E-Commerce and the Minishop2 Ecosystem

How small tool became the start of growth a big marketplace

Ivan Klimchuk, Alroniks Experts

bit.do/modxpo

Ivan Klimchuk

Fullstack web developer
MODXer since 2010
MODX Ambassador in Belarus
MODX Professional
Love MODX and Open Source

MODX Belarus
Alroniks Experts

Required elements of shop

Categories and products: List of categories, list of products, multicategories, sorting by price, list of brands, sorting by brand, related products, product page, rating and reviews...
Cart and orders: Cart block on pages, checkout page, order details, email notifies, chat notifies, statuses of order...
Deliveries: Address details, user details, additional cost depending on sizes, weight, distance, should have ability customize logic...
Payments: Additional cost if laws allow, customisible logic of processing...
Options and characteristics: Abilty define unlimited list of options and characteristics, that can be used for search and filtering...

Minishop. First generation

Released on 28th of Febrary, 2012
as alternative existing VisionCart and Shopkeeper

Categories, multicategories and products
(via system settings and templates)
Warehouses (no more in version 2)
Cart, orders, order statuses
Payment not extensible

Mini Shop 2

Released in a year after first version: 5th of April, 2013
Warehouses was removed
Categories and Products as CRC
Cart, Orders, Statuses was rewritten
Was added Deliveries and Payments, also Gallery
Relations between products, Customisible Options

MODular and eXtendable

Can be extended: Cart, Delivery, Order, Payment
*handler.php

Special MS2 plugins: adding custom fields. MS2 upgrading keeps their in safety

All power of MODX: snippets, plugins, chunks, lexicons and etc.

Approximatly 50 extras in modtore.pro for MiniShop2

Cart handler

			class CustomCartHandler extends msCartHandler 
	implemets msCartInterface {
				public function add($id, $count = 1, $options = array()) {}
				public function remove($key) {}
				public function change($key, $count) {}
				public function clean() {}
				public function status($data = array()) {}
				public function get() {}
				public function set($cart = array()) {}
			}

bit.do/msch

Order handler

			class CustomOrderHandler extends msOrderHandler 
	implements msOrderInterface {
				public function add($key, $value) {}
				public function validate($key, $value) {}
				public function remove($key) {}
				public function get() {}
				public function set(array $order) {}
				public function submit() {}
				public function clean() {}
				public function getCost() {}
			}

bit.do/msoh

Delivery handler

			class CustomDeliveryHandler extends msDeliveryHandler 
	implements msDeliveryInterface {
				public function getCost(msOrderInterface $order, 
		msDelivery $delivery, $cost = 0) {}
				public function error($message = '', $data = array(), 
		$placeholders = array()) {}
				public function success($message = '', $data = array(), 
		$placeholders = array()) {}
			}

bit.do/msdh

Payment handler

			class CustomPaymentHandler extends msPaymentHandler 
	implements msPaymentInterface {
				public function send(msOrder $order) {}
				public function receive(msOrder $order) {}
				public function getCost(msOrderInterface $order, 
		msPayment $payment, $cost = 0) {}
				public function error($message = '', $data = array(), 
		$placeholders = array());
				public function success($message = '', $data = array(), 
		$placeholders = array());
			}

bit.do/msph

Special MS2 plugins

				ALTER TABLE `modx_ms2_products` 
ADD `comment` VARCHAR(255) NULL 
DEFAULT NULL;
				ALTER TABLE `modx_ms2_products` 
ADD INDEX (`comment`);

Special MS2 plugins

			/core/components/miniShop2/plugins/
			/assets/components/miniShop2/plugins/

Comment field plugin

			/core/components/miniShop2/plugins/comment/index.php
			/core/components/miniShop2/plugins/comment/model/msproductdata.map.inc.php
			/assets/components/miniShop2/plugins/comment/msproductdata.js

comment/index.php

			// /core/components/miniShop2/plugins/comment/index.php
			return array(
				'xpdo_meta_map' => array(
				'msProductData' => require_once dirname(__FILE__)
					.'/model/msproductdata.map.inc.php'
				),
				'manager' => array(
					'msProductData' => MODX_ASSETS_URL
						. 'components/minishop2/plugins/comment/msproductdata.js'
				)
			);

			// /core/components/minishop2/plugins/comment/model/msproductdata.map.inc.php		
			return [
				'fields' => ['color' => NULL],
				'fieldMeta' => [
					'comment' => [
						'dbtype' => 'varchar', 'precision' => '255', 'phptype' => 'string',
						'null' => true, 'default' => NULL
					]
				],
				'indexes' => [
					'comment' => [
						'alias' => 'comment', 'primary' => false, 'unique' => false, 'type' => 'BTREE',
						'columns' => ['comment' => ['length' => '', 'collation' => 'A', 'null' => false])
					]
				]
			);

			// /assets/components/minishop2/plugins/comment/msproductdata.js
			miniShop2.plugin.comment = {
				getFields: function(config) {
					return {
						comment: { xtype: 'textfield', fieldLabel: 'Comment' }
					}
				},
				getColumns: function() {
					return {
						comment: { width:50, sortable: false, editor: {
							xtype:'textfield', name: 'comment'}
						}
					}
				}
			};

MODX Power

Current status of MiniShop

Downloaded and installed 4,5k times
Brings money for to owners of shops
Just works!

Mess in releases after attemts develop it by community
Existing code need to refactored
It need documentation

Future of MiniShop. Good news

Coming version 3 (Vasily Naumkin)
Coming big refactoring of code and getting rid of annoying bugs
More APIs for extends
Also hard work on documentation in nearest monthes
English version of docs too

Vasiliy promised anounce version 3 in MODX Meetup Minsk
on 19th December.

Ecosystem

Store vs Marketplace

One developer or team
No way to add extra for sale
Support from team
(best quality)
Quality of extras

Many independent developers
Easy to add own extra
Support from developer, no guarantee
Fee or percent to marketplace owner

Official MODX Repository - market place
modstore.pro

Existing stores

modmore.com - Mark Hamstra and team
extras.io - Adido Team
rstore.pro - Vladimir Grishin
aestore.by - me, wip

I hope in future each store will growth to real marketplace.
It's have to impact, but give awesome results.

History of modstore.pro

Started on 11th of June, 2013
store.simpledream.ru at first
Basically extras from staff - it was like Store
Started activly grow after miniShop2 pl publishing in April of 2013
Every extra developer dreams to do something awesome for modstore.pro

How it works?

Developer send Extra to Store
Store check and validate developer and Extra
Store publish Extra and provide payment tools
After developer provide support to customers throught Store

For paid extras average commision is 30%.
Store guarantee support only for paid extras.

Numbers and dynamic

11/19/2013

34 Extras
1 291 Users
1 944 Sites
9 188 Downloads

11/19/2015

130 Extras
5 477 Users
10 702 Sites
67 000 Downloads

Now: Revenue grew 10 times, mSearch2 still in top, 25 authors

Is it easy?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

How it create?

MODX Packages Repository
Users and Keys manager interface
Content management interface
Support interface and process
Billing interface and process

How it support?

To hire designer for make logos
To hire people for provide support or require support from authors with penalties if not
To hire writer for create descriptions and anounsments
To ask authors publish documentation before package
Or do it by self, of cource

Conclusions

If you want, you can do it!
If you can, just do it!
Think as MODX: modular and extendable
Competition is good, but cooperation is better
Creative freedom!

Contacts

iklimchuk – Twitter
Alroniks – Github

klimchuk.com
ivan@klimchuk.com

Nickname - alroniks