In this lesson we turn our attention to setting up a large store with many digital downloadable products using WP e Store. Much of this lesson is taken up with a discussion about setting up a product catalog and the various ways that you can do that. We use one method in our Genesis example and another method in our Thesis 2 example.
Choosing the Right Shopping Cart Plugin – Start With a Plan
- Store description
- Products
- Downloadable Videos
- Ebooks
- Plugins
- Consulting
- Subject Matter
- WordPress
- Thesis
- Genesis
- Various Plugins
- Organizing Products
- Look for an organizing principle
- Potential schemes
- Types
- Topics
- We will create a hybrid
- instruction
- Plugins
- Consulting
Choosing the Right Shopping Cart Plugin – Compare Plugins
- Review the store plan
- Fill out checklist
- Look at plugin comparison
Using WordPress to Organize Product Display
- The Role of Catalog Pages
- Department Pages
- Product Category Pages
- Individual Product Pages
- WordPress has the built-in ability to create and organize lists of products
- WordPress functionality
- Product Pages
- Archive Pages (Product Category Pages)
- Post type choice
- Pages
- Posts
- Custom Post Type
- Taxonomy choice
- Categories
- Tags
- Custom taxonomies
- WordPress functionality
- WordPress Based Strategy
- Using Pages
- Explanation
- Disadvantages
- Advantages
- Using posts
- posts for products
- categories or tags for products
- Disadvantages
- Advantages
- Using custom post types
- Custom post type for products
- Custom taxonomies for product categories
- Disadvantages
- Advantages
- Using Pages
- Our solution
- Pages for Genesis
- Custom Post Types for Thesis 2
WP eStore Catalog Display
- WP eStore system for organizing products
- Employs its own system – we’ll call them eStore Product Categories
- eStore Categories are not a WordPress taxonomy
- WordPress does not manage them
- WordPress does not automatically display them
- It is a single layer (non-hierarchical) organization
- Important to maintain the distinction
- Types of things WP eStore can display
- List of all products
- List of all eStore product categories
- List of all products within a given category
- Individual eStore Product Categories
- Individual products
- Display Styles
- “Fancy” product display styles
- All products
- a simple list
- a styled list
- All product categories
- a simple list
- a styled list – only 1 style
- Individual product category
- All products within a given category
- Individual products
- WP eStore Button Types
- Add to cart
- Buy Now
- Subscription
- Download
Setup WP eStore Product Catalog in Genesis
- Create the Product Categories
- Create the Catalog Pages
Create Categorized Products in Genesis
- Additional Product Details
- Description
- Will take HTML
- Some will take shortcodes
- Is limited in length by the display style
- Does not always show dependent on display style
- Thumbnail Image URL
- Thumbnail target URL
- When to use it
- Old Price
- Additional Product Images
- Product Page URL
- Product Category
- Button Image URL
- Button Redirect Target URL
- Display Quantity field
- Customer Price
- Collect Customer Input
- Commission
- Reference Text
- Description
- Create the product page
- Add shortcode to display product
- Examples
- Add buy now button
- Strategy for displaying the large product image
- Add shortcode to display product
- Copy Existing Product
Understanding Images in WP eStore
- 4 formats that WP eStore displays images in
- Thumbnail – square
- Thumbnail – rectangular (4:3)
- Tiny Thumbnail
- Light box
- Category images are ONLY square
- Best bet – Make all of your images the same size and aspect ratio
- Settings
- Enable lightbox effect on images
- Enable Smart Thumbnail
Add Products to the Product Category Catalog Pages
- Shortcodes available
- Display styles
- Button styles
- Add Category List to Pages
Setup the product catalog in Thesis 2
- Our System
- Custom Post Types for products
- Custom Taxonomy for product categories
- Install Custom Post Type UI
- Create the custom post type
- Create the custom taxonomy
- Create the custom taxonomies
- Instruction
- WordPress
- Thesis
- Genesis
- WooCommerce
- MarketPress
- WP eStore
- WP eMember
- Simple Press Forum
- Plugins
- Thesis
- Genesis
- Consulting
- Instruction
Create a Product in Thesis 2
- Additional Product Details
- Description – we don’t need to use
- Thumbnail Image URL – we don’t need to use
- Thumbnail target URL – we don’t need to use
- Old Price
- Additional Product Images
- Product Page URL
- Product Category
- Create the Product Post
- Featured image
- Shortcodes
- Copy Existing Product
Setup Product Category Catalog (Archive) Pages
- Add Archive Pages to the menu
- View the archive pages
- Customize Archive template
