I would be ever so grateful for your comments and feedback. Please don’t hesitate to post it here or PM me, positive or not so, as your opinion is of value and may help us better shape this product in the future.
P.S. Should you be willing to also take a look at the source code - it is available from the TrueLoaded.com website, just press the “Download” button and follow the instructions.
I usually dont do reviews, but this one is really worth it.
This eCommerce app looks really great & promising. Has very nice design, large set of functionalities (backend), is very fast and seems to be flexible for usage to sell into multiple countries - localisation support, tax zones/rates, shipping options etc.
I guess you have invested thousands of hours into development - this app is not one-man pretty-shitty application, like I’ve seen so many others. I also like assumed business model
FREE community edition
and paid PRO version with advanced features.
Many other platforms do it this way. Once stable, perhaps you might provide it as a cloud (SAAS) …
So here are my remarks:
Frontend
very sexy, well organized
top menu with product could be higher (greater height)
currently showing 12 categories - what if there are 50 cats? Submenu widget might suit.
comparing the attributes - looks pretty simple ATM
adding user reviews directly under the product - nice tool!
social login not available (only empty title ATM) - I reckon this will come in the future … ?
more filtering parameters would be nice, currently only “by brand”
missing WATCHDOG function - e.g. follow if item will be a) available again or b) price falls under XXX USD and send notification email to me - quite common function
checkout - there is placeholder “##NAVBAR_TITLE##” - missing replacement
asking about the age is somewhat strange - perhaps if selling porn ? and then asking about the date of birth - whatfor … ? I checked I am under 18 and inserted date of birth 1954 - i was allowed to continue, perhaps improve the validation.
templating/theming/skinning here might be a challenge here. It would be great to provide some basic tutorial or supply 2-3 templates along with basic installation to choose from. Templating e.g. is killing Oxid shop, which otherwise quite a nice platform, has very difficult and costy to create new custom themes.
Backend:
astonishing number of features, quite well organized in spite of complexity
dashboard - looks nice, but perhaps it would be useful to allow configuring like widgets - just suggestion. Also I am not sure about performance if there are hundred thousands of purchases - making query for TODAY-WEEK-MONTH-YEAR-ALL TIME might be database killer …
usage and flexibility might be only tested over time - shipping optins may differ from country to country …
reports - one picture is worth 1000 words. Put charts at the top and allow date range filter.
marketing tools - coupons, vouchers, featured products, banner manager, promotion actions, newsletter, chat … WAW & COOL if it works properly!
Summary:
This is one of the best and most promising eCommerce platforms I have seen in a long time.
Keep it up, guys!
Many thanks for your feedback, and happy to see you liked TrueLoaded.
We will definitely use some of the recommendations to improve it further!
Currently there are about 100 sites using this platform, however more are coming, and we are always happy to invite web developers (especially YII developers) and web designers to use TrueLoaded in their own projects.
In fact, should any of the YII developers want to use the full version - they can get it from us free of charge (for the time being, as Beta) in return for their detailed comments about the front and back end, and the code too.
I’ve put some of my comments below, I hope this will be of help:
menus - it is possible to manage and edit menus in the back end, under Design and CMS. There it is possible to organise menus of categories and also other site links (or custom links). Then it is possible to position the menus anywhere on any page using the Designer.
multi level menus - it is a feature of the menu widget, just one of its many options. Here on this site it is possible to see how it works https://www.laportadeisapori.it
attributes - thanks, it is indeed quite easy to add new and also add combinations of attribute values (like Red L-size t-shirt, for example) to create variants (each with its own SKU, stock, etc)
there is a feature there called Properties, which is used to describe product’s technical descriptions. This is then used to AUTOMATICALLY create dynamic filters, like, for example, on this site https://www.laserjet.co.uk/ where properties from direct from HP
social login - this is set up on a per-Front end level. In the back end, it is possible to choose the front end, and then enable or disable this feature
Watchdog - nice idea, will look into this!
will check the checkout text thing, but generally it is all editable under Design and CMS / Translation
age - it is the GDPR thing - had to add it earlier this year. Will check the situation you describe, thanks!
templates - indeed, the intention is to not only supply it with several templates, but also invite web designers to create templates; it is now possible to import and export templates, and we have discussed it with the likes of Template Monster as well.
how many developers did work on this application and for how long, if it’s not a secret?
what will you do when Yii3+ goes out? Migrate?
I have noticed one thing - correct me if I am wrong:
It seems to me, that processing new orders is implemented synchronnously (?) When I clicked “Send order” it took about 10 secs to process - it’s too long. If there would be 5 other orders at the same time, the last order might have need to wait perhaps 1-2 minutes to complete. Processing new order should be done in 2 steps:
synchronnously (quickly) accept new order - meaning just insert new order into DB just show “Thank you”,
asynchronnously execute business logic in a separate process (cron/queue) - send emails, generate documents etc…
Hi all! Please press the Download free demo button on the main page in the top. It’ll point to the free version product page. Please follow the steps to place that free “order” and it’ll email the link.
This has not been put to GitHub yet, still working on it. However, is you “place” a free order on the www.TrueLoaded.com site and then receive an email with the link, click the link and it will get you to the Download page.
Guys, we are NOT collecting emails to spam or anything, but just using TrueLoaded to allow people to get its free copy.
and then asking about the date of birth - whatfor … ? I checked I am under 18 and inserted date of birth 1954 - i was allowed to continue, perhaps improve the validation.