Design by Elle

I’ve recently tried a couple of e-commerce solutions integrated with WordPress. Here are my thoughts of the two experiences:

WP e-Commerce by Instinct

I’ve used WP e-Commerce with WordPress 2.1 and it is also available for WordPress 2.5.
Instinct offers a free limited version of the plugin as well as a gold upgrade. The shopping cart main features include:

• Downloadable digital products.
• Product variations (for example: size, colour…).
• Members only module.
• PayPal or Google checkout options.
• Ajax-powered shopping cart.
• Coupons options.

It also comes with 2 preinstalled themes: default and iShop.

The gold module upgrade, which costs $15, allows for multiple gateway options and multiple image uploads.

The plugin’s biggest advantage is the option to add variations for the shop’s products, which can be a lacking feature in quite a few other e-commerce solutions I’ve looked in lately. However, disadvantages include:

• If the shop has quite a few products, page loading times slow down quite a bit.
• The shop handles only two shipping options: local and international.
• The shop offers a search option for products that is separate from WordPress search.
• Product text information editing and formatting can be limited.

eShop by Rich Pedley

eShop is offered for free and is compatible with WordPress 2.5.1. It includes the following main features:

• Products are handled as pages – so, one product per page and setting product options is done through editing custom fields for that page.
• Currently integrates Paypal payment only.
• Downloadable digital products.
• Better shipping options: shipping by state or by country. Furthermore, setting five zones and five shipping rate levels different for each zone, and with the option to change shipping rates for additional products within the same order.
• Configurable email templates.
• Easy product page editing and styling – the plugin offers CSS stylesheet editing from within eShop Admin interface or you can override the CSS rules with your own WordPress stylesheet.

All the above are great advantages. The product pages load just as fast as any other page on the site and they are included in the default WordPress search. Furthermore the plugin creates standards-compliant and accessible markup (for example the shipping rates table and the cart table).

The plugin’s biggest disadvantage is product options and variables. Product options number can be set in the eShop settings but it is not as friendly as it can be.

In addition, I guess the plugin is aimed for online shops located in the US. Currency options include GBP, USD, JPY, CAD and EUR. The States table only includes US states and the checkout form only shows US states (as they are the only ones in the States table). To rectify the problem and to be able to use this plugin for a shop located in Australia I had to:

• Add AUD as currency option in the settings.php
• Alter the States Table so the state code will accept three characters and then added Australian states
• Delete the word US from the Checkout form in checkout.php

But other than these two things, I have been extremely happy with this plugin and it is definitely my choice between the two and I am looking forward to see what the developers at quirm.net will come with next.

Other Options I haven’t tried:

• YAK by Jason Briggs (compatible up to WordPress 2.3)
• WordPress Cart by Dave Merwin and Michael Calabrese