Chapter 15. Building a Storefront

In This Chapter

  • Creating product listings

  • Organizing products into catalogs

  • Accepting online payments

  • Keeping track of orders

If you need to sell products online, the Ubercart module is an easy-to-use, robust option. You can have your items online in minutes, complete with a shopping cart and an online order form that collects the necessary customer information. Additional modules allow you to add more robust product listings, automatically figure sales tax, and of course, accept credit cards.

In this chapter, I discuss the parts of an online storefront. You learn about Ubercart and how to install it. Then I show you how to build and customize your own storefront, fetch order information, enhance your product listings, and finally how to accept payments.

Understanding Storefronts

At their most basic, storefronts are made up of products for sale, a shopping cart, and some form for a customer to provide information and purchase items in his cart:

  • Product listings: An individual page with product information and a button for the shopper to click to add an item to his cart.

  • Shopping cart: A form that displays all the products a user has clicked on to purchase.

  • Order form: A form the shopper fills out to finish making his order. It collects information and saves it for processing.

Figure 15-1 shows a basic storefront with product listings.

Basic Drupal product listings.

Figure 15.1. Basic Drupal ...

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