Learn how to set up a Drupal webshop for your global eCommerce business

Choosing the right platform for your eCommerce website is crucial. Drupal, a powerful content management system (CMS), has emerged as a popular choice for businesses looking to build a scalable, secure, and customizable online store.

This article will explore why global brands choose a Drupal eCommerce website. You’ll learn how to create an eCommerce business with Drupal that scales seamlessly across borders.

What is Drupal Commerce?

Drupal Commerce is an open-source eCommerce solution built natively on the Drupal content management system. It was developed by Commerce Guys and is maintained by an active community of developers and contributors around the world.

Drupal Commerce enables highly customizable and content-rich online stores that can scale alongside your business. Its framework offers enterprises and growing companies the flexibility to create tailored shopping experiences that integrate user-generated modules, APIs, third-party services, and multilingual tools like Smartling.

Pros and cons of Drupal Commerce

Drupal Commerce is a popular solution for eCommerce businesses. However, it isn’t the right solution for everyone. Consider these benefits and potential roadblocks before committing to the platform:

Proffs

• Highly customizable and scalable through modules
• Ideal for content-driven eCommerce websites
• Strong support for multilingual content
• API-first architecture for third-party integrations
• Open-source and community-driven
• SEO-friendly out of the box
• Supports localization tools like Smartling

Nackdelar

• Steep learning curve compared to plug-and-play platforms
• Requires developer resources for advanced customization

7 top features of Drupal eCommerce development

Drupal Commerce stands out for its adaptability, allowing global brands to tailor every aspect of their eCommerce site to business goals and customer expectations. Here are seven key capabilities that make it ideal for companies that need a scalable, flexible, and content-rich eCommerce platform to drive global business:

1. Flexible content management

Drupal’s content-first approach is a powerful strength for eCommerce brands. You can define custom product types and tailor content structures to fit your brand, catalog, and customer experience needs. Build product detail pages that are functional, engaging, and immersive, using multimedia, FAQs, user-generated content, and more.

2. Modular system

Drupal’s highly flexible architecture allows brands to easily add features through contributed modules or custom-built solutions. From product management to checkout customization, there’s a module for nearly every need.

Popular modules include Commerce Wishlist, Commerce Stock, and Commerce Shipping. These work together to deliver a seamless user experience and support backend workflows for customer engagement, inventory, and order fulfillment.

3. Seamless payment gateway integration

Global eCommerce brands should optimize the checkout experience for each region. That means accepting multiple currencies and supporting various payment gateways. Drupal Commerce leverages modules to support over 140 payment platforms, including PayPal, Stripe, and regional providers. 

4. Multilingual capabilities with Smartling integration

eCommerce brands need a multilingual approach to succeed in global markets. Fortunately, Smartling integrates smoothly with Drupal to support automated, high-quality website translation for eCommerce content and marketing materials.

Smartling’s Drupal integration automates translation workflows to ensure you can connect with customers everywhere. Smartling also provides custom translation memory, glossaries, and style guides to ensure high-quality, on-brand translations, enabling you to accelerate your global growth.

5. API-first architecture

Need to connect to marketing platforms, analytics tools, or logistics providers? Drupal’s API-first approach easily integrates with other tools and services to create a robust eCommerce experience.

This design philosophy makes Drupal a natural fit for headless eCommerce frameworks, where the front end is decoupled from the back end. Brands can develop rich JavaScript-powered web interfaces, mobile apps, and other touchpoints that all connect to a single Drupal backend.

6. Scalable and secure

eCommerce businesses need a platform that grows with them while keeping customer data secure. Drupal excels at this with its flexible architecture and multisite support that help brands manage multiple stores.

Drupal Commerce is built on Drupal’s robust security framework and provides enterprise-level protection against cyber threats. Regular security updates to the core Drupal platform minimize vulnerabilities, while data encryption and role-based access control help keep sensitive data safe. Additional security modules like Security Kit and CAPTCHA increase protection against common threats.

7. Community support

Drupal’s vibrant and active global community is one of its greatest strengths. With thousands of active developers and contributors, Drupal benefits from constant innovation, peer-reviewed modules, and a wealth of shared knowledge.

This support network is especially valuable when building or scaling a Drupal Commerce store. Whether you need help with eCommerce localization, module configuration, or performance optimization, there’s a wealth of information available through documentation and forums.

Comparing Drupal eCommerce with other platforms

Choosing the right eCommerce platform is critical for your business’s growth and scalability. Drupal Commerce offers powerful flexibility, plus support for third-party integrations, but companies should compare it with other leading solutions to determine the best fit for their needs.

Shopify vs. Drupal

Shopify is a hosted eCommerce platform known for its ease of use and quick setup. It’s ideal for small to medium-sized businesses that want to launch quickly without deep technical knowledge.

Drupal is a strong choice for businesses that prioritize extensive customization, comprehensive content management, and flexibility. Drupal doesn’t charge transaction fees, offers complete control over your design and code base, and supports complex content workflows.

Smartling supports both platforms; check out the Shopify integration to learn more.

WordPress vs. Drupal

Wordpress’s user-friendly content management system is supported by an extensive plugin ecosystem and countless theme options. Its open-source eCommerce plugin, WooCommerce, is another popular choice for content-driven online sales. 

Drupal offers more granular control over content modeling, user roles, and permissions. It’s well-suited for complex, large-scale websites that require strict governance.

Smartling’s WordPress integration helps streamline content translation workflows for globally expanding companies.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud vs. Drupal

Salesforce Commerce Cloud is an enterprise eCommerce platform with deep CRM integration and marketing automation tools. It’s best for large retailers who want to focus on growth and customer experience without a deep dive into technical management.

One key distinction between these tools is that Drupal Commerce is built directly on top of the Drupal CMS, which means it offers native tools for managing rich content like landing pages and multimedia; meanwhile, Salesforce Commerce Cloud doesn’t offer native tools for rich content. However, Drupal’s modular, open-source solution requires significantly more hands-on maintenance, whereas Salesforce provides a more turnkey solution.

Smartling also has a Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration that supports seamless localization at scale.

How to create an eCommerce website using Drupal

Building an eCommerce site with Drupal involves a steeper learning curve than plug-and-play platforms, but its control and scalability are often worth the effort. Here’s a look at the basic steps to set up a fully functional and multilingual Drupal Commerce store:

1. Install Drupal and set up your environment

Download and install the latest version of Drupal. You can set it up locally using tools like DDEV (Docker-based) or Drupal VM (Vagrant-based) or via your preferred hosting provider.

Ensure your environment includes Composer, MySQL, and a web server like Apache or Nginx.

2. Install the Drupal Commerce module

Use Composer to download the Drupal Commerce module. To extend functionality, enable supporting modules like Commerce Shipping and Commerce Recurring. Modules and documentation can be found on Drupal’s website or on GitHub.

3. Create custom product types

Define your product types based on the categories and attributes in your catalog. Add fields for color, size, dimensions, pricing tiers, and inventory levels. You can also set up product variations to manage different configurations of the same item.

4. Set up payment gateways

Install and configure payment modules that support your region and customer preferences. Some modules may require API credentials or sandbox keys to begin testing. Configure tax zones and rules to ensure compliance with local regulations.

5. Add and organize products

Add product entries using Drupal’s content interface. Categorize them using taxonomy vocabularies like brand, season, or audience. Use Views to display custom product listings and promotional content.

You can also integrate with product information management (PIM) systems for bulk imports and catalog management.

6. Configure Smartling for multilingual support

Install the Smartling Connector for Drupal and authenticate your Smartling account. Map Drupal content types and fields to your translation workflows.

Use Smartling’s automation tools to send and receive translations, monitor translation quality, and ensure on-brand messaging across all markets.

7. Customize and launch your store

Choose a mobile-responsive theme or build a custom design with Drupal’s Layout Builder. Test user flows from browsing to checkout and ensure you meet accessibility and performance standards.

Before going live, conduct usability testing, stress testing, and SEO audits to ensure a seamless launch.

Power global eCommerce expansion with Smartling

Drupal Commerce provides a robust, scalable foundation for eCommerce websites, especially for global brands. Its flexible architecture, multilingual support, and open-source framework make it a top choice for businesses of all sizes.

By integrating Smartling with Drupal, you can streamline eCommerce localization workflows, enabling consistent, high-quality experiences in every language. Managing translations with this pre-built integration accelerates time-to-market, increases efficiency, and ensures your brand resonates with every audience.

Want to learn how to make your global eCommerce strategy a reality? Check out “The Ultimate Guide to Translating Your Marketing Materials.” This free eBook from Smartling will help you reach new markets with clarity, consistency, and confidence.