Two Impressive Ecommerce Plug-ins For WordPress

I’m asked frequently what ecommerce plug-ins I have used and recommend for WordPress. There are several options, but two stand out.

WP e-Commerce Plug-in For WordPress

WP e-Commerce is a free plug-in and can be installed right from the plug-in section of your hosted WordPress admin tool. There are several modules for this product including drop shipping, digital downloads, members only, and an affiliate option. These modules are reasonably priced, but can add up if your trying to be cost conscious.

Support for this plug-in comes from a forum on their site. Understand that a majority of questions about product issues are answered by community members. The website also encourages you to buy a documentation file for $35. I’ve never seen this before, but I suppose it’s their way of reducing the need to answer support questions. I should also mention the documentation isn’t written by the plug-in developer, but rather a user of the product.

If e-commerce isn’t your WordPress sites sole function, I would use WP e-Commerce. It’s simplicity and feature rich free version should be enough for the casual seller. A list of features can be found here.

Shopp Ecommerce Plug-in For WordPress

The next application I want to share is Shopp plug-in for ecommerce. This plug-in is not free, and you will pay for enhanced features. But the thing I really like about this product is it’s breadth of features. From the WordPress Dashboard integration to the drag and drop functionality of putting products in the shopping cart.

You’ll find advanced features like inventory management, multiple shipping types, data export for Excel and Quickbooks, and various language translations. One of the major features I think sets this product apart is the cross selling option. Like Amazon, you can give your buyers the ability to buy other products that may be related, or up sell them to something of more value. Other products in this space are rushing to implement this feature, it’s that important.

Support comes from a forum on the companies website, which seems to be pretty active. Take a look at the features here. While having to pay for modules may seem costly, these modules make the product a commercial grade ecommerce system that integrates into WordPress.

I’m finding Ecommerce is becoming a natural extension of the WordPress platform. I’ve installed both products, and find them to be the best available at this time. I would like to see these companies extend their products to work with mobile themes. As an example, if you are running the WPtouch plug-in, which gives iPhone users an elegant theme, you can’t use the shopping cart to buy products. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a mobile compliant site.

What ecommerce products have you used the integrate with WordPress? What has been your experience?

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Book Review: TwittFaced

Twitter is something I know pretty well. I've been a user for 2 years. While I don't have tens of thousands of followers, I understand the power of Twitter. When I learned Josh Peters wrote a book out on Twitter, titled TwittFaced, I thought I would give it a read. I gave Josh my money and off I went.

It's not a long read, 156 pages or so, but man, this book is packed to the rafters with information. Even if you think yo know Twitter, or several other social networking platforms, Josh and his co-author Jacob Morgan do a great job of outlining the hottest tools and applications you should be looking at. And the most important part of each chapter is explaining why and how to use the services successfully.

The cover reads "your toolkit for understanding & maximizing social media". I would agree. I have marked several chapters for re-reading. Chapter nine is chalk full of statistics on social media. Chapter five talks about Facebook and the many applications which can make your experience better. And chapter 21, how to keep from being overwhelmed. I really like all of the chapters but one, the chapter on MySpace. Maybe I'm being a snob here, but I don't see MySpace as having any relevance in social media. But Josh and Jacob give it some love in chapter six.

This is a great book. Easy to read, lot's of statistics, and some great examples explaining how to get the most out of these social media platforms.

Buy the book here. It's a link to Amazon, and if you buy the book, I get a few pennies.

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NaNoWriMo Started Today And I Didn't

National Novel Writing Month is a challenge for people to write and entire Novel, at least 50,000 words, in a thirty day timeframe. For the past several years I have attempted to write consistently for thirty straight days. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because I don't write as consistently as I should. Here is an example:

Today I wrote a measly 22 words. FAIL! I wrote them just so I could say I wrote something on day one. It's a great story really, and I want to write it out. The output is 1650 something words shy of what I should be writing daily if I really wanted to make a go of it.

I will try harder over the next several days and try and catch up. Most of the time I make huge headway on the weekends.

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The Basics Of WordPress

Last night I lead a discussion on the Basics of WordPress at the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City. I really want to thank Pete Codella and Joseph Scott for asking me to participate. It was a lot of fun. Due to some technical difficulties, we had more of a discussion, which is always better than a boring lecture. Please find the slide deck here for you viewing pleasure.

Thank you to all who attended, you had some great questions, and several of you shared your experience. If you were in my class last night connect with me on Twitter or Facebook, or any number of other social network sites. Or a good old email/phone call works too.

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Oh Yeah I Have Snow Leopard

Posted via web from The Thom Allen LifeStream

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