List of new feature requests

Here is my extensive list of feature requests for opencart. I believe that if these were available in the core build, it will attract many more small to large companies who need to advance or move their websites. Without these features opencart will lack the punch that others can offer 'out of the box' which would be a shame because i believe opencart is the easiest to learn and it also has one of the best forums around.

All of my list are already available in some shape or form, links below each list item to see what can be achieved... Some aren't complete, others need slight modifications, others need upgrading to work with new versions but some work brilliantly! To all of the opencart community, let's try and make this possible so we can make use of the best open source ecommerce package around!

1. Order tracking so that admin can enter a tracking number with a clickable link which is viewable in the admin area and also the customer account so the customer doesn't have to contact you to track their order.
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=131&t=27050
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=131&t=27496
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=1361

2. An import/export tool to cover all products and categories so that a large number of products can be maintained quickly and efficiently.
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... order=DESC

3. Template system so that different products and different categories can have a unique look and layout to each other on a one by one basis if necessary.
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=12935

4. Ability to have all of the order features available online to the admin area. For sites who have a good customer support phone line, they need the ability to place new orders in the backend without having to go online.
Also, you should be able to make a new order direct from the customers account and also view all of their order & RMA history from the same section.
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=131&t=26876
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=131&t=30826

5. Purchase order option for sites which accept order from educational or government institutions.
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... order=DESC

6. Next day delivery countdown so that customers know how long they have left until cut off time. This should repeat at intervals set by admin taking in to account weekends.
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... order=DESC

7. A better stock control system. For sites that sell the same physical item in multiple categories (think ac adapters for laptops), they need to use the same SKU for stock purposes but have different and unique descriptions and seo abilities when residing in multiple categories to differentiate from each other.
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=32468
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=32422

8. When making changes to orders in the backend and the site has multiple users, there should be a record of who made the change and when the change was made.
http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=131&t=31777

9. An import/export tool for customer details to make migration from other packages easy and more attractive.
http://opencart.hostjars.com/product-fe ... duct_id=59

10. Dynamic multi level category dropdown so that sites with lots of sub categories can give their customers a better and much quicker & slicker way of locating the product they need.
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... 973&path=5

11. The ability to export product data into formats to easily integrate with ebay, amazon & play trade etc. This will attract a lot of users to the opencart system.
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... order=DESC

12. Polls that can be run for a limited time and only once per user.
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... &order=ASC

13. How did you hear about us drop down in checkout.
http://www.getclearthinking.com/modific ... ear-survey

14. Customer feedback integration in the checkout process that is quick, easy and optional.

15. More reporting and statistical features integrated with the backend.
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... &order=ASC
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... order=DESC
http://www.fido-x.net/index.php?route=p ... duct_id=35

I like #1 and #2 the most. Even though there are mods out for import/export, it should be a standard opencart feature.

I like your list. I agree that some things should become core. Obviously, its difficult for developers to cater for the many types of businesses that may want to use the software, but producing an OpenCart that is good enough for a large online retail operation means a new business has the ability to start with and grow with ONE platform - which is much better for their business. I am building a long list as well - based on our experiences of selling online over the last 8 years. I would agree with just about all of your features here - although some are more critical than others. The aftersales and customer communications experience is overlooked by most systems we have dealt with and these would be a real asset to our business. Would you like me to add my list here - better all in one place I suppose?

Hi TofuMan,

Yeah get them all listed here so hopefully this post will become popular and the developers will take notice.
It will be interesting to see you list

An excellent list of features there! A lot of which many different businesses can use which is ideal from a system like Opencart.

Here is my list of feature requests for OpenCart. I believe that if these features will become available in the standard 1.5.x versions of OpenCart it would be the ultimate webshop software.

1) Product/Price/Size filter (on home of the store) - with filter options such as price, brand, category, age, color, gender, size (M,L,XL), storage space (x MB/GB)
Such a extension (with some of the filter options) is already available but it would be great if that would be build in standard in OC.

existing extension 'Layered Navigation' - http://spotonsolutions.net/layered-navigation by Xsecrets and http://spotonsolutions.net/shop-by-price

2) Advanced search feature - The header search should search always in product description, tags besides the product name. I already used a small script to adjust that in my own shop. But also it would be great to have the filter option on the search page to search products in the store.

3) Filter on product page - e.g. size (M,L,XL), storage space (MB/GB), color (e.g. blue,green)

4) Detailed product specs fields in separate colums/rows
Like the extension 'Product Extra Fields' from Xsecrets http://spotonsolutions.net/Product-Extra-Fields

5) Dont' create a ordernumber when a Customer adds a product to the shopping cart but doesn't buy the item(s) in the cart. When they leave your store.

6) Blog feature It would be great if there was a simple blog feature build into OC which could show in the menu and have the feature to add text/image and date of the blog.

Existing blog extension below. I did like that one the most. There are more blog (payed) extensions.
http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... order=DESC

7) standard OC 1.5 theme changes: Don't show Categories in Left column (it's already showing on the header and there is already the breadcrumb. Instead show in the left column a Product filter as mentioned at point 1.

8 ) Mobile feature - ability to view the OpenCart store on mobile or iPad (iPad,GalaxyTab,iPhone,Android)
Discussion about that here: http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=119&t=15635

I'd cast my vote strongly for 1, 2, 8, 11, 15 from spitos and 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 from funrider. These I believe are very important features to work on.

Are there more people who think these previously mentioned extra features would be a great addition to OpenCart?

No clue. Daniel has to spend lot of time on extra features. Whether the features will be added or not, I think, depends on how many people have asked for them.

May I suggest creating a pool, then--supposedly an online one, within this forum, to be shown to Daniel for better leverage of consideration? I like very much the idea of making Import/Export data feed as a default feature. It's among one of the most critically important feature any cart should have, imo. Especially the one as advanced and great as Open Cart.