For customers in all industries home goods marketplace, hotel and restaurant chain, hardware, subscription streaming, grocery delivery, online marketplaces are an essential part of e-commerce business development.
But let us first convince you in the necessity of Python as a programming language for your marketplace project.
3 main reasons to build your marketplace with Python and Django
In our previous blog articles, we have already discussed what advantages Python possesses for ML and AI and why you should tame Python for growing a successful business. In this article, we have picked up the most suitable benefits of Python for bulging your own e-commerce marketplace.
Fast and efficient development
The simplicity and readability of Python provide developers with the ability to use less code and build a marketplace with minimal effort. They can also reuse code from other projects. This results in less time spent on the development and the affordable price of the product. The multiplicity of prebuild functions like various modules, libraries, and packages can also be added to the source code. In addition, the language is fairly easy for beginners. That allows any Python developer to jump in and take over coding on your project. From MVP to full-fledged enterprise marketplace, Python shoulders the complexity of development of all ideas.
Security and easy maintenance
Quality matters a lot when you are developing a marketplace site. Complete maintenance and consistent updates make the Python code secure. Testing and troubleshooting are also simple to do. No fixing problems, only focusing on improving your marketplace and adding new features.
Supportive community
Being increasingly popular among the developers and active supporters, Python creates one close family of enthusiasts willing to organize dozens of meetups and conferences, hackathons and online-discussions. All the developers strive to help each other with fixing bugs, opening new possibilities or, at least, showing the right direction for solving a problem.
Shuup, Saleor, Oscar - the Best tools for your marketplace project
Here at Quintagroup, our software developers mostly use such Python-based tools as Shuup, Saleor, and Oscar when considering the frameworks for an e-commerce marketplace. Let’s delve into them.
Oscar |
SALEORIn comparison with Shuup and Oscar, Saleor is built as a SPA application - a mix of GraphQL and React. Saleor benefits from the vigorous development on GitHub repository. Free-to-use license, easy customization, and relatively simple source code are the key advantages of the platform. The minor disadvantage is the absence of different themes and customization on the behalf of an administrator.
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Shuup |
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Stating itself as a domain-driven e-commerce solution for Django, Oscar’s main advantage lies in its flexibility. The sense of ‘domain-driven’ core makes up customization, overriding and replacement of any part of framework’s functionality. This feature allows Oscar to handle any business requirements and solve complex e-commerce issues quickly and efficiently. Oscar offers a comprehensive user interface and has a wide range of working models built on the basis of experience from both large and small e-commerce projects.
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First released in 2014, Shuup combines sales, e-commerce, delivery, SaaS, and multi-vendor solutions to provide you with everything you need for a successful marketplace. This e-commerce framework allows using responsive templates and themes that will make the process of customization seamless. But no one is perfect, and Shuup is not an exception. That is quite unusual for Django, but the source code of the platform is intricate and tangled that makes the processes of customization and integration of new features fairly complex. In addition, the license is not fully free and it doesn’t support Django 2. Among the capabilities offered there are:
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All in all
All three tools are safe enough since a Python-based Django framework forms their core. All of them require some additional features to be added. According to the Quintagroup developers, it is simpler to add extra features while using Shuup, if we don’t talk about something super extraordinary and unusual. Saleor maintains a state-of-the-art approach to e-commerce marketplace development.
That is why when considering a minimal shop website, a kind of a three-point plan, your choice should be Shuup. If your vision is outlined in a large marketplace that entails sufficient flexibility, we recommend you consider Oscar.
For your convenience, we present you a comparison table of the Shuup, Oscar, and Saleor most useful features.
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Packages
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Oscar | Shuup | Saleor |
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| Python 3 |  |
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| Repo | Github | Github | Github |
| Stars | 4032 | 1057 | 6082 |
| Repo Forks | 1514 | 559 | 2311 |
| Documentation | http://django-oscar.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ | http://shuup.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ | http://saleor.readthedocs.io/ |
| Multilingual | |
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| SEO | |
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| Search | |
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| PDF invoice generation | |
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| Tax calculations | |
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| Customer accounts | |
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| Price sorting | |
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| Multiple currencies | |
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| Payment methods | |
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| Demo site | http://latest.oscarcommerce.com/ | |
https://demo.getsaleor.com/ |
| Wishlists | |
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| Faceted filtering | |
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| Promotional codes for discounts | |
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Quintagroup’s experience
Nothing speaks so evidently as the already completed projects. Quintagroup offers a wide range of high-quality e-commerce solutions, including custom online shops and shopping carts, e-marketplace, e-auction, e-tender or e-procurement systems.
Here are a few featured cases:
Let us tell you in brief about one of the e-commerce solutions Quintagroup developed.
CamelPharm
CamelPharm is a French pharmacy specializing in veterinary care since 1979. The pharmacy owners decided to explore e-commerce options and chose Quintagroup to be their partner.
A well-organized development process allowed us to deliver our solution step by step. Our first contribution to this project was an attractive and functional design. In order to satisfy all client’s demands after detailed investigation and architecture planning, we decided to use Django Oscar with PostgreSQL database.
We developed a multi-tenant solution. Back-office allows managing products, stock, prices, sales, suppliers, customers, etc. for several websites - all in one place.
Software features it contains:
- “Offline order” app allows to create an order directly from the Dashboard by an administrator, in case customer places an order by phone, email, fax, or other channel.
- ElasticSearch was used as a basic search engine to implement extensive searching capabilities, including intuitive live search with results separated by products/categories/laboratories, customizable type and category-specific filters.
- Animal health management app allows keeping track of animal health-related data like animal profiles, information on veterinarians, prescription records, drug dispensing, etc.
- PayPal and Paybox (a multi-bank and multi-channel payment service provider) are among the available payment options.
- Prisync integration fetching different product price data on various domains and displaying this data in the back-office to track and compare competitor’s prices.
- Customized automatic emails.
- Product comparison tool.
- Price management (different product prices for different web stores) with customized tax calculation.
- Custom delivery price calculation mechanism.
- “Put on credit” payment method that allows paying for your purchases once per month.
- Several import scripts for different input data sources (CSV and excel files with product-related information).
- Ansible and Jenkins cover CI/CD processes.
- Our team added Odoo for the management of current and potential clients. We grabbed customers’ contact data from third-party sources and imported them into Odoo CRM module as leads.
In close collaboration with the client, we implemented a solution that delivered maximum business value and covered all client’s objectives: user experience is intuitive and logical, store management is seamless and user-friendly.
Tips for choosing a software development team for your future project
If you still hesitate and don’t know how to make a decision on a development company, here are some tips on what makes up a successful software development team that will realize your expectations.
Knowledge in the software industry
A development team with profound knowledge of the sphere they are working at is the key. Only people that are able to help you realize your vision and provide suggestions or ideas that match current industry trends. But to keep your marketplace up to date just knowledge is not enough. It is far better if the team has relevant experience and the capability of using multiple technologies and tools.
Past experience with the e-commerce development
If you want to choose the company that has already done some achievements in e-commerce than Quintagroup should definitely be in your shortlist. With 16+ years of expertise in providing Python-based solutions for online commerce, our dexterous developers deliver solutions that your customers will fall in love with.
Skills of using multiple technologies
Logistic services, payment gateways, CRM systems, and ERPs are the possible software you want to connect to your marketplace. Make sure your development team can handle dealing with any challenges you want your website to have.
Support
In addition, the best development team should feature the ability to support your project for fixing any bugs or problems that may occur. Quintagroup provides reliable, efficient and high-quality support services backed by our expert team. If you are looking for professional support - our services are at your disposal. You will receive regular maintenance, check-ups, software upgrades, regular analysis and site architecture that stays up to date.
Structured and fair pricing
The development of a project usually starts with a conversation that ends with the estimate for the cost to complete the project. The more transparent are the pricing details the more trust and reliability are gained among company and client.
Just for you to know, Quintagroup maintain all the qualities mentioned above. Don’t waste your time and contact Quintagroup right now to get the job done.