How to Choose the Right WordPress Shopping Cart

Difficulty Level - Beginner

Filed Under Topics - Ecommerce, Plugins, Shopping Cart

Listed Under Lesson Subjects - Choosing Plugins

Applies to - Latest Version of WordPress

There is no such thing as a “one size fits all” shopping cart for WordPress. In this seminar we discuss all of the things you need to consider before you choose the shopping cart to sell your products. We start off by discussing your various options and then provide you with a detailed checklist. From there we do a detailed comparison of 5 WordPress shopping cart plugins using a checklist to help you decide which one is right for you.

Various ways to sell stuff online

With a PayPal buy now button on a page on your site
With a plugin on your site
With an entirely separate system that sits on a subdomain of your site
With a hosted system embedded in your site
With a hosted system separate from your site
With an eCommerce ecosystem separate from your site

Advantages of Using WordPress to sell your products

It is inexpensive
- No monthly fees
- No % of sale
- Plugins are cheap
Relatively easy DIY
- Solution can match the condition – no need to learn a complex system to do something simple
- Intended for regular users – not programmers
- Simple mechanisms for customizing
- Good learning resources
Maintain control
- Not dependent on the vendor raising prices or going out of business
- Don’t risk vendor shutting down your store
- Full control over the look and feel of the site
WordPress is everywhere
- lots of support
- lots of innovation
- easy to find consultants
Highly customizable
- Easy access to styles
- Most plugins have some style options
- Most plugins will allow custom templates
- Many plugins have APIs that allow a programmer to extend them
Many “off the shelf” solutions

Disadvantages of using WordPress to sell your products

Things are always changing
Routine compatibility issues
- Plugin to theme
- Plugin to plugin
- Plugin to host
Not “Set it and forget it” solution
Manage and figure out complex things
- SSL
- Testing
- Shipping
- Taxes
Need to be a hands on type of person

Types of Ecommerce Sites

Sites can be classified by what they sell
- Digital download
- Physical products
- Intangible/virtual products
  - Memberships/subscriptions
  - Deposits
  - Reservations
  - Tickets/vouchers
  - Serial numbers/license keys
  - Donations
Sites can be classified by their size and organization
- Simple sites with few products – does not require a product catalog
  - 1 – 10 products
  - No product categories
  - Browse products only, no sorting or searching
  - Typically won’t use the plugin to display the product, only to process the transaction
- Larger sites with many products – requiring a product catalog
  - 11 – 100 products
  - Use product categories and or tags
  - Uses catalog pages based on category
  - May include sorting products and product searches
- Very large sites requiring multifaceted product catalog
  - 100+ products
  - Uses product categories and subcategories
  - Uses “department” pages to display categories first
  - Uses sorting of catalog pages
  - May include drill down by attribute
Need to match the plugin’s capabilities with stores need
- The products it can sell
- The way it can display them

Criteria for Choosing an eCommerce Plugin for WordPress

6 types of criteria
- Product definition criteria
- Product display criteria
- Order processing criteria
- Order fulfillment criteria
- Marketing
- Customer Management
Product definition criteria
- Types of products
  - Digital download
  - Physical
  - Serial Numbers/license keys
  - Subscriptions
  - Donations
  - Other intangible
- Product variations
  - That affect price
  - That affect inventory
  - That affect shipping cost
  - That can include both physical and digital
- Product attributes
- Short description/excerpt
- Product images & image management
- Buyer input
- Free products
Product display criteria
- Catalog page – display by product categories & sub categories
- Catalog page – display by product tags & custom taxonomies
- Sort products on catalog page by
  - Price
  - Popularity
  - Recency
  - Ratings
- Narrow product results by attributes
- Catalog page display style
  - Product Grid
  - Product List
- Can the purchase be made directly from the catalog page
- Is a product page automatically created?
- Product image display
- Related Products display
- Featured Products
- Digital previews
- Multi lingual support

Order Processing & Fulfillment Criteria

Payment Gateways supported
- The big ones
  - PayPal standard
  - PayPal Pro
  - Authorize.net
- Major players
  - Google Checkout
  - 2Checkout
  - Amazon Payments
- Others
  - Woo lists 150 different gateways
Order processing criteria
- Shopping Cart or Buy Now
- Out of stock items
- Shipping calculated onsite
- Taxes calculated onsite
- Number of steps in the order process
Order Fulfillment Criteria
- Digital Products
  - Amazon S3 or other CDN support
  - Encrypted expiring links
  - Automatic delivery via email
  - Automatic redirection to download
  - Individual files of bundled products
  - Pay per view
  - PDF security stamp
- Intangible Products
  - Subscription management
- Physical Products
  - Manual status codes in the dashboard
  - Automatic status codes in the dashboard
  - Automatic emails
  - Automatic email follow ups
  - Detailed fulfillment management
  - Shipping label handling
  - Types of shipping supported
    - Free shipping
    - Flat rate shipping
    - Tiered rate shipping
    - Integration with shipping services
      - USPS
      - UPS
      - Fedex
      - Canada Post
      - Royal Mail
      - DHL
- Inventory controls
  - Variations
  - Bundled Products
  - Inventory Reports
  - Inventory Alerts
- Customer product input
  - Text input
  - File upload

Marketing & Customer Management Criteria

Marketing Criteria
- Integration with email marketing services
  - AWeber
  - MailChimp
  - Constant Contact
  - Get Response
- Sell products from within emails with HTML links
- Product bundles
  - Combined physical & digital bundles
  - Bundles that affect shipping costs
  - Bundles that affect inventory
- Coupons/Promotions
  - Coupon codes
  - Automatic discounts
- Social Networking Integration
  - Insert the product image when sharing with facebook, pinterest
  - Automatically includes sharing buttons on product pages
- Product Reviews
  - Automatically include reviews
  - customer only reviews
  - moderated reviews
- Integration with Affiliate marketing system
- Google Analytics integration
Customer Management Criteria
- Allow customer account creation
  - Save shipping info
  - Display all purchase history
  - Display product download links
  - Creates a WordPress user
- Require customer account to purchase
- Retain abandoned/expired shopping cart information via a cookie

Session 1 Q&A

WordPress Shopping Cart Plugins (eCommerce Plugins)

Compare 5 plugins
General Characterizations
- By content type
- By exstenability
- By theme compatibility
- By order fulfillment

Overview of WP eStore

Intro
Paid plugin by tips and ticks hq
Cost $49
- 1 year of support
- Unlimited sites
Extensions
- Free extensions
- 1 paid extension – for other payment Gateways
Excels at digital products – it is designed for this.
Widest range of functionality
Highest digital security
Large ecosystem
- Affiliate
- Membership
- PDF stamper
Biggest Weakness
- shipping
- taxes

Overview of MarketPress

Intro
- Paid plugin by MPMU Dev
  - 19.95 per month
  - Unlimited sites
- Extensions
  - My extensions
Best for simple physical products
Built in integration for more payment gateways & shipping systems
Large ecosystem
Biggest weakness
- Product variations
- Product bundles

Overview of WooCommerce

Intro
- Free plugin by WooThemes
- Cost 0
  - 1 year of support – with paid extensions only
  - Unlimited sites
- Extensions
  - Free extensions
  - Paid extension
VERY full featured.
Large ecosystem of themes and extensions
Biggest Weakness
- Limited digital security
- Highest cost

Overview of Shopp

Intro
- Paid plugin by shopplugin.net
- Cost $55 per site
  - 1 year of support for each paid site
  - Unlimited sites
- Extensions
  - Free extensions – none
  - Paid extensions
VERY full featured.
VERY customizable
Biggest Weakness
- Bugs

Overview of Cart66

Intro
- Paid plugin by Cart66
- Cost $89 per year
  - 1 year of support
  - 1 site
- Extensions
  - None
Very Easy to set up
VERY limited features
No ecosystem
Biggest Weakness
- limited feature set
- variations
- bundles

Choosing the Right Shopping Cart – Start with a Plan

Type of store
- Small store that sells only digital products
- Small store that only sells physical products
- Small store that sells both digital and physical products
- Large store that sells only digital products
- Large store that only sells physical products
- Large store that sells both digital and physical products
Product Definitions
- Types of products
- Role of variations
- Customer input
Product Display
- Product catalog
- Individual products
Order Processing
- Buy now buttons?
- Inventory control
- Shipping
- Taxes
Order fulfillment criteria
- Digital products
  - Security?
- Subscriptions
- Physical products
  - Detailed fulfillment management
  - Shipping methods
  - Customer input
Marketing
- Integration with Autoresponders
- Sell products from emails
- Social networking integration
- Product reviews
Customer Management
- Customer accounts