How to Build a E-commerce Website with Drupal and PHP

Posted on by Panther

How to Build an E-commerce Website with Drupal and PHP

In this tutorial, we will learn how to build an e-commerce website using Drupal, a popular content management system written in PHP. We will cover the basic setup of Drupal, the creation of product listings and categories, and the implementation of a shopping cart functionality.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have the following requirements:

  • A PHP development environment (such as XAMPP or WAMP).
  • Composer installed for managing Drupal dependencies.
  • Basic knowledge of PHP and HTML.

Step 1: Installing Drupal

  1. Download the latest stable release of Drupal from the official website (https://www.drupal.org/download).
  2. Extract the downloaded archive to your local development environment.
  3. Open your terminal or command prompt and navigate to the Drupal root directory.
  4. Run the following command to install the necessary dependencies: 
    composer install
  5. Once the installation process completes, create a new MySQL database for your Drupal site.

Step 2: Setting up the Drupal Site

  1. Rename the default.settings.php file in the /sites/default/ directory to settings.php.

  2. Open the settings.php file and update the database connection details to match your local environment.

    $databases['default']['default'] = array(
 'database' => 'YOUR_DATABASE_NAME',
 'username' => 'YOUR_DATABASE_USERNAME',
 'password' => 'YOUR_DATABASE_PASSWORD',
 'prefix' => '',
 'host' => 'localhost',
 'port' => '3306',
 'namespace' => 'Drupal\Core\Database\Driver\mysql',
 'driver' => 'mysql',
);
  3. In the same file, uncomment and update the base URL setting: 
    $base_url = 'http://localhost'; // Update with your development domain or IP.
  4. Save the settings.php file.

Step 3: Installing Drupal Modules

  1. Log in to your Drupal site using the provided credentials.
  2. Go to the Extend section and install the following modules:
    • Commerce: Provides e-commerce functionality.
    • Views: Allows for the creation of custom product listings and categories.
    • Token: Required by Commerce module for token replacements.
    • Entity: Provides a general entity API for Drupal.
    • Entity reference: Required by Commerce module for entity references.
  3. Enable the installed modules.

Step 4: Creating Product Types and Fields

  1. Go to the Structure section and click on Product types.
  2. Add a new product type and define its basic information, such as the name and description.
  3. Add custom fields to the product type to capture additional information about the products.

Step 5: Creating Product Display Views

  1. Go to the Structure section and click on Views.
  2. Click on “Add view” to create a new view.
  3. Configure the view as follows:
    • Show: Products of the product type you previously created.
    • Display format: Table or Grid (according to your preference).
    • Fields: Add the fields you want to display in the product listings.
  4. Save the view and test it by accessing the provided URL.

Step 6: Creating Product Categories

  1. Go to the Structure section and click on Taxonomy.
  2. Add a new taxonomy vocabulary to define your product categories.
  3. Add terms to the vocabulary to represent each category.
  4. Edit the previously created product type and add a new field for taxonomy term referencing the created categories.

Step 7: Configuring Product Variation Types

  1. Go to the Structure section and click on Product variation types.
  2. Add a new variation type to define the specific attributes of the products, such as color or size.
  3. Add custom fields to the variation type to capture additional variation-related information.

Step 8: Configuring Product Attributes and Variations

  1. Go to the Configuration section and click on Product attributes.
  2. Add new attributes that are unique for each product variation (e.g., color, size).
  3. Associate the attributes with the appropriate variation type and configure their options.

Step 9: Adding Products to the Site

  1. Go to the Content section and click on “Add content” > “Product”.
  2. Fill in the necessary details and select the appropriate category and variation options.
  3. Save the product and verify that it appears in the product listings view created before.

Step 10: Implementing a Shopping Cart

  1. Go to the Extend section and install the “Commerce Cart” module.
  2. Enable the module.
  3. Configure the “Commerce Cart” block to place it in a convenient location within your theme.
  4. Test the shopping cart functionality by adding products to the cart and checking out.

Congratulations! You have successfully built an e-commerce website using Drupal and PHP. This tutorial covered the basic setup of Drupal, the creation of product listings and categories, and the implementation of a shopping cart functionality. Keep in mind that this is just the starting point, and you can further customize and extend your e-commerce site using Drupal’s vast array of modules and themes. Happy coding!

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