Selling Online
ecommerce with or without WordPress
A presentation for WordPress Findhorn, September 2013, by Mark Rowatt Anderson
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Overview
- Before you start
- Overview of options
- WordPress plugins
- Examples
- Hands on
- Q&A
But first...
- Have you updated to WordPress 3.6.1?
- Next meeting Monday 4th November
What do you want to sell?
- A few items
- Lots of items
- Digital goods
- A service
- A subscription
- A donation
Pick the right tool for what you want to do
How do you want to sell?
- Self fulfillment
- Third party fulfillment
- Integrate with existing system
Accepting payment
- Fulfillment services
- Paypal
- Amazon Payments
- Stripe
- GoCardless (uses direct debit)
- SagePay
- ... and many others
Also new offline payment options
iZettle and Paypal Here card readers
Be legal!
- UK Distance Selling Regulations
- PCI-DSS
- Laws vary by country...
Simple DIY tools
- Paypal
- invoice
- button
- shopping cart
- Ebay
- Amazon listing
Fulfillment services
- Amazon (fulfillment, affiliate, Kindle)
- Apple (iTunes, App Store, iBookstore)
- Eventbrite (events)
- Blurb (books)
- ... and many more
Usually higher transaction cost, but much less effort
More involved options
...are more flexible & sophisticated
- Hosted ecommerce solutions
- Self hosted ecommerce
Hosted ecommerce
- Many options
- Take care of all the tech
- Monthly fees and/or percent of transaction
- Usually quite customisable
- But you are stuck with what is offered
Popular hosted examples include
Shopify, Bigcommerce, 1shoppingcart, 1and1
Self hosted ecommerce
- WordPress
- Use simple tools
- Use more involved tools
- Link to third party systems
- Joomla, Drupal etc...
Note! Most ecommerce options are not allowed on WordPress.com!
Complex ecommerce
- Ecommerce frameworks e.g. Magento, Lemonstand etc
- Much more involved setup
- Allow complete customisation & integrations
WordPress Plugins
- Lots of options!
- Often free
- ...but beware the extras
- Customise from wp-admin
- ...or with more plugins
- ...or with your own code
Popular Plugins
- WooCommerce (free, paid extras)
- Cart66 ($99/yr)
- WP e-Commerce (free, paid extras)
- Easy Digital Downloads (free, paid extras)
Some examples
- Joyful Parents (Paypal cart)
- Speyside Craft Brewery (Paypal cart)
- Some Things Not Easily Explained (HP Magcloud)
- 49th Parallel (Shopify)
- Alexander Chapman Campbell (WordPress/WooCommerce)
Hands On
- Simple PayPal button
- WooCommerce
Next meeting
Next meeting Monday 4th November
(first monday of month)
These slides available from http://findhorn.cc/wpfh
Thanks for listening
Mark Rowatt Anderson
(0797) 123 1239