Wordpress for e-commerce?

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bazzjazz

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Hi,
I have a client who runs courses and currently people can book and pay for places on these courses on his existing website.

However, he can't easily update the content of the site and therefore wants a CMS. I like Wordpress as a CMS as it is very easy form the clients side to update pages, but I haven't used it as an e-commerce platform. Has anyone here?

He would have a particular course running maybe three times in the year, so it displays as one course with three possible dates (options) and he also offers a discount for large numbers of people, so this also needs to be included.

If Wordpress is not suitable what would people suggest, bearing in mind it has to be easy for the client to update courses and general content.

Thanks,

Barry McCabe
 
mneylon

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
Barry

I *think* there was an ecommerce plugin or something for Wordpress floating around (there's probably more than one)

Michele
 
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bazzjazz

New Member
Thanks for the replies.

WP e-commerce looks good. I have emailed them to see if it would be compatible with selling courses rather than products. If it is, the next thing will be to see how easy it is to customise.

I see the Crafty Cart theme is a theme for WP e-commerce.

I have a very specific design to use for the site and will need it to blend in seamlessly.

Looking forward to trying it out! That S-tastic site looks very good, with loads of good info, thanks for the link.
 
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shaneod

Member
What kind of reporting does that plug in offer clients? Any clients that I've build successful ecommernce solutions quickly realise that they need a good backend to the software becasue bad reporting - invoicing - tax calculations etc etc etc can be very time consuming.
 
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shaneod

Member
Good stuff Barry, it could be a great way for someone to test if their business is suitable for online sales. Let us know how you get on as I'm a huge wordpress fan.
 
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bazzjazz

New Member
Will do.

I'm only new to Wordpress. Have used Joomla mostly up to now for CMS, but am fed up with the complicated backend, as clients typically find it difficult to navigate.

I'm finishing one Wordpress site at the moment and the client loves the ease of use for updating the site themselves.

Its taking a while though getting to grips with customising themes to get the look and feel I need. The job I need the e-commerce plugin for has been designed already and I need to get it bang-on in WP.

Barry
 
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bazzjazz

New Member
Here is a good screencast of the latest version of WP ecommerce. It might answer some questions for you Shane.

WP ECommerce 3.6.8 RC2 Beta on Vimeo

I have talked to the guy who produced the screencast and he is very knowledgeable (thanks for the link Jennifer), so a call to him might clear things up for you.

Barry
 
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shaneod

Member
Thanks for that Barry, I'm not looking at it myself at the moment (toooooo busy) but just wondering how you're finding it in general, order processing, sales reporting, all that sort of stuff?
 
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bazzjazz

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I don't have it on a working site at the moment. I'm waiting for the go-ahead from a client and if I get the green light, I will definitely be using it.

At this stage I imagine it will be after Christmas :(

Send me a reminder and I will let you know how I get on!
 
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shaneod

Member
Will do, could be a great option for a quick and easy e-commerce site but i'd imagine the back end might be on the simple side.
 
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jsweb

New Member
Nice thread, and I don't want to interrupt, after all I too love Wordpress, but it's a CMS (and good one at that!!)..

..but unfortunately it doesn't cut the mustard to act as an ecommerce website which would suit your needs (allowing courses to be advertised and ordered and places (stock level) to be monitored).

A true eCommerce application will handle:

Product (be it a Physical or Virtual item)
Support multiple attributes
Allow for cross/up sell
Add products to display in multiple categories
Offer Specials/Latest products and calculate your Best Sellers
Manage Stock levels
Run reports
etc
etc

Additionally, it doesn't support the ordering flow of allowing multiple items to be added to cart, calculating postage and shipping charges, supporting multiple payment gateways and showing order history and invoicing.

Sounds complicated right? Well as soon as you setup your clients new website using a CMS you will hear the questions "but does it do this"........

...This is when you wish you had started off with a proper eCommerce package

"Guns for Show, Knives for a Pro"

or what I mean't to say was CMS for simple websites, and eCommerce for shops.

Do keep us informed of how your project continues.

Regards

Jamie
 
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bazzjazz

New Member
Yes, you are right, it doesn't have all the features you mention, but for a very simple e-commerce application, it should do the job.

I have the guy from the screencast from a post above working on a site for me at the moment, so it'll be interesting to see how it works out.
 
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jsweb

New Member
"courses and currently people can book and pay for places on these courses"

Both options are available:

CMS:
- People can read about the course
- People can click the order
- Courses can be over ordered and sold


eCommerce:

- People can read about the course
- Courses can be cross sold (if you like A, you will also be interested in B, D)
- Course "seats/paces" can be set and monitored (not over sold)
- Courses can be attributed
- etc (as listed in my previous post)

Look at this DEMO example I've setup The Course Factory, Allowing you to learn with ease

Of course cost always plays a good point ;) - luckily both WordPress & Zen Cart are open source (free)

Good luck with the project.
 
snapiweb

snapiweb

New Member
I've looked at wp-commerce and it's good enough for simple requirements but still lacks much of the bells and whistles that have been mentioned previously.

that said, I've looked at it on several occasions and on each time there have been huge advances. I expect wp-commerce could become pretty useful for most ecommerce sites pretty soon.
 
byronyasgur

byronyasgur

New Member
this is a bit old i know and i've really only scanned the thread but i just thought i'd mention eshop for wordpress which i dont think was mentioned - i did a site with it - found it pretty good but it is not good for more than about 50 products because the products are just like a list of pages and after about 50 get pretty difficult to navigate in the back end - i used paypal - dont think it does much after that
 
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