How easy/hard would you consider the amount of work needed to create a ecommerce for digital products using Payload? I'm currently using WP + Woo but the plugins that I'm using aren't flexible enough and I'm re-inventing some of them, so might as well re-invent some more and learn Next.
I wouldn't recommend it, I've seen it abused as a database a few times and it was never good. It really is barebones and mostly for content and the UI/features show that.
You're better of using anything else, if you want a UI ontop maybe a tool like Pocketbase is better suited or you go the route of using an actual e-commerce tool like Saleor or Medusa.
Both are good, definitely better than homebrewing your database and that is >>> any open source CMS (I've tried a few dozen since I am building a CMS myself)
Payload has an e-commerce template, but it definitely pales in comparison to WooCommerce. I can't speak to specifics, but if I were looking to migrate away from WooCommerce, I'd look at MedusaJS (http://medusajs.com)
I feel like everyone runs into this in WP dev eventually, but not everyone is honest with themselves about it. It can get messy, fast — I’ve certainly been there!
I’d be interested to know what sort of work your plugins are doing. I think a lot of that ecosystem is there to fill gaps — ACFish custom field functionality, for example, is core functionality in Drupal, Payload and many others.
Just another example — I love Drupal, but the Paragraphs module was always filling a gap in Drupal that Payload’s simple, but quite powerful ‘blocks’ field type makes easy.
Another thing I didn’t realize I love about it until just now: the hooks system is super clear. It’ a lot of the same stuff you use in WP, Drupal and others, where you can hook into functionality. With WP and Drupal, it wasn’t super obvious which hooks fire when. It can take some immersion to really understand it.
I’m such a Payload Stan. I don’t work there, I swear! I’m looking forward to trying out 3.0 embedded in Sveltekit soon here.
Hi, thanks! Currently I've created a small plugin that replaces the download URL of products with a post meta `use_external_url`, appends the `order_id`, and signs it using HMAC. Then I have a CF worker that reads that, validates the signature and stamps the PDF file with the order number, on the fly, after the user clicks to download the file. (I tried some of available plugins but they sucked).
Also, I'd like to have more flexible bundles (possibly bundles of bundles), a more flexible transaction e-mail that offers upsells right after the user buys something, for instance: the user bought the Foo Vol. 1, right after I want to send an email offering a coupon so that they can get the discounted Vol 1, 2, and 3 with the amount they just paid discounted. (I can do that with Mailpoet or Omnisend if they buy just one product, or can implement multiple discounts and upsells with a little bit of JS running on my Windmill instance + Resend).
I feel like I'm going to re-invent a lot of stuff, and since I'm using Stripe, it shouldn't be so hard to think of a nice Products/Bundles/Downloadables/Gallery DB design and ship something ultra light that I can actually understand vs the million lines that a default WP + Woo install has, plus themes and plugins.
