WordCamp Grand Rapids – Evaluating E-Commerce Solutions

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Today I presented Evaluating E-Commerce Solutions at WordCamp Grand Rapids which focused on creating a process to evaluate different e-commerce solutions so that you can pick the best tool for your project.

Abstract

  • E-Commerce is very complex
  • Use a community driven tool to make sure it stays up to date
  • Well known e-commerce solutions
  • Several things to look for when selecting an e-commerce solutions:
    • Is it open source? (can I look at the code?)
    • If so, is it easy to contribute? (so people can easily fix bugs)
    • Do they build themes for their e-commerce solutions?
    • Can I use any theme with this e-commerce plugin?
    • How many downloads does this e-commerce plugin have? (how many people have tested it)
    • Is it hosted? (do I have to worry about an SSL certificate)
    • How do you license the products?
    • Do they have a community forum?
    • Do they have a premium support forum? (can I browse other people's problems)
    • Do they use a ticketing system? (can I have a personalized response?)
    • Do they have unit tests? (is it robust? how many bugs will there be?)
    • How many extensions do they have? (how versatile is this?)
    • Do they ship physical products? (or is it only downloadable products?)
    • Do they have recurring billing functionality? (can I sell a membership?)
    • Do they have the functionality of a marketplace? (can I sell other people's products on my site)
    • Do they have commission functionality? (can I get people to help sell my products)
    • Do they have Stripe? (can I deal with an easy to use payment gateway?)
    • Is there a mobile app? (can I view my stats on the go?)
    • Does it support my currency?

Here are the slides from my presentation.

4 thoughts on “WordCamp Grand Rapids – Evaluating E-Commerce Solutions

  1. Chris Christoff

    Hi there,
    A couple things. I would argue Jigoshop should’ve been included. I think it’s certainly more known, than say, eShop.

    Also a potential correction:
    EDD’s does support shipping. I wasn’t there to hear you speak, so maybe there was a clarification provided, that shipping meant in core, but EDD has a great, simple, official Simple Shipping extension.

    -Chris

    • Hi Chris!

      Thanks for your input, the next time I do this talk I’ll have to add Jigoshop to the list. I honestly haven’t looked at it since I know WooThemes hired their developers away from them and I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) it hasn’t done much since.

      I just heard that EDD support shipping yesterday from Pippin himself! It is however and extension and it is really simple shipping so I may leave it out so as not to confuse people who are looking for a UPS / FedEx extension.

      Thanks for your thoughts. 🙂

  2. […] As for setting up an online store, Patrick Rauland went the pros and cons of the most popular solutions out there – you can see his excellent PowerPoint here. […]

  3. Well there are many things to consider while choosing an E commerce solution for an e commerce website like how many features are available with particular E commerce solution, is an option of customization available, whether the E commerce solution is an open source. After concluding every parameter compare selected options with other to pick the best one.

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