Laravel for eCommerce: Build Small Store Now and Scale Big Later

Table of Contents

Introduction to Laravel for eCommerce

Laravel for eCommerce – is a one-stop solution that delivers tremendous user experience and builds it at an affordable rate. Besides, Laravel could be your front-end and back-end development framework, so look no other frameworks because Laravel does it all for you.

Do You Know?
An eCommerce application size doesn’t matter, but the page speed does matter. The reason is
• Every additional second of load time prompts the user to abandon it. (source: liveseysolar)
• 11% drop in page views for a one-second delay. (source: envisage)
• 7% lesser chances of conversion due to a one-second delay. (source: envisage)
16% bad user experience due to a one-second delay in page speed. (source: envisage)

Now that you know how even a second delay in page speed would lose customers, let’s understand how to fix it and what more could be done to entice your customers and stay ahead of your competitors.

Laravel for eCommerce Development: Features

I hope you know what Laravel is; let us discuss some specific features related to eCommerce development using Laravel.

🟠 User Management: Customer listing

Adding a user management feature becomes a top priority when building eCommerce platforms. With Laravel, you don’t need to worry about it since it has a built-in authentication system that manages users’ accounts, roles, and permissions.

🟠 Product Catalog

After user management, the second important thing is the product catalog. Since you want to build an eCommerce platform, there would be tons of products for listing. Managing all these, including their description and images, is efficiently possible with Laravel.

🟠 Shopping Cart

User management? – Checked.
Product catalog? – Checked.
Now comes a shopping cart because users landing on your eCommerce site would require a shopping cart to store their products, just like you carry a cart at a departmental store.

🟠 Payment Gateway Integration

Laravel helps integrate a payment gateway into your eCommerce store. It supports different payment methods like Stripe, PayPal, and Braintree.

🟠 Order Management

Order management is another feature wherein Laravel would greatly help. It adds tasks related to order management, like shipping, tracking, and notifications.

🟠 Search & Filter

Laravel enhances the user experience by allowing you to add search and filter options. It helps users quickly search for items rather than exploring each category to find that particular item.

🟠 Analytics & Reporting

An eCommerce website should have analytics and reporting features to monitor user behavior, website performance, and sales reports.

🟠 SEO Optimization

Laravel extends the capacity by enabling URL routine, meta tag management, and canonical URLs. All these elements are necessary to make your eCommerce website SEO-friendly.

🟠 Responsive Design

Be it mobile, tablet, PC, or laptop; your eCommerce website would fit in all screen dimensions when built with Laravel.

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Benefits of Laravel Framework for Online Shopping App Development

Now that you know the features, let us discuss how Laravel would benefit eCommerce application development.

🟠 Faster time to market

Since there are already tons of eCommerce websites live, it’s essential to make eCommerce websites and live them as early as possible. Laravel helps you build your eCommerce apps swifter.

🟠 Manage multiple requests

Managing ample requests is where you can count on Laravel as an eCommerce app owner or developer. Its modular architecture and horizontal scaling support make it easier to handle abundant requests at a time. No matter how much your business expands, Laravel ensures easy scalability.

🟠 End-to-end security

Where there is customer and payment information, there must be high-end security. Laravel prevents SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and cross-site request forgery.

🟠 Integrates third-party apps

For payment gateways, analytics tools, and delivery providers, Laravel integrates third-party applications. It automates development procedures and reduces costs.

🟠 Debugging for swift operations

Firstly, Laravel has built-in error handling and logging capabilities to identify and fix bugs on time. Besides, Laravel also supports unit testing, which makes testing easier and swifter.

🟠 3D experience for users

Laravel even helps you to offer a 3D experience to your customers. It will even make you stay ahead of your competitors. Laravel does this by leveraging libraries and packages, which we will discuss later in the blog.

Popular Laravel eCommerce Packages, Plugins, and Libraries

Laravel is known for its flexibility and robustness for eCommerce websites. Here, developers would be able to know third-party packages and plugins to treat their clients with something innovative. And as discussed in the above point about delivering a 3D experience, hold on for a while, and we will let you know.

🟠 Bagisto

This open-source Laravel Framework helps you with multi-warehouse inventory management, multi-currency support, and SEO optimization.

🟠 Shopaholic

It’s another open-source framework by Laravel that manages products and orders and integrates a payment gateway.

🟠 Voyager

This feature-rich admin panel includes features like user management, media management, and role-based access control.

🟠 Cashier

When you integrate with Stripe subscription billing services, you must require Laravel Cashier. This package makes an easy-to-use interface that works efficiently with Stripe. Besides, it offers invoicing and subscription management, plus payment gateway integration.

🟠 Aimeos

It is a library integrated with PHP code, making it easier to streamline 10,000 orders daily without hassle.

🟠 Spark

You can make eCommerce web apps and websites by leveraging Spark. Moreover, it offers features like subscription billing, user management, and team management.

🟠 Omnipay

It is a simple and efficient package for payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, and Braintree.

🟠 Three.js

It is a JavaScript library that helps developers to create and render 3D graphics in a web browser. Developers can build 3D scenes, models, and animations with the potential tools and features.

🟠 Babylon.js

Like Three.js, Babylon.js is a JavaScript framework that helps build 3D applications. This framework offers a 3D, animation, and physics engine, allowing developers to create 3D experiences.

🟠 A-Frame

A-Frame is a web framework that delivers impressive virtual reality experiences through HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

How to build an eCommerce Website Using Laravel?

As you know why Laravel would be the best fit for your eCommerce website or application idea, let us discuss what it takes to build an eCommerce website.

An eCommerce website creation process is divided into seven steps. So, let’s discuss each one of them.

🟠 Ideation Process

Firstly, the business goals and target audiences are discussed in the meeting with the client. Besides, we also list what features client(s) want to add to their eCommerce website. The technology stack and the team’s experience building eCommerce platforms are also gathered.

🟠 User Interface Design

Once the requirements, technology stack, and team are organized, it’s time to build wireframes and prototypes to check for the look and feel of the website. It even includes layout, color schema, and typography.

🟠 Database & Model Designing

The database and schema models are created for the website. With the help of Laravel’s Object Relational Mapping (ORM) system, which is named Eloquent, it is easier to develop and organize database tables and relationships.

🟠 eCommerce Feature Development

Now that the wireframe and prototype are created, it’s time to start developing a range of eCommerce features like

• Product management.
• Shopping cart,
• Order management,
• Payment gateway integration.

Comprehending all these features in your eCommerce website requires packages and plugins. Laravel offers different packages and tools to leverage to build features for your eCommerce application.

🟠 Integrating Third-Party Services

When building an eCommerce platform, it is essential to integrate third-party services like analytics, social media channels, and marketing tools. For integration, Laravel allows users to leverage Mailgun & Google Analytics.

Testing

Once the eCommerce website is built, we perform testing. The testing process includes functional, performance, and security testing.

• Functional testing: ensuring all the features work efficiently
• Performance testing: ensuring the app or website is responsive and agile
• Security testing: assuring all the security checks are active

🟠 Deployment

It is the last step; since it involves deploying a website onto a production server. It also includes implementing a web server, configuring servers, and deploying website code to the client server.

5 Popular eCommerce Websites Built Using Laravel

Now that you know what packages and plugins are required, let’s discuss which popular eCommerce websites are built using Laravel.

🟠 Snipcart

A fully personalized shopping cart platform that has leveraged Laravel to build it.

🟠 TastyIgniter

It is a platform for restaurant ordering and management using Laravel for app development. It contains table reservation, order, and menu management.

🟠 AvoRed

It offers features like product, order management, and payment gateway integration.

🟠 Shopist

It is an eCommerce channel that enables features such as product reviews, comparison, and multi-language support.

🟠 Flavors

This one enables inventory and order management along with payment gateway integration.

Conclusion

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Does Laravel offer a 3D experience?

Yes, our adroit Laravel professionals would leverage libraries like three.js, babylon.js, or A-frame to deliver a 3D experience on your eCommerce website. Developers create 3D animations and models to integrate into the eCommerce media using these libraries.

Can you integrate Laravel with third-party services?

Yes, our developers would integrate Laravel with third-party services for you. It includes a payment gateway, email marketing, social media, tracking tools, etc.

Laravel vs. Magento – Which one is a better PHP Framework for eCommerce Development?

Laravel is the modern web framework; unlike Magento, it does not use traditional AQL scripting. Being the most preferred PHP framework, it follows syntax with ORM. All these make Laravel the most preferred framework in the industry.

Which one is considered the best Laravel eCommerce channel?

We strongly believe, and it is highly recommended, to use Aimeos as an essential Laravel package. This package will let you create

• Shopping cart
• Multilingual support
• Personalized themes
• SEO-friendliness

Which is better: Laravel or Django?

Django is famous for its agility, scalability, and maintainability. On the other hand, Laravel has an easy learning curve along with strategy infusion. Laravel will be a great fit if you want minimal time-to-market without errors or bugs.