More WordPress and E-Commerce
WordPress Themes with E-commerce Built-In
Found another WordPress theme with e-commerce built right in.
ShopperPress http://www.shopperpress.com/ There is a special going on. You can purchase the plug-in for $79 ($199). And you can use it on unlimited websites. That’s a big plus. And yes, I purchased it.
Plug-ins
Veracart The plug-in is free. However, there is a monthly fee associated with the cart. See http://www.veracart.com/pricing_business.html…
E-commerce and WordPress
I love WordPress. Now I’m going to say this once since nothing irritates me more than a developer asking what they should use without supplying any information as to what the client needs (e.g., wish list, multiple product images, etc.), or may want in the future. The software (plug-in or application) needs to meet the client’s requirements, and you may very well have to use a non-WordPress solution, and that is perfectly okay.
WordPress Plug-ins
Shopp http://shopplugin.net/ ($55) I’ve used this one on a couple of sites. So far so …
E-commerce from a customer’s perspective
I belong to several website design and development groups. Recently there was a discussion on what a client/customer would look for, what they want to see, including what annoys them when shopping online.
My personal pet peeves are:
- Having to create an account before I even purchase anything or add to a cart. I will go elsewhere.
- They don’t realize that the US Virgin Islands uses the USPS.
- Having to contact the business to see if they ship here.
- Shipping being calculated as a foreign or international destination.
- I have
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Cheap and/or Clueless
I think all web developers have come across the following type of potential clients, and we are just absolutely floored. So here goes:
Business #1: They did their own site. It shows. They constantly refer to “contact us” on each page, but their email address is only on the home page and there is no link not even a “mailto”. They sell products and you cannot order them unless you call them. They think that’s just fine. But in this economy you cannot afford to do that. Oh heck, that’s …
Shopping Carts/Catalogs
I only have experience with a small handful of shopping carts, and the two that I can definitely say stay away from are Zen Cart and osCommerce. Being free is not a money saver.
Example: A site that I am working on (and I agreed to take over before learning it was built using Zen Cart) has 100′s of products that require options (size, color, shipping weight increases for the larger sizes). There isn’t any way to clone those attributes so they have to be setup for each product, …
Your Responsibilites and Why
It is your responsibility to verify that you have received payment for an order and not to ship until then. It’s called managing your business effectively.
It is your responsibility to contact the vendors that process payments including your bank. Those institutions will not talk with anyone but you. If you expect others to do this for you then you are opening your business to major problems. Not keeping track of your finances opens yourself up to fraud. You know those stories about bookkeepers, etc. embezzling money. Well it happens …
E-commerce: So you want to sell online?
I am going to be very blunt here (like I’m not already). Selling on-line has its responsibilities and tasks you have to do and if you just want to sit back and expect money to just come in don’t sell on-line.
All carts have problems with abandonment. That’s when a customer goes through your site adding items to purchase, but does not complete the order by paying for it. If there is a great deal of abandonment then it may be something wrong about the checkout process. It may be …
Selling Products
You have a product or merchandise that you want to sell via your website. Not a problem. The problem comes when you make people call you to order. Hello!! Unless you are awake and sitting by the phone 24/7/365 you aren’t going to sell much of anything. Or have much of a life.
Hire a professional to set you up on a cart with a method of credit card payment or even just PayPal.…
Shopping Carts
Right now I am sitting here waiting for files to download to transfer to another location. Which got me to thinking about the various shopping carts that I have worked with.
Shopping carts are available in various different languages (PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, etc.), some are free and others are not. Well I’ve been working with one of the free ones, and the time I’m spending on customizing it to fit the design of a site (under a subcontract)…well it would have been less expensive to purchase a certain cart and …
