[Trellis-developers] ecommerce

[James M. Carlos]

I agree that ecommerce may not be a necessity to the Trellis software, 
and yes it is necessary to explore how easy it would be to integrate 
with 3rd party ecommerce software. I don't think there is a standard 
communication protocol that can be used between an LMS and shopping 
cart, but that would be the nicest solution.

The ideal solution would be something like what paypal offers where the 
shopping cart is entirely run by them. Maybe we can use that as a model?


James Carlos
The Learning Network
www.learning.net
510.764.1796
james at learning.net



Shaddy Zeineddine wrote:
> Ecommerce is still a lacking area of Trellis. The truth is that most
> current and future clients do not have a need for ecommerce in their
> learning center so it hasn't been a priority. For these reasons, it is
> hard to justify the inclusion of ecommerce in trellis as a core feature.
>
> I think we should consider taking an existing ecommerce solution and
> integrating it with trellis through a plugin. I know James is somewhat
> familiar with ZenCart (oscommerce branch), and I was happy to hear the
> latest version will require php 5.2 (just like us). I have not looked
> into integration very much, but it is something to consider.
>
> Basically the plugin will need to provide the methods we would use to
> complete transactions without needing the zencart user interface, we can
> also forward users to zencart for purchasing and sync our catalog with
> zencart. This would probably mean management of ecommerce would be done
> using zencart, administrators can be forwarded to the interface and user
> accounts can be auto generated from trellis. We can customize the look
> to match our admin site, it doesnt have to be an exact match, but it
> should feel familiar.
>
> If we can integrate trellis with a third party ecommerce program, it
> will be easy to offer advanced functionality to our clients who request
> it. And for the rest, we will have one less chunk of code to worry about.
>
> Any thoughts?
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