eShop for WordPress
Create an ecommerce site quickly and relatively easily on WordPress with the eShop plugin by Rich Pedley at Quirm.net. This is a viable competitor to Instinct’s WP eCommerce, but it does not have a donation setting/capability. This is too bad, because it’s an otherwise great plugin, and a great way to get one’s online store up and running. The benefit to having a donation setting is that people can pay for your services online, as you can with this blog. Anybody who’s already doing business online or likes eBay probably already has a PayPal account, and making it super easy for them to pay you in a secure, reliable, and familiar environment. For instance, one of our HoneyBeeBuzz Marketing clients is using our online shop to buy a banner ad we are designing for them.
Rich at eShop provides excellent support, which you can find in his WordPress plugins support forum. This is in great contrast to the WPeC support forum which is full of frustrated people whose questions can languish unanswered for months. Also in contrast, Rich seems to have a very positive, mature and constructive attitude. WPeC is steadily getting better and better, however, both in terms of response time and style and the features are hard to beat.
eShop has the support of a number of key and highly respected WordPress players, including Mike Cherim.
Here are some sample eShops:
http://greenmethods.com/site/shop/
http://thecabinetofcuriosities.co.uk/shop/
Here are some sample WPeC shops:
HoneyBeeBuzz Marketing Services and Products
GreenBuyDesign Store
Do you have an online store already? What shopping cart system are you using? What types of products or services do you sell?
January 14th, 2009 at 8:05 am
Thank you for the kind words!
If you could email me, or post on the forums with the requirements for the ‘Donation’ product I’ll see what I can code for you.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Thanks for your quick response! I’ll post this here and then pop a quick message over to you, also. The “Donation” product could also be called “Pay Here” or “Make a Payment” and essentially allows a client to make a payment through the shopping cart, at an amount they determine. They fill in the price, hit “add to cart” or “buy/pay now”, and the payment is processed. This comes in handy for donations, such as “buy me a coffee” or something bigger and for pre-arranged payments, especially if the client can include a note indicating what the payment is for. It would also be great to have a “3 easy payments” automated plan, and be able to set how many payments at what rate over what period of time.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Have you tested the new wordpress/OSCommerce plugin? It’s brand new and not a lot of reviews, so I am wondering how it measures up?
Here is a link, if you decide to test it out please let me know.
http://www.wposc.com/?page_id=7
I am going around looking for reviews. I was hearing good things about the shop cart, but someone on the forum said that he/she is having a problem with shipping to various countries. Apparently you can only select one country at a time. This was a major conflict for that person and I assume it will be a conflict for others. Otherwise I am hearing good things about the eshop plugin.
February 10th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Ooh, hey! Thanks for the heads-up! We will look into the OSCommerce plugin. OSCommerce is a very good program, but, like ZenCart, the base model has limitations. Many of the excellent-sounding for-purchase modules sound great, but it’s one of those programs that sucks you in with “just a little here” and “just a little there.” Has anyone else looked at the new OSCommerce plugin? Please let us know what you think of it, even if you decided on something else. The more input we all have to work with, the better. Upon taking a quick look at the link to wposc, we very much like the fact that it integrates seamlessly with your own WordPress site. That is part of what makes a great shopping cart plugin, and is a major benefit of Instinct’s WP eCommerce. WPeC also has many users around the world, and an active development team which constantly is upgrading and improving the plugin. One should definitely be able to easily ship anywhere. Could you, ObsessionO (and by the way, nice site! Looking forward to your shopping cart being up and running!), tell us a little more about the shipping challenges issue with wposc?
Safety tips:
As ObsessionO has done, look at the support forums for any plugin, software, or theme you are considering. The forums will show happy or unhappy users. Assume that most people are there because they are having a problem, but look to see tone, balance, and response rate from developers. Remember that most of these plugins are free, so assume that the developers have to do other work to survive, appreciate donations and purchases, or be cautious about hidden agendas.
Download only from reliable sites, such as http://wordpress.org/extend/ or the developer’s own site. WP. org is the safest.
Best regards, and happy buzzing!
Your Crew at Honey Bee Buzz Marketing
March 20th, 2009 at 4:39 am
http://tribulant.com/products/view/10/wordpress-shopping-cart-plugin
I have found another shopping cart. This one is commercial, but the back end looks good. I have looked all over, but very few reveiws. I think this looks like a good contender for Shopp.net, wordpress ecommerce, eshop, and there are a couple more.
March 20th, 2009 at 9:48 am
We’ll check that out – thanks for the heads-up!
Love the photography on your site.
March 20th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Yes! That’s right! Came across the Tribulant shop plugin recently, and it looks good in many ways. Anyone out there tried it yet? Let us know if you’ve either tried it or really looked into it and what you think so far.
March 20th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Tribulant also sells an email newsletter mailing list WP plugin for about $50, a one-time fee, which we were looking at recently. It seems good, and is a cost-effective alternative to paying 10 – 100 bucks per month for Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, Awebber, or the like. Tracking stats can’t be as good as with the “big guns” though.
July 14th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Did anyone ever review the tribulant plugin? I can not find many reviews, but I would love feedback from anyone who has tried it.