The 10 Must-have Drupal Modules That Can Drive Online Retail Excellence

Today’s consumer is accustomed to checking out product details online first, before committing to a purchase. A recent Salesforce study stated that 87% of consumer journeys begin from a digital channel, such as an eCommerce website or a social media page. From this perspective, it is crucial for every online retailer to have a perfectly functioning digital storefront to deliver a seamless and engaging digital experience to their customers. In recent times, the scope of online selling has extended beyond just order fulfillment. It’s all about delivering impactful digital experiences that drive brand loyalty. And that’s where Drupal comes in. 

From strengthening the foundational aspects of your retail eCommerce brand to helping you evolve with the constantly changing market trends, Drupal’s open CMS empowers you to address the needs and wants of the modern customer. With Drupal, you can create user-friendly and captivating websites that educate consumers about your products and offerings, and support them throughout their buying journey. 

Powering more than 80K websites, Drupal is one of the most flexible retail solutions for eCommerce websites and applications of all sizes. In this post, we’ll analyze the top 10 Drupal modules that can streamline and simplify everyday digital store management. 

Top 10 Must-have Drupal Modules for Ecommerce

Drupal offers a vast array of modules for retailers to integrate vital eCommerce functions. These modules help simplify crucial eCommerce functions, such as product ordering, updating product details, managing carts, inventory management, payment options, and much more. Here are 10 of the essential Drupal modules that can help you build intuitive and powerful eCommerce websites.  

1. Commerce Core (Drupal Commerce)
   Drupal Commerce is an all-encompassing e-commerce package that was initially projected as a framework. The Commerce Core project was designed to enhance the scalability and adaptability of Drupal Commerce. This module leverages the greatest features of Drupal to offer users maximum flexibility. Commerce Core features numerous modules for ordering, carts, payment gateways, marketing, analytics, shipping, fulfillment, live chat, checkouts, coupons, and so on. Commerce Core allows building additional functionality through contributed modules (contribs) such as Stock, Recurring, Shipping, PayPal, and more.
2. Commerce Shipping
   Commerce Shipping module offers a shipping rate calculation system for Drupal Commerce. It integrates shipping service selection into checkout and order edit forms. The module is designed to work along with shipping method modules, such as Commerce FedEx, Commerce UPS, Commerce ConnectShip, and so on. Backed by a powerful API, this module is flexible enough to support both simple and complex shipping scenarios.
3. Commerce Stripe
   The Commerce Stripe module offers a tokenized payment gateway by integrating Stripe with Drupal Commerce. Stripe integration enables Drupal Commerce to securely accept payments online, without forcing the customer to leave the eCommerce site. Customers have a wide range of options to make payments via Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diners Club Card, and more. The module also helps retailers accept payments via Bitcoin. Drupal recommends using the Stripe Checkout integration setting to accomplish a full-fledged PCI compliant Commerce Stripe integration. This will ensure the safety of sensitive transactional data, such as card details.
4. Commerce Pricelist
   The Commerce Pricelist module allows you to set prices for individual users, user roles, and different quantity tiers. You can customize price lists for a given period (by setting start and end dates) and import price lists via CSV uploads in Drupal 8 or the Feeds module in Drupal 7. For instance, you can create numerous price lists for any subset of your product catalog based on similar conditions. Drupal Commerce supports this by letting you set static prices per product variation. If you’ve got a B2B eCommerce website, you can leverage this Drupal module to grant special pricing to a customer for a subset of your product catalog.
5. Commerce Migrate
   Commerce Migrate is a general-purpose migration framework that offers a migration path to Drupal Commerce from other e-commerce platforms, such as WooCommerce, Magento, and Shopify, and from other Drupal platforms like Ubercart 6, Ubercart 7, and Drupal Commerce 1. The Commerce Migrate module uses the Migrate API to migrate data from different sources to Drupal and leverages the Migrate framework to implement imports from specific sources.
6. Commerce Stock
   The Commerce Stock module enables stock management for Drupal eCommerce stores. It is primarily used to maintain and validate stock levels so that users can be prevented from ordering out-of-stock items. The Commerce Stock module provides certain rules and conditions to manage the availability and shortage of stock and also lets you create custom rules for managing stock levels. The module validates the ‘add to cart’ quantity widget and disables the ‘Add to Cart’ button for out-of-stock items. It also redirects users to their shopping carts during checkout, if the selected item isn’t available.
7. Commerce Repeat Order
   As the name suggests, this module allows shoppers to repeat their orders. Drupal users can introduce this feature into their eCommerce stores by simply creating a link or a button with a CTA, such as ‘Buy Again’. Validations are run to ensure if the order of the same customer is actually repeated. The module allows admins to customize the interface for shoppers. For instance, suggesting additional products that can be added to shopping carts or providing options to order extra quantities.
8. Commerce Product Tax
   This module offers a UI to select applicable tax rates for the product variation. The ‘Tax Rate’ field type and matching logic allow admins to select a lower rate or zero tax for tax-free products. You can create a ‘Tax Rate’ field for each type of product variation and select the corresponding tax rates. The module’s resolver will automatically detect the field and take the necessary action.
9. Commerce Invoice
   This is a powerful module used by many Drupal commerce sites. The Commerce Invoice module is tightly integrated with ‘rules’ and ‘‘views’ and uses an Invoice entity type to store invoicing data. You can create custom number patterns or use the default patterns provided by Drupal to ensure the uniqueness of every invoice. The invoice status (pending, canceled, paid, refunded, etc.) can be updated easily. Every invoice is considered immutable. For example, using an existing invoice to update an order will result in the creation of a new invoice. All the invoices can be viewed and exported as PDFs and stored in a private files directory.
10. Mailchimp E-Commerce
    By connecting your eCommerce store to Mailchimp, you can learn more about your customers and increase your ROI. Mailchimp's e-commerce features allow the capturing of your customers’ shopping data and purchasing patterns. This data can be used to develop personalized campaigns and automation workflows. This module extensively supports Drupal Commerce.

Top 5 Drupal Themes for Your Ecommerce Website

If Drupal modules improve the functionality of your eCommerce website, Drupal themes enhance your site’s visual appeal. Here are some of the top Drupal themes that help you build a responsive eCommerce web application using a variety of customization options.

1. Bootstrap
   Bootstrap is a popular open-source, front-end framework that enables faster and easier web development. Drupal’s Bootstrap theme bridges the gap between Drupal and the Bootstrap Framework. The top benefits of this theme are faster page load times, extensive integration, Glyphicons support, template overrides, and out-of-the-box styling.
2. AMP Theme
   This theme enables Drupal pages to comply with the AMP standard by working along with the AMP module and AMP library. This improves your web store experience for mobile users.
3. SShop
   This is a free-to-use theme that offers built-in support for Drupal Commerce and is tailored to address the requirements of eCommerce websites. Being a Bootstrap-based theme, SShop can be installed quickly. Users can add as many fields as required for a default product type. It’s a highly responsive and intuitive theme.
4. eStore
   eStore is a full-featured Bootstrap-based theme that provides your online store with all the must-have features. It offers extensive integration options with several popular Drupal Commerce modules and allows adding custom fields to the Default Product type. eStore is a fully-responsive Bootstrap theme.
5. Flexi Cart
   Flexi Cart is a mobile-first Drupal Commerce theme that offers clear codes and comments to display and sell your products online effectively. Browser-friendly Font Awesome icons, smooth scroll animation, fluid layout, image slider, etc. are some of the top features offered by this theme.

Improve Your Ecommerce Store with Drupal

From leading retail brands to small and mid-sized eCommerce companies, a large number of growing businesses are realizing the benefits of eCommerce profitability powered by Drupal. CureMint, a leading all-in-one marketplace and spend management software designed for dental practices leverages Drupal to outpace the industry’s outdated procurement processes. CureMint's eCommerce platform built on Drupal Commerce offers a cost-effective, quick, easy, and streamlined procurement process for dental organizations and suppliers. 

To deliver a connected digital experience to shoppers, and increase the conversion rate and return on investment, you need to focus on the following aspects:

• Content-driven commerce
• Headless commerce
• Top-notch web performance
• Mobile responsive design
• Multi-lingual support
• Personalization
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Data security and privacy  

If you’re looking for a robust CMS that can provide you with these and more, Drupal is the best fit for your eCommerce site. Equip your eCommerce platform with Drupal and deliver unmatched retail services and user experiences. 

Whether you want to build a new eCommerce website or need to migrate your existing site to Drupal, we at Srijan can help you accomplish the mission smoothly until you get the desired outcomes. Contact us right away and drive more sales on your eCommerce website.