The Multiverse Marketplace Progress Report

Hi guys,

I've started developing the new Multiverse Marketplace, and I will be using this sticky as a way to let you know how it's going.

Here's what I've been working on so far.


- Overall website template: I've been using Wordpress as the site software, because it's easy to adapt, and makes it easy for sellers to post their products (just so long as you abide by the post template, which will be included in every post.)

- Basic Product template: As I mentioned above, there will be a template for the posts, so that everything looks more uniform. I'll make sure the uploading process is nice and simple!

- Product Categories: So far, I have the following categories:

• 3D Models
  -----Architecture
  -----Characters
  -----Vegetation
  -----Materials
  -----Props
  -----Weapons & Armour
  
  
• Code
  -----MARS
  -----Python
  -----Java
  (With the coding section, I'm not entirely sure how to split things up, or whether I even need to anyway - any suggestions? The aim of the Coding section will be for sellers to give away/sell snippets or plugins, things like that)
  
  
• Tools
  As of yet, I haven't created any sub-categories, as I'm not sure what kind of things people will be able to come up with. This will remain closed for the moment, until I get an idea of what will go in here. (Unless anyone has any suggestions?)
  

Other than that, I've added our Twitter feed to the bottom of the page (@MultiverseMMO, for those who haven't started following us yet!)


My main problem at the moment is sorting out the product listings in the categories. I just need to work out a way to change the layout of the listings, so that they look nice.

The next thing I will tackle is the financial aspect. At the moment, in order to sell your products, there is a chance that you will have to sort out the payment and delivery (electronic) of your products by yourself. However, I believe PayPal have their own system of electronic delivery. The only option I can think of at the moment is to use some actual eCommerce software, but that would become incredibly complicated, especially with the multiple sellers and payment details.
I shall continue looking into this, but I may have to resort to buying some sort of Multi-Seller plugin, which won't be particularly cheap!


I update you again once I've made some good progress.

Tristan

Just a quick update on the Marketplace.


I was originally using WordPress, but it was far more complicated to implement any sort of eCommerce store than I originally thought. It's much better suited to good old blogs!

So, I've moved the marketplace over to the PrestaShop platform, which I have a good amount of experience with (having run an online store for a few years until recently, with PrestaShop!)

At the moment, it's looking much better, and the individual seller part of the project is almost complete. I just need to ensure that they can only see products they've added, and I might be able to implement a statistics system, so they can see how their sales are etc.

The actual product pages need a bit of tweaking, and the category and product listing layouts need some moving around as well.

My next big challenge will be to work out the overall payment system. At the moment, we may have to set up a central PayPal account, and then forward the payment (after taking our admin fee cut ) to their own PayPal account. However, I'd like to somehow sort it so that they get it automatically.
If that fails, we'll do what TurboSquid does, and hold the payment until the end of each month or week. This depends on how easy it would be to set up.


Otherwise, I just need to sort out the CSS, and it'll be more or else ready to go!

Oh, and I'll need to write up all the legal documents


I'll let you all know once I'm nearing completion.

(Note: If there's anyone who'd like to help out with the day-to-day running of the Marketplace, I'd appreciate the help. It wouldn't be much work, I'll just need someone to help me approve products, before they go live.)

Tristan,

Have you considered Magento ? You should check them out.

Shane

Tristan wrote:

Just a quick update on the Marketplace.


I was originally using WordPress, but it was far more complicated to implement any sort of eCommerce store than I originally thought. It's much better suited to good old blogs!

So, I've moved the marketplace over to the PrestaShop platform, which I have a good amount of experience with (having run an online store for a few years until recently, with PrestaShop!)

At the moment, it's looking much better, and the individual seller part of the project is almost complete. I just need to ensure that they can only see products they've added, and I might be able to implement a statistics system, so they can see how their sales are etc.

The actual product pages need a bit of tweaking, and the category and product listing layouts need some moving around as well.

My next big challenge will be to work out the overall payment system. At the moment, we may have to set up a central PayPal account, and then forward the payment (after taking our admin fee cut ) to their own PayPal account. However, I'd like to somehow sort it so that they get it automatically.
If that fails, we'll do what TurboSquid does, and hold the payment until the end of each month or week. This depends on how easy it would be to set up.


Otherwise, I just need to sort out the CSS, and it'll be more or else ready to go!

Oh, and I'll need to write up all the legal documents


I'll let you all know once I'm nearing completion.

(Note: If there's anyone who'd like to help out with the day-to-day running of the Marketplace, I'd appreciate the help. It wouldn't be much work, I'll just need someone to help me approve products, before they go live.)

Yes, I did consider using Magento, but I ended up using PrestaShop, as I have more experience with it.

When the marketplace is set up, I will reinstall multiverse and try to get everything running again.

gabzo wrote:

When the marketplace is set up, I will reinstall multiverse and try to get everything running again.

What do you mean?

Started working on a virtual world but I couldn`t get the basics started, so I decided I will wait for the marketplace to get set up and ready and then I will reinstall everything and start anew.

I see...


Well, despite me saying it was nearly complete, I've realised I need to make a lot of changes to the base layout, so it won't be ready for another month or so...

no worries. I will wait. I would like to see this Open Source become developed. I hope it will eventually beat the leading paid products.

I am wondering... How is the marketplace going?

I am currently going to have more time to devote so if you need help with anything, (as long as it doesn't take art skills or anything greater than basic coding skills), I am willing to help....

As a composer, I'd consider putting up my music in the Market Place assuming there's a catagory for it and I agree to the terms. I think it would be beneficial to add music w/ subcatagories similar to Unity. Definitely something to consider to increase cashflow, assuming the user base is large enough. I plan on coming back to see how things progress :-)

Peter
www.bonixmusic.com

Hi guys,

So far, I've been unable to find a free/open source eCommerce solution that supports multiple vendors.
There are some, but they cost $200+ for a simple software solution.

If anyone is able to come up with a viable solution, I'd be interested to hear it!

Tristan

A lot of this is new to me.... but paypal makes it seem simple:

https://merchant.paypal.com/cms_content/CA/en_US/files/merchant/PP_ExpressCheckout_IntegrationGuide_DG.pdf

https://merchant.paypal.com/ca/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=merchant/digital_goods&nav=2.1.7

(note: I have no idea on the difficulty level)
but maybe someone with more experience can do this. Why make something fancy if we can make something simple to start.
As for layout I'm sure we can make something simple, and we can add it on to the site manually, it would be good because we can review some of the products to ensure they meet our guidelines, and we can do that until we can afford a better system.

I found a Joomla module called VMVendor. This allows multi vendor support and many other features we are looking for. I will be reading up on its viability before we make a purchase.

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension-specific/virtuemart-extensions/virtuemart-uploads/8239

is that the module?

well it's not too expensive. Does Multiverse have the funds for it?

No.. this one http://www.nordmograph.com/en/vmvendor.html
Yes we have the funds for the basic module. However, I want to read through some docs to ensure it will work.

They're the same software, but yes it looks good and if it really seems good, I am exited to see it come to multiverse

Seems pretty reasonable. The price doesn't look like a huge risk.

Would this not require that you move the forums to community builder for Joomla? Or would you build a seperate site from the forums?

The plan is an entirely new site running on joomla and community builder using kunena forums with alpha user points and virtue mart with multi vendor support all integrated with single login linked to the media wiki. Most is already setup on our new joomla site. but need to work out the rest of the look/feel template and details within each subsystem.

Sounds nice... anything that moves the Marketplace closer sounds nice to me

So will the current forum content be migrated with the importer/scripts, dumped or linked to like the old Multiverse forums?

Does the team plan to have personal blogs?

Will I be able to order pizza from the new site?




Just wondering what your plans are.

How's the new site coming?

Any more progress on the marketplace?

No pressure

The Marketplace is very close to being opened to select community members for testing. I'm currently receiving "Out of Memory" errors and will be working with our host to try and resolve. We will be posting an "Official" notice once its available for testing and requesting that active members participate to ensure it works well before "Go Live".

Thanks!
Shane

Vanquish VPS promptly responded to our memory increase request and the Marketplace is functioning again. We will continue configuration of the store and hopefully soon open it up for testing.

Shane