Haven’t migrated your Joomla 3 website(s) because it uses J2Store and you’re not sure what will happen? Dreading the moment that J2Store pulls the plug and you would need to have that uncomfortable client discussion about moving to a new ecommerce solution? Fear no longer: J2Store will be continued! Olivier Buisard and Adam Melcher are working on it as we speak, and new versions have been released already. Read all about The Fork, The Developers and The Plans!

Mid October 2024: all J2Store users got an email telling them the developers had “made the difficult decision to sunset the development of J2Store and its associated extensions”. Luckily J2Store had also made the decision to keep the J2Store repo available for anyone to fork and further develop it. And that’s exactly what Olivier Buisard and Adam Melcher are doing: they’ve forked it and they’re transforming J2Store into J2Commerce, a shopping extension that is fully compatible with Joomla 4, 5 and 6. 

When did you get the idea to continue developing J2Store?

Olivier: When I heard about the J2Store extension being abandoned, I ultimately thought about all the people I knew around me who rely on it for their clients and also the pain some went through in the last couple years because some key add-ons were not ready for Joomla 4.

I received a phone call from Adam, and knowing his history with J2Store, it was an easy answer when he asked me to join him in this endeavor.

Adam: Like many of us who have seen the few updates and lack of development the past couple of years, I was hopeful that something would change for the better and fearful that it wouldn’t.

When I first heard about their decision to stop working on the project and release it as a fork my first thoughts were excitement about the possibilities and sad as it also introduced a large amount of fear, uncertainty, and doubt to the community. Not just J2Store users, but all users - if this project could be abandoned, what else could be next?

I knew in my heart there was nobody who knew this project better than me, but I also knew I couldn’t do it alone. The first person I could think of was Olivier. We’ve worked well on other projects together, and I knew if we were going to do this right, I needed somebody I could trust as well as somebody who wasn’t afraid to put the hours in.

I understand Adam mainly builds ecommerce websites for clients and Olivier has been developing extensions for quite a while now. How did you guys meet? How did the decision to do this together come up?

Olivier: We met through Joomla Day USA, two and a half years ago. I met Adam online, just before his talk about ecommerce websites! I was monitoring his session. Adam joined our team later on for JDay USA 2024 and we kept working on projects together like the Guided Tours. 

Adam: I started working with Olivier in early 2023 on the JoomlaDay Usa project and later as part of the Guided Tours team. He is the real deal - super talented and so humble, a rare combination. I usually spend as much as 8-10 hours a day working on client sites which usually involve J2Store shops. Some of these projects are extensive, and with over 50+ J2Store sites, it made more sense to grab the reins and build something that could benefit the community as well as my clients. 

How is the news received in our community?

Olivier: Well, it’s been very positive, we have been contacted by many people we know and some we did not until we announced our interest to keep the project alive. We heard some sighs of relief lol. Some people had waited too long on J2Store and moved on in some cases, that’s totally understandable.

Adam: I didn’t really know what to expect as I don’t recall a developer with as many active users as J2Store walking away from a project before. As Olivier said, we’ve been contacted by members of the community around the world offering their assistance and gratitude that they are able to keep running their stores without any disruption. It’s been very encouraging and a testament to not just the J2Store extension, but the Joomla community as a whole.

For the people who don’t know J2Store: could you tell us what it is and what you can use it for?

Olivier: J2Store is a pretty extensive ECommerce solution and I am discovering all of its power thanks to Adam who showed me really its potential. 

Adam: J2Store has evolved from the early days of Joomla into an extensive eCommerce ecosystem. I haven’t found a use case I haven’t been able to use it for. The simplicity of it is also its greatest strength: a new user can get their store setup quickly while a developer or power user could integrate core Joomla properties like tags and custom fields to modify their store whatever requirements they need.

I really love the idea of easily creating products from your Joomla articles! What do you think is the power of J2Store / J2Commerce?

Olivier: I will let Adam answer this one, he is the expert :-) 

Adam: As a developer and power user, creating products from the article brings all of the core Joomla benefits such as tags, custom fields, access levels, and more. A typical use case could be a manufacturer who sells retail and also has resellers. Both user profiles can live on the same site: when the reseller logs in, they would see reseller specific prices for their user group which could be different than the normal retail price levels. This is one basic use case out of many I have helped clients with over the years.

So what are you focusing on now? Is there a plan?

Olivier: Yes, there is a plan, and the focus has been in putting together a website (J2Commerce.com), Social Media (facebook.com/j2commerce), documentation… with more to be done like a forum, a ticket system.

As far the J2Store extension is concerned, we are fixing issues and providing support. We are preparing a roadmap on Github for developers who would like to contribute. It lays out the initial tasks we want to go through to ensure J2Store users safely move to Joomla 4 or 5 with confidence.

Adam: Even though Joomla 6 is right around the corner, there are still users who are on Joomla 3 because they were waiting on a J2Store app that never got migrated. So our initial goal is to help those who need their older J2store extensions updated so they can finally move to Joomla 5 and beyond. In other words, bring stability to the J2Store users who have really not had that the past couple of years while also working on the new native Joomla 6 version that will make it easier for 3rd party J2C developers to build extensions and easier for J2C users to keep their sites updated.

What have been the pleasant surprises in your journey so far?

Olivier: The response from people, the help we are receiving from major Joomla advocates and the fun it is to work with Adam.

Adam: The community’s response has been a very positive surprise as well as encouraging. To see developers who I have never met actively contribute from all over the world has helped put a ribbon on this past month

What are the biggest challenges?

Olivier: The biggest one, technically, will be the removal of the f0f library (now obsolete) and ensuring the changes we make in the extension’s architecture remain fully compatible with all the add-ons that exist. 

Adam: While Olivier discusses the technical challenges, for me, the biggest challenge is “why”. Why should current J2Store users stick around? Why should they start new stores with J2Commerce? I am hopeful current and future J2Commerce users will come across articles like this and see the commitment we have made to building a thriving system that will allow them to compete against the other ecommerce platforms outside of Joomla.

I remember J2Store made their paid extension free a while ago. Before that it had a free and a pro version. What are your plans for this?

Adam: Right now, our focus is migrating the remaining extensions to the current J2Store Version 4 while improving the backend user experience for store managers. We will always offer a free version (like before), but at some point we will have to charge for the Pro Version as well as the additional extensions. I think it’s more of a shock to current users that we aren’t changing anything at the moment. If this doesn’t show our commitment to the community, I don’t know what will…

Can you guarantee a smooth and seamless update for users still on J3? Does it work on Joomla 5 yet?

Olivier: Yes! That’s our goal. There is a process for the move from Joomla 3 to 4 (we are making a few improvements to the upgrade). We are supporting the extension to the latest Joomla 5.

Adam: Unfortunately, most J2Store users didn’t realize that it has always worked on Joomla 5 up until 5.2 where it broke on J2Store versions 4.0.5 and lower.  Luckily, we were able to include that in our first release and we are now on 4.0.9 so hopefully current users have already been able to update to the latest version.

What about the extensions for J2Store, for example payment, shipping, SEO, integrations?

Adam: We are in the process of updating and releasing them, so keep checking the extensions area of j2commerce.com. You can always send us your older apps and have us migrate them if we haven’t already done so.

Where can we find J2Commerce? When will it be available through the Joomla Extensions Directory? 

Olivier: We are preparing our presence in the JED. Stay tuned for that! 

J2Store will keep its name and be updated in Joomla 4 and 5, while J2Commerce 5.0 will be our fully native version for Joomla 6.

Adam: J2Store will be evolving into J2Commerce, and in case somebody is wondering if the migration from J2Store 4 to J2Commerce 5 (Joomla 6 version) will be painful - I have 50+ active stores myself, so painful is not an option. Make sure your stores are running on the latest versions and as we get closer to Joomla 6, each release will help make the transition as seamless as possible.