The post is an extended comment that I wrote on the post “WordPress and Woocommerce Online Store: Advantages and Disadvantages of This Solution”.
First, let's define what is meant by "point of sale". I understand this as a site that presents a product catalog with the function of adding goods to the basket with subsequent payment, and automating further order processing (at least, this is tracking the number of remaining goods in stock).
It's minimum. In a good way, the user part needs the functions of sorting, filtering, selecting by parameters, the ability to specify product attributes (color, size, etc.), and for the administrator part - convenient (mass) adding products, import-export (from excel, cvs, 1C), management of discounts and promotional options, separate accounts with different capabilities for the sales manager, administrator, and the one who puts products in the catalog. Plus registration of users-buyers.
Now let's see what WP can do.
Without plugins, WP does not allow you to organize any of the above. With plugins, you can organize your catalog and cart. The user part, the frontend, will depend on which theme is used - that is, usually, all these sorting and other joys of the store are created not by the engine, but by the theme, and the information is taken from custom fields.
As for the administrative part, it is very problematic to implement:
- separation of user roles (most likely, this is again a separate plugin),
- convenient management of store goods; visually, it will be the same as managing blog posts. Which is not very convenient when you have several thousand products,
- mass goods management; you will not be able, for example, to add a discount or some other option to all the necessary products with one click,
- registration of buyer users with separate fields for address, default payment method data, etc.
- payment through Russian payment systems; all popular plugins support payment only through foreign services
- bulk import-export of goods excel, cvs, 1C
Another one possible problem- This is an update (change) of the design for the site. Since all user functions are stored in the theme files, and not in the plugin, it will not be possible to simply change the theme to any one you like, without losing functionality. And developing a theme with features for the store is, again, money.
I'm not saying that it's impossible to make a WordPress store. But the default functionality of WP does not allow anything that we need. Accordingly, you need to use plugins, and this is not always reliable - there may be problems when updating (updated WP, or store plugin, or theme), compatibility with other plugins, etc. As a starting point, a WordPress online store might not be bad. But if there are a lot of goods, and sales go actively, it will not be very convenient to use it. Therefore, why create extra work for yourself when transferring the site to another engine in the future, if there are already ready-made systems specially designed for this?
I wrote this article in October 2014. That is, a year and a half ago. Then I was a freelancer and had no experience with large orders, and I did only three or four stores. In the year and a half that have passed since the writing of the article, I managed to work in a web studio, where about 4-5 sites were developed every month, of which half were online stores. Therefore, my opinion has changed a little, and some other arguments have appeared.
Firstly, the site should solve the problem of your client. And it is necessary to proceed from this.
Secondly, important value for money, quality and time you spent on development.
For example, if a client wants to launch a store in a week with a small budget, and before that you only worked with one CMS (it doesn’t matter if it’s WordPress or something else), then do it on it. You won’t miss the deadlines, you won’t have problems with learning a new CMS.
Another example, the client wants big store, with a large budget, it is important for him that the system creates accounting reports, invoices, all forms in accordance with GOST, integrates with the bank, and so on - do it on Bitrix, because it's all there out of the box. Yes, if you have not worked with him before, the first time will be difficult. Therefore, it is better to hire someone who has worked (again, based on the price-quality-labor ratio).
The client wants exclusive features, and is ready to pay for them - make a unique system only for him on the framework, and not on the CMS - Laravel, Django, Ruby on Rails - on what you know best.
If the client and the developer are you in one person - do what you want more, then you will work with it.
So, in short, there is not and cannot be an unambiguous answer to the question of which CMS to make a website / online store / whatever.
Can be created using special e-commerce plugins. And although many consider creating a store on the WP platform not the best solution, there are still successful plug-ins for online trading, which will be discussed in this article.
Online store on WordPress - features
Before creating an online store on the WordPress platform, you need to understand the following points.
1. WordPress is built in such a way that in the installation version, it makes a large number of database queries during operation, which heavily loads the hosting provider's server. 2. Therefore, firstly, choose a hosting for an online store on WordPress with a memory for running a script from 256 Mb, and preferably 512 Mb. Secondly, install one of the plugins on the system WordPress caching(for example, ). It will not only reduce the load on the server, but also speed up the work of the store, reducing the loading time of the store pages and product cards.Two options for creating a WordPress online store
An online store on WordPress can be created in two ways.
1. Option 1: For the store use the entire WordPress system. That is, the store on the system should be the main resource. In this option, it is worth installing a special template for the store, the plugin for trading that you have installed. one. Option 2: The store can be made as an addition to the main blog. For example, you maintain a company blog and make a small store on it for purchases from the blog pages.Both options have a place to be, but it all depends on the planned sales, and for starters, on the planned visits. For the main online store, the first option is preferable. As an addition to the main resource - a website or blog, the second option is suitable. For example, if you are trading software products or e-books. In such trade, large resources are not needed, real delivery is not needed, employees are not needed. But it is possible to organize Internet trade correctly and beautifully without allocating a special domain for these purposes.
Now an overview of several online stores based on WordPress. You can download all of the following plugins on the pages: WordPress.org/plugins using the search.
WooCommerce WordPress Plugin
WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress web store. Among its advantages, I would include:
- By default, all the necessary functionality of the store is enabled, including six payment methods;
- Many settings that cover the needs of the average store;
- Good Russian translation of the administrative part;
- The product gallery is included in the basic installation;
- Product card design is optimized for store promotion;
- Many themes from the plugin manufacturer;
- The WooCommerce plugin does not conflict with and syncs with major WordPress plugins, including , a plugin called , and .
For the WooCommerce plugin, there is a whole store with special themes created for this plugin. This is what the WooThemes page looks like.
Jigoshop online store
Jigishop is a multifunctional plugin for creating a WordPress online store. Tcnm small administrative flaws for the free version, namely:
- Not a complete translation of the panel into Russian. Multi-Language Expansion Pack costs $45;
- By default, there are few payment methods, only two (PayPal and checks). Additional forms of payment, both paid and free, need to be “added on” in the form of extensions;
- In general, the manufacturers of this plugin “bracketed” a lot of functionality from the installation, free version. A lot of extensions for the store are offered on the manufacturer's website, and most of them are paid;
- No built-in product gallery;
- The advantages of the plugin, with an interference fit, include a multifunctional store console with well-viewed purchase statistics, a separate tab for working with coupons and discounts, a separate setting for web optimization (cache compression and clearing);
- There are free extensions for data transfer (export/import) from all major foreign e-commerce plug-ins.
jigoshop website page And as always, the topics on the manufacturer's website, mostly paid.
Russian Internet shop on WordPress. Frankly, the plugin is quite powerful, but it requires the study of all the administrative "bells and whistles" from the authors. The installation version includes all the initial functionality of the store, but again you need to know how to activate them.
- The product card is pale and poor. By default, there are no product galleries.
- All extensions to the store require "digging" in the codes, although they are free.
- Most of the new extensions are offered in "raw" form with bugs.
In general, the store is not bad, but not custom. Requires the administrator to have knowledge of editing codes and a permanent presence on the tech forum. support. Although if you manage to configure it, it works fine.
WP eCommerce Store ( https://ru.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-e-commerce/) from Getshopped.org is one of the oldest WordPress ecommerce plugins. This is probably why when you get acquainted with it, you get the impression that you are working with the plugin on the WP 2.5 version. However, the plugin is tested on 4.9.5 and is constantly updated.
The plugin is installed as standard, in any way. True, after activation, you need to manually load the appearance folders. This is done in the plugin settings on the "Presentation" tab.
- The translation of the administrative part of the plugin is not complete;
- Delivery of goods in the store, by default, is focused on postal order.
- The main forms of payment through bourgeois "pals". True, the choice of free payment gateways is not bad.
- There are a lot of plugin settings. It is quite possible to build a small store.
- True, additional extensions to the plugin are mostly paid. So the cost of the product gallery costs $45. By default, there is no gallery, unlike, for example, the WooCommerce plugin.
- Themes to the store are paid, on WordPress themes the product card turns out to be inconspicuous.
- Since the main payment gateways are imported, the form for processing goods is very large and detailed.
- True, there is fundamentally in the WP eCommerce plugin desired function. This feature is installed by default and is called "Import".
- With the Import Products function, you can upload a list of your products in CSV format.
In conclusion, I note that creating an online store on WordPress is possible only through trial and error. Each plugin has both poles and minuses, and only you can choose it for your specific tasks.
First of all, do not confuse the Russian-language WP-Shop plugin with the WPshop eCommerce plugin, as well as with other WP trading plugins listed at the bottom of the article.
To install and create a store on the WP-shop, you must have your own domain, rented hosting on the server or installed local server on the computer, and most importantly, is it installed or planned to be installed.
WP-Shop is a plugin for WordPress CMS only. To support the plugin, there is a website of the authors WP-shop.ru. On the site you can download both a separate WP-Shop plugin (archive "wp-shop.zip"), and a package with an incoming WP-Shop plugin and a recommended set of additional plugins useful for the store (archive "wpshop-plugins-pack .zip").
Important! The archive of the plugin itself and the archive of the extended package differ not only in the content of the packages, but also fundamentally differ in the way they are installed on the site.
WP-Shop Kit with Extension Pack
Contents of the WP-Shop Extension Pack
The WP-Shop Extended Package includes the following plugins:
cyr2lat
The plug-in is designed for transliteration of Russian article titles (product descriptions) into Latin URLs.
platinum-seo-pack
A good SEO plugin to optimize WordPress. I would replace it with the SEO plugin "WordPress SEO"
sergey-anythingslider
wp pagenavi
Adds more advanced interface page navigation. The plugin requires the ability to understand (read) PHP codes. Also, this plugin kills WP built-in pagination. This results in the plugin not working on in large numbers templates.
wp-special-textboxes
This plugin allows you to create beautiful selections in the text in the form of colorful rectangles with icons. For example: Stop - red, Information - green.
Forms
Functional and flexible form builder for WordPress.
secure-wordpress
A decent plugin for securing a WP site.
WordPress-importer
A plugin designed to import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags, and more from a WordPress export file. Works only for WordPress.
admin-trim-interface
The plugin is outdated, but in principle it needs to be changed appearance site administration panel.
Display-meta
The current plugin allows you to display metadata for the post. Convenient for the store.
rc_redirector
Si-captcha-for-wordpress
Adds captcha for everyone WordPress Forms. Captcha is added separately. So for everything together.
wp-security-scan
The second plugin is for security.
wp-table-reloaded
Important! This plugin is deprecated and only works on WP versions up to 3.6 which is deprecated at the moment. The successor of this plugin is the TablePress plugin. This plugin allows you to create and manage tables on your WordPress site. No knowledge of HTML is required, and the user-friendly interface makes it easy to edit table data.
Summarize. The recommended package, "wpshop-plugins-pack", contains both required and deprecated plugins. If you are a beginner WordPress user, feel free to install WP-Shop with the extension pack. This will allow you to start working on creating a store almost immediately, and not waste time choosing the right plugins WP, choosing from thousands of existing ones. You can always disable any plugin that is installed with the WP-Shop package in the site's admin panel, in the tab Plugins → Installed.
Installing the WP-Shop Bundle with Extension Pack
The "wpshop-plugins-pack" package is installed via FTP only. Installing "wpshop-plugins-pack" is quite simple.
- Unpack the downloaded archive wpshop-plugins-pack.zip on your computer;
- Upload the contents of the folder of this archive via FTP to the root directory of your site;
- AT address bar enter http://your_domain/wp-admin/install.php and complete the installation.
All. WP-shop along with the package of extensions listed above is installed. Extensions are managed in the Plugins -> Installed tab. The WP-shop plugin itself, after activation, will be displayed as a separate console item.
If you are an experienced WP user and the online store is just an addition to the main WP site, then install the separate WP-Shop plugin.
Where to download the WP-Shop plugin
It is better to download the WP-Shop plugin on the Russian-language site of this plugin HERE (https://wp-shop.ru/). You can also see the Demo version of the working store there.
Standalone installation of WP-Shop
The plugin is installed in the standard way:
- Log in to the site administration panel;
- In the Plugins -> Add New tab, install the zip archive of the plugin.
- After activation (turning on) the plug-in is ready to work.
Immediately after installing the plugin, three pages related to the store appear on the site: Checkout, Orders, MyShop, Cart. Like any other WP page, you can put them in the site menu, give them a Russian name there.
I won't be able to cover all the settings of the WP-Shop plugin in one article. I will only tell you about the main shortcodes and tools for creating a WP-shop on the site.
Basic WP-shop shortcodes
Buy item button
Any product must have at least a description, price, photo. In WP-shop this is created in the create material tab with help custom fields. To specify the price, enter an additional "Custom field" cost_1 with the desired price value. As a result, you will receive a description of the product, its photo and price with a button to place in the basket.
So, the price of a product with a button to add the product to the cart is an arbitrary field cost_1 (cost_2, etc.) in the editor with a description of the product.
Widget for displaying purchase statistics
In order for buyers to see their purchase statistics, create a Custom Text widget with a shortcode . Products purchased by the visitor will not be reflected in the widget. Their number and the total amount of purchases will be reflected.
Place a buyer's order
To place a customer order, the cforms 14.5 plugin is highly recommended. Download the plugin, install it on the site, activate it and create the forms you need for placing orders by the buyer.
How can the buyer see the purchased product
To allow a customer to look at the item in their cart, create a page called "Your Purchases" for example. Place a short code on the page in the visual editor. Add this page to the menu (see photo).
By the way, in the screenshot you see an error - a warning from the plugin authors about the need to install the cforms plugin. I didn't install it.
Some Conclusions
In my opinion, the WP-shop plugin is good for a small online store with little functionality. The plugin has too many shortcomings for a multi-user product and you have to finish a lot by hand. Although, I repeat, for a small, free store, it may well be suitable. However, there are more interesting plugins for commerce powered by WP.
Other Wordress Plugins for Online Store
- WP eCommerce
- Jigoshop
- eShop
- Shopperpress (paid)
- Quick shop
- Shopp (paid)
- YAK for WordPress
- MarketPress (paid)
Especially for the site ""
By activating the eCommerce plugin on your WordPress, you will have an additional tab on the left panel called “Products”. Inside it contains:
- Products. All products available on the site are displayed here, you can immediately proceed to editing them;
- Add. Tab for adding new products and setting their visual display;
- Product tags. Here you add the names of the products that will be displayed in the URL, as well as the SEO descriptions of the products;
- Categories. Functionality for adding and editing product categories. Here you can create categories, customize them according to SEO requirements, and then group products into them;
- Variations. This section allows you to add multiple variations of the same product. For example, if you are selling clothes, then you can add different sizes and different colors for the same item;
- Coupons. You can create discount coupons and customize their work: how much will be valid, what products it applies to, etc.;
- Extensions. Here you can add different plugins directly from the interface. The price of extensions for eCommerce is from $12 to $199. I did not find free extensions.
Conclusion: The eCommerce plugin is not bad, but for beginners, it will most likely be a serious problem that it is difficult to find any information about it. useful information. And this is rather strange, given the number of active installations of the plugin. The functionality is not bad, but in comparison with WooCommerce it loses.
eShop
More detailed information about the plugin can be found on its official website.
Functionality
By default the eShop WordPress plugin will be on English language. To Russify it, you just need to install the eShop Languages plugin and activate it. After that, the following additional tab will appear in the WordPress interface:
Now let's take it in order:
- Orders. Here you will see all incoming orders by category “pending”, “pending payment”, “active”, “delivered”, “failed”, “deleted”. Customers can also see the status of their order;
- Delivery. Here you can add the delivery methods you need and calculate their optimal cost;
- Products. All added products are displayed as a pivot table;
- Option sets. Here you can add product display options. If you have a lot of product categories, and each of them needs to be displayed somehow differently (for example, a drop-down list, text, or show multiple selection), then this function will be very useful to you;
- Downloads. These are all the files you have uploaded to the site;
- Discount codes. Here it is easy to generate discount coupons that can be sent to customers. You can choose the type of discount: percentage on the purchase of goods (limited by use and / or date) or free shipping (limited by use and / or date);
- Base. In this section, you can view and download the xml-version of the site;
- Emails. Here you will find ready-made templates emails sent to clients. You can edit them, add tags (customer name, order status, address, etc.);
- About & Help. Here is an instruction for installing and working with eShop. The eShop Languages plugin I installed did not translate this section, so if you do not speak English, you will have to sit with a dictionary.
Extensions to the eShop plugin can be installed from the “Plugins” tab in the WordPress admin area (that is, in the same way as you install any plugins for WordPress) or from the official site. There are not very many add-ons for eShop - about 25, but they are all free.
Conclusion: the paradox is that a lot of people seem to use the eShop plugin, but there are no active discussions of it on forums or blogs. If you have a question with the settings or something does not work the way you want, you will have to ask the English-language support on the official website or read the English-language documentation again. The functionality of the plugin is standard - everything seems to be there, but at the same time something is missing. It seems that a more or less large online store on WordPress will not pull the eShop plugin.
Jigoshop
WP Shop
Cart66 Lite
Cart66 is the former PHPPurchase. Cart66 is a paid plugin that costs $98 for single site use and $300 for unlimited use. The developers also offer Cart66 Cloud for those who are worried about the safety of their data for $95 per year. But there is also free version Cart66 Lite, which I will talk about.
You will have to work with Cart66 in English, since it does not have a Russian version. Perhaps just for now.
Functionality
The Cart66 plugin in the admin part looks like this:
The free version of the plugin provides the following features:
- orders. This is where all customer orders come in. You can sort by name, date, order amount, delivery type, status, actions;
- products. We fill in all the necessary data about the new product, and it will appear in your store. The Cart66 plugin has a non-standard form for adding new products. If most other plugins allow you to add products using standard WordPress posts, then Cart66 does this via its internal form. It looks different, but it's understandable. We add the name, unique product code, price, tax rate (if any), transportation parameters, quantity restrictions. In the same tab you will see a list of all available products;
- PayPal Subscriptions. This feature is only available in the professional version of Cart66, which has already been priced above;
- Inventory. And here again I see the inscription “Functionality is available only in the Pro version”. There is also a link where you can pay for and install this professional version;
- promotions. Those who do not know English at all may be confused by the number of incomprehensible fields that need to be filled out. In fact, here you need to fill in almost everything the same as in the similar tab of other plugins: the name of the promotion, type, dates, limits on amounts, products, etc.;
- shipping. Here, add shipping methods that your customers can use. You can set the cost of delivery of one product, as well as how much it will increase when adding additional units of goods;
- settings. The plugin provides the ability to configure everything you need: from country and taxes to various notifications and integrations with other services. By the way, you can integrate the store with Amazon, MailChimp, Google Analytics, Zendesk and other services;
- reports. Sales reports are only available in the professional version. In the free version, you can download a summary of orders by selecting the desired time period;
- accounts. The account management functionality can also be used only by purchasing the paid version of Cart66.
Conclusion: even the free version of Cart66 is pretty functional. It has everything for the successful operation of a beginner online store. The only negative is the lack of a Russian-language version.
These are plugins for online store on WordPress. The most popular WooCoomerce plugin is deservedly so - its functionality (including additional extensions) will allow you to create almost anything with your online store. But this solution is more suitable for large, multi-brand stores with large quantity commodity items. There will be a lot of “eating” resources of the WooCoomerce server. Therefore, an important issue that you should not forget about when choosing plugins for an online store is related services.And if you are just starting to do your project, then questions such as “" or " It is worth finding out right away in order to put these costs into the budget. If your option is a small store and it is on a regular shared hosting (not VPS), then it is better to look at other e-commerce plugins.
If you have the ability (and desire) to pay to use the plugin, then of course you should do so, as paid versions always provide “tasty” features that are not available by default. Focusing on some WordPress plugin,
Allowing you to make the site work online store. The plugin has the following features: adding new products to the catalog, sorting products, calculating the cost of an order including delivery, editing promotions and discounts, product rating system, email templates for notification and distribution, and other useful features.
Selection templates support , which allows you to view the product list on any device. You can also file optimization using Wordpress plugins (if it is not provided in), which will allow your store to be on the account of search engines.
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Incart Lite
Stylish theme for an online store in a flat style. Also can be used for portfolio, corporate or business website. It contains a slider with various image transition effects, product categories, a list of brands, sidebars, a fixed menu, an up arrow for easy navigation and much more.cartel
Stylish and neat template for an online store of any kind of goods. Main colors: green, white and black. Features: slider, sections with banners, featured products, blog articles. Shop with pagination. Made in light light style.
Eco Gray Free
Simple template in the style of minimalism. It has a store with sorting goods and a few more pages. Suitable for any kind of goods or services.
Shopping
shopping- free theme for online store. Made in style minimalism with a white background and an active purple tint. Suitable for any kind of product.
EShop
The template is made in purple tones on a white background. Modern style. It has a slider and includes all the necessary pages to provide the user with all the information about the store. At the time of writing, the demo is not loading, I hope the developers will fix this error.
kidshop
Template for an online store of children's goods(toy store, children's clothing store, etc.). Colorful site with a themed background. On the home page made slider and popular products. Also has a blog and shop. The template is done professionally.