We talked about WordPress E-Commerce at our April 2014 meetup: digital products, physical products, membership subscriptions, and events. We started with general considerations, then talked about specific plugins and platforms.

If I missed anything, please leave a comment, and I’ll add to the post.

General e-commerce considerations

Brian Richards

Payment gateways

• Most common: Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net
• Stripe
  • Brian’s favorite
  • Great for devs
  • Has an iframe option, but people are less likely to trust it because the browser doesn’t show a padlock
  • Easy to test
  • Faster transfers to your bank account than PayPal
• PayPal
  • Brian’s not a fan
  • Poor documentation
  • Some have experienced delays or holds on funds

Taxes

• You must charge for physical goods if selling to MI buyers

Shipping

• Most plugins provide flat rate
• You can use APIs to get shipping rate tables from shippers

Analytics

• Major plugins support Google Analytics, and have extensions for other analytics systems

Plugins

Brian Richards

WooCommerce

• Example site: WPSessions
• If selling only 1 item, set cart page to the checkout page, so when buyer adds item to cart, they go straight to checkout. Note: this prevents the from editing their cart.
• Product Data
  • Simple: standard product
  • Variable: variations like size, color. Can attach different thumbnails to different variations
• Virtual: not physical
• Downloadable: not physical, but also downloadable
• A product can be downloadable but not virtual. Example: combo ebook and physical book.
• Linked Products
  • Up-sells: additional products shown on product page
  • Cross-sells: additional products shown in checkout
  • Grouping: create bundle

iThemes Exchange

• Least configuration necessary
• Can drag and drop product images
• Includes editable customer info
• Invoices add-on
• Custom URL Tracking add-on

Easy Digital Downloads

• Very easy
• Many add-ons
• Only digital products, and great at it
• User History extension: displays buyer’s path and analytics

More plugins

Chad Warner

WooCommerce

• E-commerce themes
• Extensions
• Genesis Connect for WooCommerce
• Payment Gateways
• Example site: Carolyn Stich
• WooCommerce > Settings
  • Products > Inventory
  • Tax
  • Checkout
  • Shipping
  • Emails
  • Integration
• Products
  • Shipping Classes
  • Attributes
  • Edit product

Easy Digital Downloads

• Extensions
• Example: Empowerment Institute (incomplete, and all products currently free)
• Downloads > Settings
  • Payment Gateways
  • Misc

s2Member

• Example site: School Communicators Network (in development)
• How to restrict page. Show redirection.
• s2Member
  • Quick-Start Guide
  • General Options
  • Restriction Options
  • API / List Servers

Event Espresso

• Free version
• Add Ons
• Example site: Carolyn Stich
• Event Espresso
  • General Settings
  • Event Overview
  • Calendar Settings

Gravity Forms and PayPal Add-on

Steve Colthorp

• Example site: Flowerland
• Gravity Forms can be more flexible than e-commerce plugins, because it lets you create all the fields you want.
• Dynamic Population lets you pass values to Gravity Forms using query strings or other methods.