This is not an absolutely free plugin but it is probably the finest plugin if you want to sell things (either physical or fake digital items) from your Squidoo website.
The plugin is effective, doesn’t cost too much and yes it does have some support from authors, there is also a sort of community forum. Unfortunately, the plugin (in common I must say with WordPress eCommerce plugins) is affected by some peculiarities that make it somewhat uneasy to work with. Let’s observe in this article how to make it perform in a few easy steps. This walkthrough is intended for the basic make use of Paypal. The WordPress tool has many more options that I am not covering here.
Installation is easy like any other WordPress WordPress tool, with the difference that the tool name is WP eStore and the installation directory I really enjoy seeing becomes “wp-cart-for-digital-products “, this is tricky to identify or take into account if you have lots of plugins. A different annoying thing is that the tool gets updated quite often although unfortunately the author does not have an email address for the customers, nor it does highlight in WordPress, so you must travel to visit the site every now and then to check if there is any update.
How you can find this is for me still a mystery, basically you must google for a page (try the forum) where there is a changelog and you have to find another website where you create an update ask and send this one available. Even more annoying, you also ought to indicate the PayPal financial transaction and the original email to help prove that you are legitimate. This takes time, in my case a final update took more than one time because I could not obtain the PayPal transaction among this thousand of emails and I wasn’t able to remember which of these email addresses I used to pick the plugin. Once you manage to give them the necessary information you get they have got with a time-limited obtain link.
To use eStore once the Herbst is installed, go to WP eStore -panel in the lower left within your WP Admin panel, there are actually nine options each using dozens of configurations panels, while said I will cover basic principles. Click Settings and proceed to General Settings. The important issues here are all self-instructive, configuring Shopping Cart Title, Money, Add to Cart Button, Go back URL (thank you site after the transaction), Hiding the Shopping cart application image (recommended), and Bottom part Shipping Cost.
The help right here says “This amount is actually added to the total of the person’s products shipping cost” however it actually adds a fixed quantity whatever the number of items bought. If you then indicate within the Add/Edit Products panel below Shipping an amount like $0. 0001 for every item, you obtain a fixed shipping amount put into the shopping cart – that is a nice feature for many retailers. Keep scrolling (we’re let’s assume that you are not selling digital products) and check Use Automated Post Payment Processing, Utilize WordPress Mailing System, and Deliver Emails to Buyer Soon after Purchase.
Fill the Via email address with your own and also revise the Buyer Email Subject along with the Email Body. Notification Email address contact information once again is your own. The owner’s Email details can be still left alone. At the very bottom level of this panel, there is also an Enable Sandbox mode and that is helpful to test a purchase with PayPal Sandbox (you need to open an account using PayPal for this).
At this point go back to the top (still throughout the Settings menu) and click on the Payment Gateway Settings to test Use Paypal and get into your PayPal address. Absolutely nothing else to do there for your moment. All the other Settings choices can also be left alone and we can click on Add/Edit Items. Enter the Product Name as well as Price (important: with 2 decimals) and the Product Variants if any. Imagining we have been selling shirts we could fill up Variation 1 with Color|Red|Blue|Yellow, Variation 2 with Size|Small|Medium|Large and Variation 3 along with Sleeves|Short|Long: 20, this will include nothing to the price if the purchaser chooses Short Sleeves as well as +$20 if Long Covers. Neat feature.
Let’s abandon all the other options alone since we are finished, we could truly sell our product actually. So go to Manage Merchandise where you will see a list of goods, Shirts for example, with a USERNAME number like 1 . Only create a new post or maybe a page and place the shortcode [wp_eStore: product_id: one particular: end] on it, typically the plugin will do the rest.
Any time editing or create a Post/Page in visual mode also you can click the eStore icon and acquire all the shortcodes you may need, such as one to view the Shopping Cart (there is also a separate widget to show the Shopping Cart from the sidebar). Even more, shortcodes are online and show up in WordPress such as another plugin.
If you need to personalize things, that is a bit harder because eStore is a complicated plugin with more than 170 documents. I always have a really hard period modifying CSS and PHP files to change for example space, icon settings and so on, based on the theme you use and how fussy you are. Whatever you change maintain a changelog yourself simply because as said the WordPress plugin is apparently updated frequently.
One last word about the very helpful capability of selling digital merchandise. This works really well which is definitely the best feature of the plugin. I recommend launching it to send to the buyer a download link by using email after the purchase. It is done automatically and you can likewise choose the duration of the download URL, and the number of downloads allows, best of all the link is actually coded so the customer does not truly see the real link (you can save your digital merchandise files anywhere on your site).
This is done in Settings/General adjustments, where you set the main adjustments, and under Edit Product/Digital Content Details where you show (besides the name, price and so forth as before) the complete real Url to the item as well as under that, remember to examine Downloadable. As said the client will not see this hyperlink.
As said the WordPress plugin does offer many more options, such as Categories, Subscription Payments, Coupons/Discounts, and more. My favourite is the helpful Stats, especially when selling electronic products, it is nice in order to wake up in the morning and see the number of products that have been sold entirely hands-free, with nothing else left to perform… the dream of every Online marketer.
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