SnipCart Integration / App

  • Just implemented Snip Cart for a basic e-commerce setup. So easy to do and works great! It would be nice to implement into Perch as an app. It is way better then perch shop.


    https://snipcart.com


    Add a Shopping Cart to Any Website

    Add a Shopping Cart to Any Website in Minutes - Snipcart

    Add a shopping cart to your site in minutes. Works with any site builder, CMS, and framework. 20 000+ merchants trust our e-commerce solution for their website. Join them!



    Public API

    https://docs.snipcart.com/v2/javascript-api/public-api



    Rest API

    https://docs.snipcart.com/v3/api-reference/introduction

    When consulted on e-commerce approaches on Perch project over the last 1-2 years, I always suggested Snipcart as an option. Besides the lower debt tech and the resources of those who consulted me, Snipcart's Stripe integration is up to date.


    Quote

    It would be nice to implement into Perch as an app


    Given Runway collections can be used to create the products, what would a Perch app provide in this case? Provide a way to add products via the API instead of just the HTML? Or are you thinking about listing/managing orders/inventory/etc on the Perch control panel?

    Quote from hus_hmd

    When consulted on e-commerce approaches on Perch project over the last 1-2 years, I always suggested Snipcart as an option. Besides the lower debt tech and the resources of those who consulted me, Snipcart's Stripe integration is up to date.



    Given Runway collections can be used to create the products, what would a Perch app provide in this case? Provide a way to add products via the API instead of just the HTML? Or are you thinking about listing/managing orders/inventory/etc on the Perch control panel?

    I would like to see all within the Perch admin and manage all (products, categories, orders, inventory, etc) from there would be fantastic.

  • Personally, I think that the Shop app does do all of the above, but has suffered (along with the rest of Perch) from a lack of development. It's basically still a v1 release. The focus should be on addressing the problems and limitations of the 1st party apps and developing v2 that matches or ideally betters SnipCart.

  • I'd given up on the Perch shop app as it was abandoned by Drew and Rachel. It has a lot of potential though. It's was fiddly to build due to lack of development as ndwl mentioned and incomplete documentation. If the new owners decide to resurrect it that would be ideal. A third party app is the only viable solution at the moment though and Snip Cart seems like a good choice. More integration for it would be pretty cool. Even cooler though would be a working Perch Shop app and some third party apps. To much to hope for maybe?

  • Perch Shop would be more successful in my view if it came with a set of example pages. This way, for many people, it would work, not quite "out of the box", but almost. That way, sites that need a standard shopping cart would use it without too much work. And it can still be customised for sites that need more.

  • One of Perch's main selling points is to allow developers create bespoke websites with ease. While Snipcart allows you to easily add a cart to your site, you do give up some control.


    I don't think a first-party e-commerce add-on is a bad idea. And while I agree that more examples would help developer (as Clive Walker said), I also think some developers in the Perch community generally underestimate what's required to build an e-commerce site with Perch Shop and end up being frustrated as a result. Familiarity with Perch as well as a good understanding of PHP would've made a big difference in those experiences.


    Perch has always given developers a blank canvas more or less. And Perch Shop is no different. It is not a magic solution. You'd still need to understand how to implement and work with:

    • User authentication with Perch Members, account area, basic member forms such as profile and password reset, password reset flow including emails
    • Perch-templated forms
    • HTML forms and what happens when something is submitted
    • How PHP handles form submissions
    • a list/detail pattern (that actually handles 404 for unmatched items; Perch never did this for you)
    • user-filtered lists (forms/links often with dynamic values e.g. categories, and requires understanding filtering in Perch)
    • being able to debug PHP issues
    • and the list goes on...

    I think Perch Shop feels incomplete and lacks in various areas, but I feel people point a lot of blame towards it (and Drew/Rachael) even when they may not have the required skillset to build an e-commerce shop with Perch Shop in the way they envisioned.

  • Don’t be put off from using shop. I’m primarily a designer rather than a developer so if I can put together a fully functioning “shop” then I’m pretty sure anyone can! I’m not saying it was straightforward, however, in reality, it was really no different to using any other aspect of perch with the exception of there being way less documentation and virtually no examples. That said I probably would have given up too had it not been for information gleaned from this forum, and the help and support from Perchology Slack channel community. Yes, there are some irritations and yes it lacks some of the niceties that a more fully developed solution may have, but released into the wild it seems pretty solid and has been running for a year without a hitch. For me, the biggest plus is that you can make it you’re own, fully integrate it with rest of your site’s look and feel without having to make any design compromises with the added bonus of no additional costs. So, I would recommend perseverance, you will be rewarded in the end, and to Perch’s new owners I urge you not to give up on “shop” but to invest some development into releasing its full potential.

    Edited once, last by ndwl ().

    Clive Walker, Mxkert, j-pinder and 2 others like this.

    I’ve set up a Perch Shop and from my experience it was a bit of a slog to get it working. To echo what has already been mentioned - there seemed to be a real lack of documentation and far too many gotchas.


    What I will say is that Perch allows for a really awesome level of customisation. And this is really the only reason I would consider using Perch at all these days in light of the neglect and lack of development.


    Thanks to this extensibility - I was able to use Perch to build a custom Etsy importer app that synced up my clients Etsy shop to Perch shop. I don’t know any other CMS that allows this kind of extensibility. For this reason I feel perch and indeed perch shop still has great potential!

    Unfortunately the lack of Stripe updates in perch shop means more fiddling required with perch shop just to keep it working! (More effort than it’s worth?). At this point i’ve basically forked the perch shop repo and am developing on it myself.

  • I think it's also a cost benefit issue. If you build something complex which pushes you well out of your comfort zone, but you end up with something great at the end the pain is worth it. But after putting yourself through the hurt of building a Perch Shop you were left with something that felt unfinished. And the gradual withdraw of support came not too long after Shop's release. So you were left bruised from a tricky build, with an incomplete product and with increasingly weary support from the Perch team.


    That then further deteriorated into a lot of unexpected work to keep Shop functioning as the Perch team moon walked away from it. The lack of response for things like SCA compliance further spoiled shop's reputation.


    Shop is a bit of a fixer upper but it could be great if the new owners fix it so it's worth the effort of building with it.