nopCommerce 2.10 roadmap. Let's discuss.

mcselasvegas wrote:

Oliver, I've already done this. The format is productname-[imagesize].[ext]. Most logic is wrapped up in a single simple control, decoupled from the UI; it could be easily ported to MVC. Take a look at my site in the signature. It's too difficult to merge the code in using a diff tool. If you are interested PM me.

I think the following things (from the roadmap list) are MUST for 2.1 version:

- Facebook, Open ID, Live ID membership integration
- Mobile devices support (iPhone / Android / Tables)
- CMS plugins support (widgets)
- Performance optimization

In addition to that, I would like to say that e-commerce features should not be neglected in current or future versions because after-all nopCommerce is an e-commerce solution. I can see few small important things were dropped in 2.0 version.

Here, I am not going to mention the other features that are required in nopCommerce (in future versions) because the list of requirement(s) will always be endless (for any project). Along with that, if we keep on asking for more n more features from nop Team, it will delay the launch date of next release (in this case: nopCommerce 2.1). I think beginning of Oct is the perfect time because 2-3 months is an average time for any open-source project (for the next release).

It seems like few people (here) want eBay integration because they want to sell their products on eBay.

Many people like eBay but they should be aware of the disadvantages too:

Profit Loss
EBay charges its sellers a listing fee, final value fee and additional fees to enhance your listing's visibility such as additional pictures, subtitle fees and borders. Further, eBay uses Paypal, which is owned by eBay, as its only method of payment. Paypal charges the sellers fees for each transaction. All these fees can discourage sellers, particularly when they cut into their bottom dollar.


Scam Rate
Not all sellers are honest--on eBay this is no exception. If a buyer encounters a fraudulent seller, it can take months for him to get a refund, especially if he has to wait for Paypal to arbitrate the dispute. Buyers can be scheming, interchanging good electronics parts for defective parts while claiming the seller sold them a malfunctioning part. Phishing schemes are also frequent--users receive false emails stating that their eBay account will be suspended, directing them to a fake login page. Once the user logs in, his login data and eBay identity are susceptible to theft.


Customer Service
EBay's forums are usually censored; therefore, users who are dissatisfied with the company's undesirable policies or with any problems they have encountered cannot voice their opinions though this medium. The communication is lacking; users receive automated email responses because a direct communication link is not established.


Competition
The market of many of the products on eBay (e.g. electronics) is saturated, resulting in high competition. If there are many other sellers for these items, you may have to lower your price considerably to get it sold. Most likely, you will not make a make a profit or break even. Further, the majority of purchasers on eBay are looking for bargains. Consequently, buyers with expensive items have fewer customers.


Keyword Policy
EBay has a strict keyword policy. For higher ranking, sellers and buyers have to use the appropriate keywords when listing or searching for items. New buyers and sellers who are not understanding of this tight keyword policy may use the wrong keywords, resulting in lower search rankings.

abcd_12345 wrote:


None of these I see as important, except:
4 - Performance optimization
Why is it important? Because it increases search engine ranking because Google considers speed in rating a sites quality.

Unimportant items:
1 - Facebook, Open ID, Live ID membership integration
Why is this even on the list? Be mindful that people on codeplex are generally developers, not necessarily users of nopCommerce. As someone who uses nopCommerce for business, I don't care if they have to register using nopCommerce.

2 - Mobile devices support (iPhone / Android / Tables)
nopCommerce can already be viewed on most Mobile Devices

3 - CMS plugins support (widgets)
I need a better explanation on this. CMS plugin support is too broad. Do you mean the ability to plug in other CMS Content Management Systems like .NET Nuke or Joomla?


5 - Fix Google Base/Shopping and Add Bing Shopping
Currently, Google Base doesn't work and the fequencies are not set up right.

6 - Facebook Open Graph and Google +1 Support to product pages
Increase visibility of product pages and the site

wxDevelopment wrote:

wxDevelopment wrote:

You never said that - but what I was doing, clearly too subtly, was drawing a parallel. To publish data to Google Shopping, you are integrating to that, either through a data feed or the api. The parallel to eBay is precisely the same, you are integrating via an API.

In your second point, you have hit exactly the nail on the head.. - What is the platform??????

Not wanting to put further pressure on Andrei, but I think a specification or statement as to what constitutes NopCommerce as a platform, and what should be plugins, might help, that way, people know where they stand.

If your suggesting ebay intergration etc should be developed by the community as plugins - fine. Then we need a webservices API which that plugin will sit on. That is more important than Windows Azure support.

But I again reiterate my point, multi-channel ecommerce is a signifcant aspect to the success of any online retailer. After all, there are only 10places on the first page of google, yahoo etc. So you need mechanisms by which you can advertise to other sellers, in other marketplaces.

You state that you are just working on nopCommerce - that would appear to be a slightly blinkered view. Ignoring what other platforms offer, to me, is a receipe for disaster. I am not saying solely building what the competition does, but I am saying, that we need to look at what events are going on in the eCommerce community, and decided to act accordingly. Which is why I look at magento and the developments involving eBay. This I feel is a highly significant development in the eCommerce sector.

For example, I have a client, that wants to sell on eBay. Why - because it gives him a massive marketplace to sell to. He says he would like this integrating into the back-end. As one solution. This seems sensible. When asked if he wants multi-store or eBay integration its eBay integration. Because it gives him a marketplace where people may only buy on eBay. That at the end of the day, is what being an online retailer is all about.

I believe in one integrated platform,  and this is where we have the stalemate, because our views of what constitues the platform differ.

techwarrior

breakskater wrote:

If you don't care about the registration process, it doesn't mean that other people or store owners don't. If you don't care about your store customers who are spending too much time on the registration process then I guess it's your personal choice or opinion or preference.

I think you don't understand the advantages of OpenID.

Most websites ask for an extended, repetitive amount of information in order to use their application. OpenID accelerates that process by allowing you to sign in to websites with a single click. Basic profile information (such as your name, birth date and location) can be stored through your OpenID and used to pre-populate registration forms, so you spend more time engaging with a website and less time filling out registration pages.

Most web users struggle to remember the multiple username and password combinations required to sign in to each of their favorite websites, and the password recovery process can be tedious. But using the same password at each of your favorite websites poses a security risk. With OpenID, you can use a single, existing account (from providers like Google, Yahoo, AOL or your own blog) to sign in to thousands of websites without ever needing to create another username and password. OpenID is the safer and easier method to joining new sites.

By this, if you have multiple stores, your online customers don't have to get registered with each website. They can just use OpenID.

For more information: http://nopcommerce.codeplex.com/workitem/7699

If this information is not enough to convince you or make you understand the advantages of OpenID then spend some time on google and take a look at the statistics that how many websites are using OpenID these days.

breakskater wrote:

Once again I would like to mention - I think you don't understand the advantages of "Mobile devices support".

Improved User Experience
Mobile websites are specifically designed for handheld devices - nobody wants to browse a desktop website on their smartphone.

Faster Download Speed
Mobile websites are specifically designed for mobile standards and optimal download speed, which means less waiting and more browsing.

Engagement and Context
A mobile website allows you to immediately engage users with mobile-specific features such as click-to-call, mapping functions. Furthermore, if you're a local business mobile is particularly significant as more and more visitors will find your site through location-aware technology that connects users to your website when they are in immediate geographic proximity.

Improved Search/SEO performance
A mobile website provides improved rankings on mobile-friendly search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and also allows placement in a growing number of mobile and local directories.

Research on mobile website usability shows that mobile-optimized websites significantly improve user experience and satisfaction, which makes a positive impression when it counts.

breakskater wrote:
Please see this: http://nopcommerce.codeplex.com/workitem/9073


I hope I answered your question(s) in detail.

abcd_12345

PERFECT speech !!!

abcd_12345 wrote:

I've reviewed your explanation about OpenID, and, although it does save the customer time during a one time registration, I don't believe it is more important than getting customers to you in the first place. I would rather have more customers, than save them a couple minutes filling out a simple registration form.

Wouldn't you agree?

abcd_12345 wrote:

This still doesn't take presedence over getting customers. It's more of an ammenity; getting customers is a necessity.

Shouldn't features that don't work be prioritized higher, especially if they bring in more customers like #5:

5 - Fix Google Base/Shopping and Add Bing Shopping
Currently, Google Base doesn't work and the fequencies are not set up right.

This will also generate more customers:

6 - Facebook Open Graph and Google +1 Support to product pages
Increase visibility of product pages and the site

Right now, I'm for anything that will increase the number of customers to nopCommerce store fronts.

Thanks for considering my methodology for prioritization.

breakskater wrote:

Maybe this is naive because I've not looked at that section of code in detail, or maybe I'm missing something, but I would think this should be easy to do.  The displayed image comes from a cached copy generated in folder ...\Content\Images\Thumbs.  I would think the code update would just be a change in the name of the generated file.
(and then I wonder, does this cache ever get cleared, and if not, that's a whole lot of diskspace eventually, so what's the point of storing image in DB? :)
(I think this discussion should move to a new thread)

abcd_12345 wrote:

So CMS Plugins is described as
  ... able to create plugins which can display some info in public store in certain areas ...
  ... allow developers to display any HTML block where they want. ...

At the risk of being naive again...
(because I've not looked at plugin architecture, and am not an MVC guru, but...)
Why isn't this just adding html helper something like:

namespace Nop.Web.Framework
{
    public static class HtmlExtensions
    {
        public static MvcHtmlString RenderPlugin(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string plugin, object pluginParameters)
        {
            string html = //  ! do something to call plugin that returns html !
            return MvcHtmlString.Create(html);
        }

And developers can create plugins that return html, and which could then be called in any View

...
    @Html.RenderPlugin(...

New York wrote:

The image isn't stored in the database unless configured that way. It's better to have images stored on the file system, so they will have Canonical urls; or, if possible, stream it using a Canonical url or url rewritting mechanism of some sort.

The way I did it was to store the filename which could change (i.e. Update a Product's, Category's, Manufacturer's Name) and you also have to take SEO Names into consideration (i.e. it's slightly better to use a hyphen rather than an underscore) and numbers are better to be left on the end (this SEO enhancement still needs to be implemented with 2.0). A lot of thought went into the control that generates the different size images. It isn't as straight forward as you might think, especially since the old image logic was sprinkled throughout numerous codebehind files and not encapulated in a central place. Plus, you have to wire it all up to work with Manufacturer, Category, Avatar, and other images, and you must take into account additional photos. If your interested, PM me and we can discuss it off of this thread.