Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I was searching through the WordPress Developer Codex when I happened to find this article:

Business Blogging and Shopping

It talks about e-commerce-itizing your business blog. I thought some people might find that interesting!

Interesting. I checked it out a little...

It`s hard to tell exactly what features are included... specifically, the important feature of an ecommerce site are to have complete product and customer databases access and control (edit/management).

In addition, there should be the ability to use a SSL... not sure if the script is compatable either.

~Roland

PS: I`m going to download it an do some "testing".

 

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

Tested......

The plug-in ecommerce is ok.  It is easy to install, set-up and add products and pricing.  The drawback of it is it does not maintain a customer database. So, if you want to keep a record of people who purchsed products - to email them at another time about sales, or news (other marketing), you need maioltain that information separately.

The advantages of using an ecommerce application like osCommerce, Zen-Cart, Xcart, etc is they maintain a product AND customer database as well as keep track of all sales, even hit on your products. 

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

I think the concept is good, but I didn`t try it.

There`s probably other ways to do this, like maybe just having your store and then connecting the links to products in your blog. Or you can pull random products, whatever. It should be pretty easy to do it with PHP without the specific setup they are talking about.

The wordpress plugin does provide a CSV file (of customer information) to download.

It all depends what features you want for ecommerce. If you do not need a customer database managed by your ecommerce solution (or are willing to maintain it separately), the the plug-in is ok.

~Roland

 

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

There might be some cross-related info on this other thread about choosing a content manager. Lots of really good ideas, and some very professional opinions on the thread. It helped me a lot, and "WordPress" was one of those discussed.

Nikole,
I have heard and seen people using wordpress, mambo, and Joola as an ecommerce site, but I don`t think its an effective way to do business. Especially if you are selling thousands of dollars a day, if you are selling one item per day or one item per week it might be a good starting point for your online business.
I can already imagine how Wordpress would collapse under rigorous sales, transactions, and so forth....

Now what I have seen is, OSCOMMERCE with wordpress (embedded, not linked) into the shopping cart. This is more reliable, since OSCOMMERCE runs off of its own DB but, it shares the same resources with Wordpress, so if you sign up or purchase something through OSCOMMERCE, you use the same login and password for both.

Now as for the modules, they are very tricky to install, and the major tweaking you have to do to your OSCOMMERCE its nutz (unless you are good with PHP, I mean real good, not basic coder) you can enjoy both features.
Now what I have heard is that OSCOMMERCE will be realeasing a new Version that includes the Wordpress Blogging engine on it.
I think its going to be on milestone 3.1.1 .



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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

I wonder: If WordPress is "known" as a content manager, and they`re getting into e-commerce, is that too much diversification? I don`t know that they`re known as a content manager, that`s just how I first encountered them.

But I do know that Excel is a spreadsheet. It`s not a word processor, graphic drawing program, nor is it a database. Just because Microsoft wants to pretend the Excel can solve everyone`s problem with a single application doesn`t make it true.

So....is WordPress "primarily" a content manager, and now adding in e-commerce? Or is it an e-commerce program that happens to have a good content manager?

This is "just" a "plug-in" (added script/files) that enables you to add ecommerce-like features to your wordpress website.

Like there are added modules or script you can add to osCOmmerce, Zen Cart, etc to preform tasks the default program does not contain.

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

I don`t think that Word Press even makes it to the content management realm.
But it seems that everyone these days associates an admin login a content management system. Word Press is a simple blog that has been around for quite some time now and modifying the generic template is simple, but as far as using it for ecommerce? I wouldn`t go that route. There`s one major thing you have to take into consideration and that`s security. I guess if it`s a pay pal plug-in you don`t need an SSL cert since they do everything for you.But what if you want to add CC Credit Card Processing API? Then, I think it would get messy. Has anyone tried developing a CC processor API? If so what are the problems you have faced?



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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net