# Working on a brand new OPEN SOURCE eCommerce site in WordPress



## oiskallmate (Feb 19, 2008)

Hello all! If you haven't already heard from me, my name is Jared Tomlin and I'm the Web Guru here at Community Little Book in Temecula, CA. I have been a web designer/ Project Manager for 8 years, started 3 companies and worked for giants like Smith and Noble. Currently I'm partial owner of Fahrenheit Apparel LLC (no link yet.. hence the post)
One thing I can not seem to get wrapped around my head is the whole eCommerce concept. I mean yeah I GET it! Working for sites that gross over a million a week. But when I explore conceptually what MAKES eCommerce as in the store front itself 
it seems that somehow the web changes rules and everyone gets all weird about it (like buying into a hosted solution or package deal.. or even worst.. free hosting.. boo!).

I think this is a misconception and I am setting out to prove this is not the case. 

I came to this site to learn more about the t-shirt industry so I can start making promotional stuff to sell to make me some money to get my clothing lines back off the ground. Being that there is a whole section of the site dedicated to eCommerce, I'd sure like to explore some concepts with people here and hear what it is that small companies NEED in terms of a eCommerce site and then, make that happen.
I'm not selling anything nor will i ever be on this site, I just think that the project I'm working on currently will benefit so many people here with all these questions on what's what and how to manipulate the web to actually work in your favor.

If anyones interested on a eCommerce solution for basically free (you'll have to be using paypal.. cause that's what we are using and I doubt I'll be developing this for resale so I won't be building more gateways) let's get this post moving and give me some requirements on what you expect your store to DO functionally!


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## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

oiskallmate said:


> Hello all! If you haven't already heard from me, my name is Jared Tomlin and I'm the Web Guru here at  in Temecula, CA. I have been a web designer/ Project Manager for 8 years, started 3 companies and worked for giants like. Currently I'm partial owner of Fahrenheit Apparel LLC (no link yet.. hence the post)
> One thing I can not seem to get wrapped around my head is the whole eCommerce concept. I mean yeah I GET it! Working for sites that gross over a million a week. But when I explore conceptually what MAKES eCommerce as in the store front itself
> it seems that somehow the web changes rules and everyone gets all weird about it (like buying into a hosted solution or package deal.. or even worst.. free hosting.. boo!).
> 
> ...


I have tried to work with a number of e commerce programs and found that they need special coding and knowledge of design that is far over this old guys head. So for the last 5 years I have used PayPal shopping cart and it has been flawless.. it gives me what i want. Lou


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## oiskallmate (Feb 19, 2008)

my point exactly, the idea I'm working with is to integrate the Paypal checkout experience with the functionality, skinning and SEO friendliness of Wordpress. Taking advantage of not only the Open Source nature of the beast but also the tagging capabilities and RSS feeds. It's takse the "shopping cart" out of the picture cause you would use the paypal button API (or whatever) to do all the footwork for you, also leaving your site OFF the security risk and liability side. All your really left with is the CONTENT you want people to see for your products ,and of course content is what WP does very well.


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

I use paypal with a 3rd party auctioninc.com, the reason is that I ship by weight and I need to be accurate and with the paypal shipping module it really wasn't possible, as a matter of fact I filled out the weight profile and bingo it didn't add the shipping charges to the cart, come to find out there was some sort of bug in it so thats why auction inc is in the picture, if I could eliminate that cost of $20.00 per quarter with auctioninc I would most definatly do it.

I think p/p would work just fine for most people if you could add certain drop down menus etc and skinable to get the same feel as your web site, the only other thing would be back end management.

R.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

There is already a shopping cart type plugin for wordpress. You can see it in action at one of our member sites here: quixotic-clothing.com

There are also lots of ways to integrate a PayPal account with an ecommerce site.

It's really not as hard or weird as you make it sound 

If you already have a website, then you just download cubecart or zen-cart (free). 

You follow their instructions to install the shopping cart on your site. Some webhosts have a one click installation for these programs.

You follow the instructions to add products to your new store.

You follow the instructions to add PayPal integration to the store.

You follow the instructions available on their sites to customize the shopping cart to look the way you want.

With the large communities that are behind these pieces of software, there is literally help available at every step.


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## oiskallmate (Feb 19, 2008)

ok, I'm sorry I must have not explained myself correctly. I know PP has all the capabilities to integrate w/ a website. It also DOES have the capabilities to skin and create drop down boxes. I also know there are WP plug ins that attempt to convert WP into another cart style software. I understand all that stuff has been done before and so on and so on. 

My focus is on the cart itself. Free cart software like OS Commerce and even expensive software like Monster Commerce basically have the templates and fields for you to put all your information, you have to follow their rules and there is little or no wiggle room for upgrading the functionality itself for instance say i want to integrate a flash product configuration). Also, as in Yahoo! cart you have to build tables and maintain products in their crappy back end in order to cross sell products. and let's say you want to cross sell products to other sites. The wordpress plug in is just a php shopping cart speaking wordpress language. It's open source (i think) but at the same time all you are really doing is spending all your time learning the language of the custom classes they created for you.

I'm not asking HOW to build a shopping cart or HOW or even IF to use paypal. I'm just suggesting the idea that one could use wordpress in conjunction with PP to maintain the shopping experience provided by all those "canned" carts and get all the benefits of XML, RSS and Apache to make the site more searchable and easy to navigate than your typical cart software provides.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> I'm just suggesting the idea that one could use wordpress in conjunction with PP to maintain the shopping experience provided by all those "canned" carts and get all the benefits of XML, RSS and Apache to make the site more searchable and easy to navigate than your typical cart software provides.


To be honest, it sounds like what your suggesting may be beyond the needs of most online t-shirt sellers.

Most online t-shirt sellers don't need or want flash product configuration.

What is provided by cubecart/oscommerc/zencart/monstercommerce/paypal etc seems to fit the needs of 99% of the uses I've seen on this board.


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## rokwan (Mar 23, 2008)

oiskallmate said:


> Hello all! If you haven't already heard from me, my name is Jared Tomlin and I'm the Web Guru here at Community Little Book in Temecula, CA. I have been a web designer/ Project Manager for 8 years, started 3 companies and worked for giants like Smith and Noble.


Right, ok. We have similar backgrounds career-wise.



oiskallmate said:


> One thing I can not seem to get wrapped around my head is the whole eCommerce concept. I mean yeah I GET it! Working for sites that gross over a million a week. But when I explore conceptually what MAKES eCommerce as in the store front itself
> it seems that somehow the web changes rules


Yes, same! Worked on Tiffany.com, but how to start a simple ecommerce site? 



oiskallmate said:


> and everyone gets all weird about it (like buying into a hosted solution or package deal.. or even worst.. free hosting.. boo!).


Ok, sure, but there's nothing wrong with a hosted solution in and of itself. It's just that the options aren't that great. Package deals are usually a better deal for the seller, sure.



oiskallmate said:


> I came to this site to learn more about the t-shirt industry


I came to this site googling 'Wordpress and ecommerce' because that's what I want to do for [a site I'm working on]




oiskallmate said:


> Being that there is a whole section of the site dedicated to eCommerce, I'd sure like to explore some concepts with people here and hear what it is that small companies NEED in terms of a eCommerce site and then, make that happen.


I feel the same.



oiskallmate said:


> If anyones interested on a eCommerce solution for basically free (you'll have to be using paypal.. cause that's what we are using and I doubt I'll be developing this for resale so I won't be building more gateways) let's get this post moving and give me some requirements on what you expect your store to DO functionally!


We have much different functional requirements regarding what kind of product our stores manage (I need to manage 15,000 absolutely unique, rare, out of print books, each with about 10 custom fields -- author, illustrator, pub. date, edition, condition, etc.)

So I am not trying to sell T-Shirts, but I am interested in your guys ecommerce ideas.

Others in the post point to Worpress' wp-ecommerce. That may work for you, but for me it's garbage, because it doesn't do custom fields.

I still think Wordpress is the 'platform' to build on though, and I think the place to start is with the theme: Have you seen the 'Market' theme?

They won't let me post urls here, but google 'Wordpress ecommerce Market theme' and you should find it.

Maybe that'll jog your imagination.


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## fotofab (May 22, 2008)

Well, let me get this right....you'd be interested in working with maybe say a custom t-shirt company (or promotional product supplier) to help them implement an online website (for free) just so you can prove a point? and maybe get some pointers from them?
Hrmmm, if you say yes then perahps we should speak. It's a very strange world...I am in the process of buying out a company that has been in the advertising specialities industry for 12+ years (tees, mugs etc.) and their site is so old and is horrible. I have been searching for any solution to the problem of buying into an "old school" company that basically writes everything down. Boy could we use an ecommerce site!


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