Lesson 1 – Online Store Site Organization

Course Description – Watch the Video

• 6 week course

  • Inspiration
  • Course syllabus
  • Questions on facebook, forum
  • Questions format – text and screenr
  • Webinar format – 90 minutes of presentation with 30 minutes of Q&A

• What we’re learning – we are creating an online store that sells books, CDs, DVDs and downloadable files

  • The products need to be able to be shipped worldwide and shipping needs to be calculated automatically
  • The products have various formats
  • We need to charge sales tax in some jurisdictions
  • With a specific set of tools
    • WordPress
    • Thesis
    • Shopp
    • Authorize.net
    • Amazon S3
  • Why these tools?
    • Because Shopp meets all of the business requirements
    • Because I’ve tested them together and they work
    • Because both Shopp and Thesis are highly customizable in a similar fashion
    • Because Shopp has a business model that is likely to survive for the long haul.

• Who is this class for?

  • Anyone who wants to learn the nuts and bolts of setting up an online store using WordPress
  • Beginning to advanced students
  • If you’re advanced – you’ll have to endure some basic instruction
  • If you’re a beginner – hang in there, ask questions, call me on the phone, skype me, email me.

• Why am I teaching this?

  • Because I love it!
  • We’re at the beginning of the democratization of instruction
    • Inexpensive, high speed broadband
    • Inexpensive video creation tools
    • WordPress
  • The current paradigm has education centered in institutions.
    • This limits access for participants
    • This limits access to teachers
  • The new paradigm allows for the development of knowledge communities like this one where anyone can teach and anyone can learn.

• What can you do for ME?

  • Ask questions during the Q&A sessions about your site,  Shopp, or WordPress
  • Tell us what you’re doing with your site
  • Ask questions about the materials on Facebook
  • If you are getting value out of this then pass it on

Ecommerce Site Organization: General Concepts – Watch the Video

• Why Good Site Organization Matters

  • Make it easy for customers to find your site
  • Make it easy for customers to find the right product on your site

• Small Store – 1 to 10 products

  • For example – LadyLuckDiary.com
  • The store doesn’t control the organization of the site

• Medium Simple Store – 10 to 100 products

  • Simple set of categories
    • each category is a single level
    • each product fits into one category
  • For example – PersonalBabyProducts.com
    • A category for Onsies, Tshirts & Romper
    • These could be subcategories of “personalized clothing”
  • Customers browse by category
  • Main catalog page should be a product category page
  • The store should have a fast and simple drill down

• Medium Complex Store – 50 to 100+ products

  • Hierarchical product categories
    • each category can have multiple sub-categories
    • each product can fit into multiple categories
  • For example JackieJacobson.com
    • she has 3 main categories
    • each category with multiple subcategories
  • Main page is a department directory
  • Each department has a category directory
  • Each category displays the products

• Large Store – 100+ products

  • Hierarchical product categories
  • Lots of product categories and sub-categories
  • Multiple department levels

Organizing a WordPress Ecommerce Site with Shopp: The Tools – Watch the Video

• WordPress Default Tools

  • Content types
    • Pages
    • Posts
    • Archive Pages
  • Organizational Elements
    • Categories
    • Tags

• WordPress Custom Tools

  • Custom post types
  • Custom taxonomies

• Shopp’s Tools

  • Content Types
    • Products – a custom type
    • The next version creates a custom post type called product
  • Organizational Elements
    • Product Categories – hierarchical
    • Product tags – non hierarchical

Two Approaches to Organizing an Ecommerce Site with WordPress and Shopp – Watch the Video

• Two Scenarios

  • Shopp Centric
    • Use Shopp for Catalog, Organization and Transaction processing
    • Use all of the Shopp features
  • WordPress Centric
    • Use WordPress for catalog & organization
    • Use Shopp for Transaction processing

• The Shopp Centric Approach

  • The benefits of a Shopp centric approach
    • Easy
    • Use of Shopp specific widgets
    • Simple product navigation
    • A single point of data entry
  • The disadvantages
    • Proprietary – all data is saved in  the database in a way that is only accessible via the plugin
    • No control over SEO – it happens automatically
    • No control over product display order
    • Difficult to integrate social networking

• The WordPress Centric Approach

  • The benefits of a WordPress centric approach
    • Not proprietary – you can switch plugins without losing data
    • More control over SEO – especially if you are using the Thesis theme
    • More ways to organize
    • Control over product display order
    • Easily integrate social networking
  • The disadvantages
    • It’s more work
    • Can’t use most Shopp widgets
    • Need to install and configure additional plugins to replace Shopp widgets
    • Additional product navigation required
    • Multiple data entry points

• We will be using the WordPress Centric Approach

Organization of the Mental Management Products – Watch the Video

• Our products – Primarily education materials

  • Products specific to a single sport
  • Products applicable to all sports
  • Products with multiple formats
    • Hard cover
    • Paperback
    • Audio CD
    • Video DVD
    • Downloadable audio
    • Downloadable eBook
  • Products as bundles

• The principle organization will be by Activity

  • Product categories will be by activity
  • Product categories will not be hierarchical
  • We’ll only use one organizing element – product category
  • The various formats will be product variations rather than individual products

Mental Management Store Site Organization – Watch the Video

• The Home Page – a landing page

  • Featured products
  • Specials
  • Testimonials
  • Social networking

• Individual Product Pages

  • Custom post type called mms-products
  • Custom taxonomy called mms-product-category

• Catalog Pages

  • Department page will be a page that shows the various activities
  • Each product category will be a taxonomy archive page

• Transaction Pages

  • shopping cart
  • checkout
  • my account

• Promotional Pages

  • testimonials

• Administrative Pages

  • help/support
  • about
  • contact
  • policies

• The Blog

  • Traditional blog – with success stories, product announcements, etc
  • Categories will be by topic
  • May or may not use tags

Install Shopp – Watch the Video

• Purchase and download from shopplugin.net
• Install the plugin
• Introductory Screen
• Activate the product

• Shopp Resources

  • Support site
  • Support documents
  • Support forum

This Week’s Questions and Answers – Watch the Video