How I Built a Fast Store with Entry Laravel eCommerce

Why I Finally Stopped Rebuilding My Store from Scratch and Switched to Entry

As a developer who’s been dragged into “just one more store” more times than I can count, I was tired of starting from a blank Laravel boilerplate every time someone wanted a custom eCommerce setup. Either I used a generic HTML template and wired everything manually, or I tried to bend a WordPress theme into something it was never meant to be. The turning point was when I tried Entry – Multipurpose Laravel eCommerce Theme for a project that needed both flexibility and decent defaults. For once, I didn’t feel like I was hacking a blog engine into pretending it was a shop.

In this article I’ll walk through how I installed and configured Entry, what the core features feel like from a Laravel admin’s perspective, how it behaves in terms of performance and SEO, how it compares to more traditional Multipurpose Themes I’ve worked with, and the kind of projects where I think Entry is actually worth keeping in my toolbox.

The Starting Point: Too Many Stores, Too Little Time

The project that pushed me to look for a dedicated Laravel eCommerce theme had a familiar profile:

• The client wanted product catalog + cart + checkout + discounts.
• They needed multi-category support and a clean dashboard.
• They wanted room to grow into things like multi-store or extra modules later.
• They insisted on Laravel because their in-house team was already using it.

I could have built everything on top of a minimal admin panel, but I knew from experience that I’d end up spending weeks on things that don’t make money: user management, basic order flows, front-end scaffolding, and layout work. Entry looked like a shortcut: opinionated where it matters, but still open enough for custom logic.

Installation and Configuration: Getting Entry Running Cleanly

1. Initial Setup

From a Laravel developer’s point of view, the setup felt familiar:

1. I created a fresh Laravel project environment (PHP, Composer, database ready).
2. Dropped Entry into the project as instructed (codebase + assets).
3. Ran the usual install steps (migrations, seeders if available, npm build / asset build pipeline).

Within a short time I had a working storefront plus admin panel, already integrated with Laravel’s routing and middleware stack.

2. Basic Configuration Pass

My first configuration pass focused on:

• Store settings – currency, locale, date/time formats.
• Mail and notifications – hooking up SMTP so order emails would actually send.
• User roles – making sure admins, staff, and customers had the right permissions out of the box.

Entry’s admin interface made these changes straightforward, and because it’s Laravel-based, anything not exposed in the UI was easy to adjust in code.

3. Front-End Branding

On the front-end, I started by:

• Dropping in the brand’s logo and color palette.
• Adjusting typography so headings didn’t scream, but still stood out.
• Simplifying the homepage sections to what the store actually needed (hero, featured categories, top products, and a simple promo strip).

Entry gave me enough prebuilt blocks to move fast, but I could still dive into Blade templates when I wanted more control.

Feature-by-Feature: How Entry Feels in Daily Use

Product and Category Management

From an admin’s perspective, Entry’s product management felt solid:

• Support for multiple categories, attributes, and variations where needed.
• Clear forms for pricing, stock, and media.
• Category hierarchies that make sense on both front-end and back-end.

The UI isn’t flashy for the sake of it, which I actually appreciate—clients can use it without training, and I don’t get emergency messages because someone couldn’t figure out how to add a product.