WordPress, Plugins and eCommerce … It’s Time to Get Serious!
WordPress is a mature product. And I really think the time is now for professional developers of plugins to create e-commerce-type solutions … and guess what! I’m prepared to pay and I’m sure many others out there would too.
David from BloggingPro started me thinking and the more I wrapped my head around it the more it made sense.
Dave from BloggingPro …
I think that there is a market for pay-to-use plugins for WordPress, especially for things expanding WordPress into the e-commerce realm.
I’m seeing a trend in plugin developments. There are a bunch of folks doing e-commerce-type plugins and they’re starting to charge for it.
Yes, the “WordPress and Everything To Do With It Should Free Society” would shout all this down - one of the reasons, if not THE reason, why WordPress is so popular is because 99% of plugins are available for free.
True. But now we’re talking professional product blogging. Bloggers WANT to start selling products directly from their blogs. There can, and should be, a small segment of the plugin community who develops professional plugins for profit.
I can quite easily see a price point of say between $14.95 to $49.95 for a solid plugin that helps bloggers make money.
I’ve noticed (thanks to BloggingPro) a new plugin called WPB-PayPal. It’s a WordPress Membership Plugin with payment via PayPal.
When I first saw it it was priced at $42 - it’s now $15. I don’t know if this particualr plugin will make it but for me it’s a sure sign that that is where we’re heading.
There are other e-commerce plugins doing the rounds which I’ll be taking a closer look at over the coming weeks. They include:
- WP e-Commerce Lite 2.0
- WP Shop 1.96
I haven’t done too much research in this area (just an hour or so and some quick reading ) - so who knows, there might already be thriving groups of plugin developers going down the e-commerce route. If so, let me know.
Hmmm, makes me think about heading over to RentaCoder and contracting a developer to make me the ultimate plugin for selling information products via WordPress.
Are there any plugin maestro’s out there with any ideas - preferrebly in regards to paypal and general ecommerce facilities for WordPress - drop me a line. We might discuss a joint venture or two.
18 Responses to “WordPress, Plugins and eCommerce … It’s Time to Get Serious!”
By Stuart on Aug 10, 2006 | Reply
Hmm - just had a look at the last two you mention. If you look at the comments on the blog for the second one it seems to be very buggy.
The first one had a demo site that put me off straight away. I ‘bought’ an item and went to checkout by following the ‘checkout’ link only to find my cart was empty.
Then I noticed the ‘go to checkout’ link a little further up the page and behind that link there was my cart loaded with my good.
The buying process needs to be so simple that even dummies like me aren’t going to get confused and this product hasn’t quite reached that stage yet.
By Duncan on Aug 10, 2006 | Reply
You are 100% right on this, and there are other paid-for plugins out there as well, it’s got great potential..now if only you’d stop writing at gonzoblog we could get along better :-)
By David on Aug 11, 2006 | Reply
You should do it. I would love to see a really easy, simple to use WordPress integration for e-commerce.
By Martin on Aug 11, 2006 | Reply
Stuart - That’s what’s needed to be overcome if plugin developers want to charge for their plugins.
The ones I linked to were not the be all - just the ones I found first. I guess there must be a lot of testing and tweaking to be done before any “for profit” plugin can, and should, hit the market.
But then again, it’s not like Microsoft comes out with the perfect products, charging a good mint - with bugs usually found and patched up for years to come :-)
And yep, you’re right - “simple” is the buzzword here. Plugins that does just a simple job without the bells and whistles is all that’s needed.
By Martin on Aug 11, 2006 | Reply
G’Day Duncan,
Of course I’m right - if you say so.
But seriously, I do believe that as WP is maturing so should the plugin community - doesn’t mean the “free” and “paid-for” can’t co-exist.
And GonzoBlog is morphing into something else (wait and see) so we can get along fine now
- a virtual handshake and the beer’s on me when you’re down in Melbourne. :-)
By Martin on Aug 11, 2006 | Reply
David … that RentaCoder idea I toyed with sounds better and better, eh.
I’ll keep an eye out on what’s happening in this area (I think there’ll be more and more eCommerce-type plugins released) so there may not be much for me to do.
I’ll sit and wait and let’s say start of 2007 if nothing is out there that does it for me, I’ll think long and hard about doing something.
By Angsuman Chakraborty on Aug 21, 2006 | Reply
I realized that supporting the plugins, especially complex ones, take lot of time and energy. It needs to be supported for future versions of WordPress and work other plugins.
Professional bloggers need high quality product with full support guarantee, not support when I have time for it variety that you get with most WordPress plugins.
So I released my Translator Pro plugin, based on the original popular WordPress Translator plugin, for pay only.
What I offer in return is a feature rich plugin. It provides automatic machine translation of your blog in eight different languages - German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. It is search engine optimized, supports WordPress widgets, uses nice permalinks, super-fast (cacheable), multi-paged translations and lots more.
In short everything you need for your professional quality blog.
So far I am happy with the response. I think the market is ready for more professional involvement.
By Dan Milward on Sep 25, 2006 | Reply
On e-commerce lite. The first wordpress shoping cart plugin. Ever.
First of all I must press how totally easy to use our plugin is. To install it you simply drop the files in the plugins folder and click activate in the admin panel. Like every other WP Plugin. Real tough huh.
Personally I love simple websites, good functionality coupled with usability are the most important things in the business. I love what you can do with an interface these days - just by using a little AJAX your website can start functioning and looking like a fully fledged app. And in that respect (to the best of our ability) we’ve designed a product that is feature packed enough to cater for 99% of the people out there. Also the CSS is separate, so if you want to make it even more user friendly or better looking you can. Heck we even made it WP Widget compatible, even the most simplest of buffoons should be able to get it working ;-)
And I agree with Angsuman Chakraborty - creating and maintaining a plugin like e-commerce has been an absolutely huge undertaking, it has costed me a lot of money and time. But heck I love WP and I’m passionate about my Plugin. So when you’re talking about free plugins and you are wondering why development can sometimes be slow - well please just remember we have to earn money to eat as well you know!
We’ve been delighted to work with and build extra features for paying clients, and we’ve had hundreds of generous people thank us for what we have done. Very few people complain these days.
And finally I’m going to put my money where my mouth is - these people did. So without further ado here are a few examples of just how good our shop is:
Eden Ripley
FilmShop
Ochblog
One more thing. We’ve just released the latest beta version - so feel free to have a play and let me know your thoughts.
And just remember it is not a full release yet - V3 is probably still a month away. You’ll just have to be patient like me, caus I wanted it done yesterday :)
Ciao,… Dan
By Andrey on Oct 4, 2006 | Reply
Dan,
FilmShop is broken, and so is my heart - I was soooo looking forward to finally seeing a good e-commerce plugin.
I do love that in FilmShop the cart is visible in the sidebar, but clicking on the links under it leads to the messages stating that it is EMPTY.
Darn, another dud. A demo MUST work, damn it!
By HART (1-800-HART) on Oct 5, 2006 | Reply
I’ll have to look at this another time. I tried the wp-shopping cart (2 beta) and it nearly destroyed my database. Well, okay - not destroyed but it got plagued with WP errors about 3-inches deep at the top of each page and wouldn’t load a full page.
I would be muchly interested in having a paypal checkout directly in my wordpress blogs and a feature to create paypal as my gateway just like any other e-commerce site (I’m using Miva in my other store) I’m always looking for plugins like this.
Hopefully some future version will work. I hope the developers get compensated for their work, but it won’t be from me. I refuse to pay for plugins into an open source program. I’m sick of being held hostage by designers and programmers. Now, if Paypal wants their button embedded into these plugins - that’s where the programmers should be soliciting their efforts. I use paypal, and they get a cut from me. If they want a piece of my action - they will have to support these programmers and help them develop mini-malls embed’able into wordpress. i.m.o.
By Dan Milward on Oct 5, 2006 | Reply
Gah! So sorry Andrey, filmshop is still being worked as the client wanted some changes and we’re still pushing them through.
Dont forget about Eden Ripley this works and looks awesome!
HART - I’m sorry that you had problems with e-commerce lite. It works with the default WP install, maybe it was conflicting with other plugins you had installed.
I can’t believe you said that you wouldn’t compensate developers but you hope other people do. You’re hardly being held hostage - nobody is putting a gun to your head and saying “hey use this software or die”. If you are not prepared to pay for support then you’re the creator of your own problems. Its not like you can even get free support from Red Hat.
Did you actually know that Automattic who create Wordpress make heaps of money; through various advertising channels (ever noticed the google ads floating around) and plugins including Askimet??? So much for your free open source rigmarole. If you don’t know what you’re talking about / or more importantly don’t put your money where your mouth is… then shut yer cake hole ;)
By HART (1-800-HART) on Oct 5, 2006 | Reply
Hi Dan. It could very well be that a plugin is conflicting with your software. The blog I tried it on has Exec-PHP, SRG Archives, Wp-Backup, Akismet, WP-Admin-Bar2, and Wp-Amazon. That’s it. And, that’s pretty limited, considered some of my blogs have 45-50 plugins activated.
By the way, I use Akismet and pay nothing. Your argument is flawed. Put a gun to my head? Oh right. I have to use your software plugin with the default installation.= yet pay you? Thanks. But - with that attitude (besides the fact that your software plugin does not work) - you will be obsolete. I offered you a suggestion - to try getting the gateways who will benefit from the wordpress blog users using your software plugin to help compensate you to create or write better software that works. If that’s the way you take it - telling people to shut their cake - I pity your attitude and hope other readers see that wp-shopping cart is an extension of you - and deactivate it.
By Dan Milward on Oct 5, 2006 | Reply
Sheesh, I’m sorry you took offence to my comment, I was just kidding around…
I’m sticking to my guns, you personally may not have to pay to use Askimet. However if you are using Askimet on a site that has earnt you $500 or more then I suspect you are breaking the law - and in a fashion you would also be saying “up yours” to all the wordpress developers that have put in all the hard work to make Wordpress itself freely available to the masses. So therefore if the top dogs can do it then I see no harm in plugin developers offering two versions of their own software - both lite & gold for different audiences.
There is still no gun to your head. If you don’t use a piece of software or if you don’t like a piece of software then move on - or alternatively you could pay somebody “thousands” of dollars to make you something more to your liking. Or maybe you could hire a developer to make it work for you. Or maybe you could just wait patiently until the people who are making something for everybody (to use for free) to fix the problem that you are having.
We’ve spent hundred of hours making a great little shopping cart plugin that has helped hundreds of people setup shop. So for all you people reading this please check out the sites that do work before passing your own judgement on the few that don’t.
Once more I apologise if I came across as rude, I actually misread what you were saying and I agree that it would be nice if pay pal chipped in to make the lite version even better and more industrial strength :P
So yeah. Be patient, next week the e-commerce lite shopping cart plugin for wordpress will move from a BETA 2.0.+ version to full 2.5 version with more features and all the bugs fixed. And please contact me direct if its not working for you and we will try to help fix the bug that you’re experiencing.
Ciao, Dan
By HART (1-800-HART) on Oct 5, 2006 | Reply
Dan .. I think Martin can attest to the fact that when it comes to most matters, and I rarely get offended. Yes .. I probably will be trying your 2.5 version and I do hope it works out well for me to personally use it! :D
By Martin Neumann on Oct 5, 2006 | Reply
Phew, okay I just realised there’s a heated conversation going on in a oldish post. :)
It goes to show how passionate we all are - that shows that there is a desire for such a product. A real need. That’s good.
I’ll definately be giving WP e-Commerce a thorough going over this weekend on my new blog - KickstartPress.com
I’ll report on it later next week.
I really want this to work.
Dan - you really got to be careful how you respond to comments that get on you nerve. Imagine I’m a first time visitor here. The perception I would have of you and your firm would be negative - even though I fully well know that you are passionate about this.
That said, HART is a good guy just has a strong opinion. Thats; wny we call him CrazyHART at times :-)
Virtual handshake all round and lets get back to business - making this a great plugin.
Persoanlly, I’m more than happy to give some payment if my installation and testing works well.
I think plugin developers do a damn fine job and ahould be compensated more.
By Dan Milward on Oct 6, 2006 | Reply
Hi Guys. Nice meeting you both - please wait until next week by which stage we will have launched the full 2.5 version.
The current version is Beta and not really intended for general use.
In future I will keep up the stable version as well as the BETA.
I’ll keep you posted :)
By Dan Milward on Oct 12, 2006 | Reply
Okay we’re getting very close to launch now.
We have made the changes for our client http://www.filmshop.co.nz and waiting their sign off. I am happy for you to see that again.
The new version of our plugin with all the extra features should be launched tonight!!!
By Dan Milward on Oct 12, 2006 | Reply
Okay WP e-commerce 2.8 is ready for testing. We have tried it on a number of test sites and we think its ready.