XF2.

Other than that, another point of delay is the fact that I want to run the eCommerce mod for a week or two @ DBTech before releasing it to show you all that it is working and can power a decently sized business :)

I've gotten great feedback from some dedicated testers, and a lot of obscure bugs have been fixed as a result.

I do have a small development update today; this mod now features integration with the Admin Search feature in XF2! You'll be able to search for products, downloads and more by using the regular search box in the XF2 AdminCP.

FrPNxuB.png


Very exciting product names, I know :P

I'll continue to make refinements as we get ever closer to the first public release. Left on my ToDo list is finishing up the Ticket companion mod, writing some custom extensions to eCommerce to do secret DBTech only things that you people don't get to see, then actually upgrade DBTech.

Thank you all for reading and for your support :)


Fillip
 
No, it’s the other way round. The Rules apply from jan 2015
It was my understanding that physical goods were already subject to these rules, is that not the case then?

In either case it's not something I'm too concerned with right now, as the delays in initial release means I'll be releasing the first version with digital purchases only.

The more time passes, the more quirks and difficulties are discovered with the sale of physical goods, so it wouldn't be a good idea to delay the initial release until everything can be worked out.


Fillip
 
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