A new ecommerce program

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Hibino

166 posts

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#253185 30-Jul-2019 21:45

I was working for a few companies to build public or private web services(websites) for a long time now and some of my friends suggested me to build a ecommerce program that can handle batched stock(well, one grocery store that need expiry date for every stock and few others need batch management in order to comply MPI to sell infant formula), virtual products/services(sell voucher/coupon that can be used in stores), multiple warehouse/stock locations and few other features. They do have tried few ecommerce program on the market but not very satisfying. e.g. the grocery store was using shopify but it does not handle stock well and very complicated creating new invoices as an admin(they use the system to handle in-store sales too), and backend page load speed is not fast enough with few other inconvenience. So, I spend my spare times build this ecommerce program and hoping it can benefit some people who wants a fast, safe and reliable online store.

Here is a detailed introduction:

https://ws.wondershop.co.nz

And here is a demo site:

https://demo.wondershop.co.nz

I am not a designer and color blind so I know the interface might looks ugly, but merchant can just have their own design if they don't like the default template.

I am not too sure if $200/month is too much(no commissions, payment gateway will charge commission though), but comparing to shopify at a certain point their commission will be more than $200 + payment gateway commission.

There are still a lot of features planned but not completed yet, but it is in a working status now so I am thinking to start beta testing. If anyone are interested please let me know and please have your own design, I will not charge for putting your design into templates during the beta.

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts and suggestions, thank you.

Spack2012

14 posts

Geek

#2324381 25-Sep-2019 09:52

Hi there,

Curious to know if you had any interest here?

All the best.

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chewster

127 posts

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#2324493 25-Sep-2019 11:31

There are many many ecom platforms, and I feel if you want to be in the boat-race the bar to reach is incredibly high.

I can see from your first post you've clearly identified a business problem with batched stock/expiry dates and Shopify.

With Shopify though, some detail you've left off - there's literally an app for everything. What are they using for POS in-store? Shopify POS app, Vend POS app or something else? Hopefully not just the website for in-store sales?

Then with the invoicing problem just google "Shopify invoicing app" evaluate some of the competitors. With the batched stock problem google "Shopify inventory management integrations" and evaluate some of the competition.

From a quick 30s search there are COTS solutions for inventory management that handle product expiry + batches if you look at something like Tradegecko. For invoicing if that's what they're after what about just Xero + Shopify, or there are other apps that can do this?

Honestly I'm unsure if you've really evaluated what solutions already exist, and how your platform does it better?

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Hibino

166 posts

Master Geek

#2324906 25-Sep-2019 21:28

Spack2012:

Hi there,

Curious to know if you had any interest here?

All the best.

Nope, no one contact me through geekzone yet.

chewster:

With Shopify though, some detail you've left off - there's literally an app for everything. What are they using for POS in-store? Shopify POS app, Vend POS app or something else? Hopefully not just the website for in-store sales?

Yes, they use the website for in-store sales. Same as a people do in a supermarket just use a barcode scanner scan all the barcodes on the products one by one and click finish button. They also prints out the normal 80mm receipt like you get in a supermarket using a thermal printer, which is generated by the program and output to a PDF file. The only problem is I haven't figure out a way to connect their wireless eftpos machine to the computer so the program can send the final amount to the eftpos machine. currently they have to enter the amount on the eftpos machine manually.

chewster:

Then with the invoicing problem just google "Shopify invoicing app" evaluate some of the competitors. With the batched stock problem google "Shopify inventory management integrations" and evaluate some of the competition.

From a quick 30s search there are COTS solutions for inventory management that handle product expiry + batches if you look at something like Tradegecko. For invoicing if that's what they're after what about just Xero + Shopify, or there are other apps that can do this?

Honestly I'm unsure if you've really evaluated what solutions already exist, and how your platform does it better?

Yes there will be solutions combined with multiple programs just like most open source software(yes I know shopify and xero is not open source, this is just an example) people always say oh yes there is a solution to it just do xxx then xxx then xxx, but why doing this while there is a single program already can handle all these, with the management in one place. And most important is, it runs much faster than shopify, the grocery store is really happy that they don't have to wait 2s+ for every mouse click

michaelmurfy

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#2324918 25-Sep-2019 22:21

For EFTPOS payments look into using the Payment Express terminals. They have a number of integrations to physical pinpads and are very easy to install also requiring a little bit of software on the PC.

I like how quick the store runs and how simple it is too. I do note that your server is exposing additional headers and find it is best practice (especially with a store) to edit and amend the following lines in your /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/security.conf file to the following:

ServerTokens Prod
ServerSignature Off
TraceEnable Off

This will essentially stop your server from exposing version information. You could also benefit from upgrading to Debian 10 and using the latest Apache2 (which has support for HTTP2).

But the best of luck with your startup :)

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hio77

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#2324920 25-Sep-2019 22:31

that's actually really snappy. nicely done.

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jarledb

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#2324937 25-Sep-2019 23:51

Really quick, I am guessing its all pre-rendered static html pages?

One tip: I would never use a lot of money on a product or service from a company with zero contact information. There is none on the site that I could find.

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Hibino

166 posts

Master Geek

#2324938 25-Sep-2019 23:56

michaelmurfy:

For EFTPOS payments look into using the Payment Express terminals. They have a number of integrations to physical pinpads and are very easy to install also requiring a little bit of software on the PC.

I checked with them and yes they are using Payment Express(which supports Alipay and Wechat on EFTPOS machine for Chinese customers). I'll contact Payment Express on their behave to see what PE have to integrate the EFTPOS machine tomorrow.

michaelmurfy:

I like how quick the store runs and how simple it is too. I do note that your server is exposing additional headers and find it is best practice (especially with a store) to edit and amend the following lines in your /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/security.conf file to the following:

ServerTokens Prod
ServerSignature Off
TraceEnable Off

This will essentially stop your server from exposing version information. You could also benefit from upgrading to Debian 10 and using the latest Apache2 (which has support for HTTP2).

Thank you, I have removed the version info from headers.

michaelmurfy:

But the best of luck with your startup :)

hio77:

that's actually really snappy. nicely done.

Thank you so much guys :-)

Hibino

166 posts

Master Geek

#2324939 26-Sep-2019 00:05

jarledb:

Really quick, I am guessing its all pre-rendered static html pages?

One tip: I would never use a lot of money on a product or service from a company with zero contact information. There is none on the site that I could find.

No, all pages are dynamically generated at the moment. There is a 'cache' thing in the program design, but it is not fully implemented(all calls to the 'cahce' will return nothing so program will always generate content) since I haven't figure out a best way to do it and what should be cached yet.

I haven't got any company use contact yet, only my personal mobile and I registered the company at my home address, I am not too sure if I should leave these on the website. I do have @wondershop.co.nz email addresses for this purpose but to prevent it being collected by spam senders I only left a web form for contact :-( Thanks for the advise, I guess I should go and buy a prepay sim and a cheap phone for this then.

jarledb

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#2324941 26-Sep-2019 01:16

Hibino:

I haven't got any company use contact yet, only my personal mobile and I registered the company at my home address, I am not too sure if I should leave these on the website. I do have @wondershop.co.nz email addresses for this purpose but to prevent it being collected by spam senders I only left a web form for contact :-( Thanks for the advise, I guess I should go and buy a prepay sim and a cheap phone for this then.

If you use a service like Google Mail/Google Suite you won't have to worry about spam. They will take care of that part. There are services you can use if you run your own mail server as well.

Regarding the phone number: Another way to do it could be to get a number through a VOIP provider, you can run the VOIP software on your smartphone and have a regular "landline" number for your business. Check 2talk.co.nz which is one of the VOIP providers that its easy to get started with.

Hibino

166 posts

Master Geek

#2325433 26-Sep-2019 16:57

jarledb:

If you use a service like Google Mail/Google Suite you won't have to worry about spam. They will take care of that part. There are services you can use if you run your own mail server as well.

Regarding the phone number: Another way to do it could be to get a number through a VOIP provider, you can run the VOIP software on your smartphone and have a regular "landline" number for your business. Check 2talk.co.nz which is one of the VOIP providers that its easy to get started with.

Thank you mate, I'll check the VOIP out, Cheers :-)