Pinax e-commerce edition
bobhaugen
see more mentions of a Pinax e-commerce edition.
Does anybody have any more direction in mind for that project?
For example, in this thread,
http://groups.google.com/group/pinax-business/t/415c539b472ef308?hl=en
I suggested some possible definitions of "social e-commerce":
* a single vendor offering items for sale with social features like
reviews, ratings, discussions, etc.
* a multi-vendor site offering items from many sources, like http://www.etsy.com/
(or Amazon, for that matter).
And then, thinking about a multi-vendor site, that could be:
* multiple vendors in the same social environment, or
* a multi-tenant hosted environment where each tenant is separate but
maybe shares some group identity, or
* something more like WebFaction where each vendor could set up their
own webspace with Pinax e-commerce edition installed (maybe actually
hosted by WebFaction), or
* just an e-commerce project like the other example projects where
each potential vendor sets up their own hosting, or
* something else beyond my current imagination.
Each of these possibilities has many obvious and non-obvious
implications for degree of difficulty, etc.
The reason for all my questions is that I will soon start discussions
about an actual multi-vendor social e-commerce project which may
happen next fall or winter. The scope and direction of this project
have yet to be determined. So I would find what other people have in
mind to be very interesting.
Brian Rosner
>
> Does anybody have any more direction in mind for that project?
I haven't been able to spend many brain cycles on this yet. It seems
that we need to define clearly what sort of features we will want to
include. It sounds like one of the best ways to get this started is to
get a sample project up on GitHub. This will help encourage people to
start contributing.
I know you have done some decent leg work in describing some features.
Perhaps we need to discuss them individually on this mailing list.
>
> For example, in this thread,
> http://groups.google.com/group/pinax-business/t/415c539b472ef308?hl=en
> I suggested some possible definitions of "social e-commerce":
>
> * a single vendor offering items for sale with social features like
> reviews, ratings, discussions, etc.
I would imagine this is going to be the most common use case. This is
what we can target the initial project to be based around.
> * a multi-vendor site offering items from many sources, like http://www.etsy.com/
> (or Amazon, for that matter).
I think this will be less likely, but should be considered when
implementing a single vender shop. That way it won't be too hard to
add in or expand out (what we build in initially).
>
> And then, thinking about a multi-vendor site, that could be:
> * multiple vendors in the same social environment, or
> * a multi-tenant hosted environment where each tenant is separate but
> maybe shares some group identity, or
> * something more like WebFaction where each vendor could set up their
> own webspace with Pinax e-commerce edition installed (maybe actually
> hosted by WebFaction), or
> * just an e-commerce project like the other example projects where
> each potential vendor sets up their own hosting, or
> * something else beyond my current imagination.
I see this is going to be pretty specific to how the site developer is
going want to do this. It will likely be outlined in some specs they
get. I'd like to allow as much as possible. Making everything as
flexible as possible giving the site developer a choice of how it
should work.
>
> Each of these possibilities has many obvious and non-obvious
> implications for degree of difficulty, etc.
Very true. I think the initial goal is to keep it simple. Look at
everything in terms of a good Django app and build on things this way.
It should hopefully make everything clearer as features are
implemented.
>
> The reason for all my questions is that I will soon start discussions
> about an actual multi-vendor social e-commerce project which may
> happen next fall or winter. The scope and direction of this project
> have yet to be determined. So I would find what other people have in
> mind to be very interesting.
The idea of a multi-vendor site interests me. My e-commerce site is a
multi-vender, single-vender setup. We sell product from multiple
vendors, but it is all managed by a single vendor (us). I am curious
as to what other people do and how they manage it.
--
Brian Rosner
http://oebfare.com
bobhaugen
> I haven't been able to spend many brain cycles on this yet.
together (or not).
I started thinking about it again when I saw "Pinax e-commerce
edition" on that slide and wondered what anybody had in mind.
> It seems
> that we need to define clearly what sort of features we will want to
> include. It sounds like one of the best ways to get this started is to
> get a sample project up on GitHub. This will help encourage people to
> start contributing.
going.
> I know you have done some decent leg work in describing some features.
> Perhaps we need to discuss them individually on this mailing list.
> > * a single vendor offering items for sale with social features like
> > reviews, ratings, discussions, etc.
>
> I would imagine this is going to be the most common use case. This is
> what we can target the initial project to be based around.
> > * a multi-vendor site offering items from many sources, likehttp://www.etsy.com/
>
> I think this will be less likely, but should be considered when
> implementing a single vender shop. That way it won't be too hard to
> add in or expand out (what we build in initially).
need. For example, a multi-vendor inventory and payment app will be
different from a single-vendor one. But if we make all the apps
pluggable and switchable, we should be able to accomodate some
variations.
> The idea of a multi-vendor site interests me. My e-commerce site is a
> multi-vender, single-vender setup. We sell product from multiple
> vendors, but it is all managed by a single vendor (us). I am curious
> as to what other people do and how they manage it.
organization (an LLC in one case, and a cooperative in the other)
manages distribution for multiple producers. And a single order from
a single customer can include products from more than one producer.
So some of the main features deal with dividing up the payments from
the customers to all of the different producers, while keeping a
percentage for the distribution organization. Similar to yours, one
organization handles the orders from customers. In one case, the LLC
did the physical distribution themselves, in another case the physical
order fulfillment is done by a separate distributor (who also needs to
get paid).
Those are some of the many complications I have run into, but they
also make the software more valuable and essential to the distribution
organization.
I think the multi-vendor project that is coming up in the fall will
work differently: each vendor will have their own presence, but may
make aggregation deals with each other behind the covers. (Or that is
my best guess today. Not a good enough guess to start coding, though.)
Tom Longson (nym)
I would love an etsy style system, but I think going with something that just allows people to add items to a store, and handle a shopping cart would do a lot of damage. If we did that, forking to allow multiple stores wouldn't be a giant leap.
Cheers,
Tom Longson (nym)
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