Wordpress Question

How goes it everyone? I have a quick question directed a those of you who use wordpress as the foundation for your ecommerce sites. How simple is it to use and how easily can you expand functionality with plugins? Also, how successful have you been using this foundation as opposed to developing a unique independent site in Dreamweaver or other comparable program? Thanks again.

Depends on what excatly you want to do with the plugins. Check out wordpress.org ->Extend for the different kinds of plugins.
Many tasks can be handled very smoothly with plugins.

BUT: the more plugins you have the more you get into trouble with different updates and versions.

I use Wordpress (and sometimes Thesis) for most small/micro sites and blogs. Other than that I work with Joomla and might take a look at Drupal.

WP is easy to set up and gets good SEO results. I have Dreamweaver but I use it mainly to do smaller html/css stuff and then put it up in Wordpress.

What else is there..? I once took a look into XSitePro2. Switched to my Wordpress/Dreamweaver combo pretty quickly. Wordpress (or any CMS for that matter) with plugins, templates and all that is just much more flexible and easier to handle.

I have been using wordpress to build a simple e commerce store for one of my friends.

The wordpress plugin that seems to be the most used and has the highest rating is wp-ecommerce: instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/

along with the theme crafty cart: billionstudio.com/news/free-crafty-cart-theme/

This is the combo that I am using with modifications to the crafty cart theme.

wp-ecommerce has just about all the features that I could ask for and was pretty easy to setup and install. I had my sample store up and running in 5 minutes.

If you interested in seeing what the setup process is like wordpress.tv has a tutorial video on setting up wp-ecommerce here: wordpress.tv/2009/06/08/create-an-ecommerce-website-with-wordpress-in-under-5-minutes/

I would not ever use wordpress for an ecommerce store.... ever.

that being said if you are only selling 5 products or so, which i imagine is the only reason you would want to use it, why not just direct shoppers to a paypal page or small hosted sales site?

Wordpress is great with SEO. Of course it should be updated often for you to get the most out of it. Having a blog IN ADDITION TO your ecommerce site on Wordpress will make a huge difference.

If you can think of something you want a site to do, WP can do it. E-commerce included. Is it perfect? NO, you have to learn to be able to manipulate it to do what you want it to do. Including their best e-commerce plugin. This is true with ANY foundation. That being said,

The GREAT thing about WP is that it IS open source. It is constantly changing and improving.
The WORST part about WP is that it IS open source. It is constantly changing and improving.

Changing and improving is great because it is fresh and up to date, not so great because it evolves and needs to be kept up to date. Keeping it up to date is simple AND can be easy.

I would go so far as to say ANY task can be handled. Smoothly? Depends on how quickly you can pick up and understand HOW the plugin is designed and how to best use it for the function YOU need.

I disagree. I don't see it as trouble at all. Each plugin, theme and even WP itself lets you know when an update is needed. Most of the updates are now fully automatic and can be accomplished with a simple and easy click. With more plugins, it there may be more upgrades simply because you have more things improving. We also offer a maintenance program for those that just don't want to worry about upgrades and versions. We do their updates on a regular, monthly basis.

I agree that WP is lacking with e-commerse plugin that is ideal. However, I will not go so far as to say I would not ever use it. Again, it is a matter of learning HOW to use the plugin. And each plugin has it's own "quirks". Again it is the beauty of open source. Many individuals approaching a common solution.

Totally agree.

lightstrikefl listed the WP e-commerce plugin that I would use as well. What the average person sees is NOT what this plugin is capable of. It has an entire website for using it and also offers paid add-ons. There are experts out there on this particular plugin alone that have published informational guides etc.

I would def go as far as saying that if we are talking about just using wordpress for the means of a store. I have never bought anything off a blog before. Using wordpress as merchant only screams the merchant is trying to get in cheap and free. I dont want my private info handled by one of the most known OS software out there.

THat being said, having a blag attached to the store could bring in real traffic benefits form fresh new content that you wouldnt otherwise be adding to the store all the time. If you are going to just build a store, get a proper system and pay someone for proper design and really dig in on how to sell online. It will be much better time and money spent in the long run.

why is that?

The point is that you have to keep track of all the plugins, make sure the old plugins work with the new WP version and, finally, use plugins that are either constantly upgraded or dont need to be upgraded. If the author stops working on his plugin and it doesnt work well with the newest WP version, youll have to put in some time to get an alternative plugin and adjust everything.
>The more plugins, the more you have to think about updates.

Of course Im not saying that WP with many plugins is unstable. But I think there is a difference between using 1 plugin and 15 plugins when it comes to updating.

Wordpress isn't built to be an e-commerce store, its built to be a blog.

Wordpress is like running shoes, you COULD wear them in every situation, but do you really think you could sell a million dollar contract with running shoes on? possibly but its not ideal. One size doesnt typically fit every situation. thus why we have dress showes, running shoes, sandals etc. We have e-commerce platforms, blog platforms, static site platforms.

You guys need to establish the common denominator amongst you here, which is what qualifies as a "store."

A store to me, is probably not a store to the next guy. 30k items? 35? HUGE difference.

That said, I use wordpress for everything. But I would never use wordpress for an ecommerce venture I was really serious about. Maybe to get it started, but in the back of my mind, I would be switching platforms as soon as it's warranted.

Magento is my personal choice. Again, everyone has an opinion and this is not an even playing field in this thread.

Why wouldn't you just jump right into Magento? Because it's a pain in the ass, you need a vps to run it effectively (with what I consider a "store"), and it's not a set it and forget it platform.

Ok I'm done. lol Felt like throwing my pennies in today.

Thanks for all the replies guys and gals. I would use Wordpress as the springboard into a full-scale ecommerce site. I am just learning web design and programming at the moment and would like to get a small venture started to provide a little extra income as I refine my skills. The store I am talking about will only have a few products to begin with but will add more and then jump platforms as quickly as possible. I have researched zencart and oscommerce a little bit and working on how easily each can be added to a main site. We shall see. I am bootstrapping everything at the moment so getting a pro to design a good ecommerce site is a little pricey. Anyway, thanks for the replies and if you have any other suggestions I am more than open to hearing them. Talk to you all soon.

I don't know if you have considered this option but you could use a service like e-junkie along with Wordpress to create an online store.

Also, in regards to WP and plugins, I suggest testing your Wordpress blog after you activate each plug-in you install. Some plugins do not play well with other plugins which can cause issues.

Good luck with everything!

Wesley

Lighthouse seems like a smart person and great resource for this forum. Just sayin. Listen and learn

I agree that Wordpress is first and foremost a blog platform. I'm a huge advocate of Wordpress. I build client sites using it, and I have found it to be massively flexible and powerful.

That said, if you're going to build an ecommerce site, Wordpress is simply not the ideal platform, so why use it? Would it work? Yes, it could be made to work. But there are better solutions. I don't agree that people aren't as inclined to buy from Wordpress sites; I sell off my Wordpress blogs every day. However, the way a blog generates sales is a very different approach than a purely ecommerce approach. If you're building a store, I'd use something other than WP.

True, I am constructing an ecommerce store as we speak but, for the time being, WP seems like it would be a good interim platform. I am tech savvy in other areas just no so much with web design and programming.

Do you really want to have a system with many plugins which could be coded by every noob that hasn't any clue about what he is doing. As far as I know everyone can create plugins and publish them.

Every plugin brings security holes about. Maybe using a shop with those plugin wouldn't be a good idea.

Another point is that WP is very slow. It needs a lot of php-memory in the latest versions. (about 30mb)

True, but as I said, I would only use it as an interim platform and once I get the ecommerce site worked out, I will switch over to that indefinitely. For the moment I am just looking to get started making money quickly, and as a testing idea and then using what knowledge I gained from the WP store to applying it to the real store.

I guess in some way its better to get started with WP as an ecommerce platform than not to get started at all. On the other hand: if at some point you want to switch to another system, it will potentially cost you a lot of time, energy and money (depending on how big your store will be).

If you see great potential in the market you target, I would look at some open-source e-commerce software. If you think its always going to be a niche thing raking in some hundred $ per month, then WP might be sufficient.

I've looked into the open source ecommerce solutions such as oscommerce, magneto, and zenchart, among others. They are all very good. And I intend to use them when I get the store up. For now I am not sure they are really necessary for starting out, considering that I still have yet to prove my prowess at these things. Once I can get the market moving scaling/expenses for a full scale ecommerce store won't be as burdensome.

I think your approach is totally fine. But let me tell you a story about my friend's ecommerce store.

Back in January 2009 he wanted to open up a ecommerce store like mine. He found a supplier but he didn't want to spend $300 on the store software. So I gave him a copy of my OScommerce store software that I started out with. It was raw and had horrible backend, but it was sufficient. After all, I ran my store out of it for 18 months.

It took him from January-April to input all his products, change the templates, add features, etc..(he was knowledgable in php). He opened up his store in May and made $500 the first month and $1000 the 2nd month and has been doing well since.

Looking back, if he would have bought the software in January, he could have been up and running in Feb. and made probably $2000-$2500 before May came around. So saving money really cost him money at the end.