WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce

By Brian Bondari

This book provides an easy to understand, step-by-step approach to installing, configuring, and using WP e-Commerce to run your online store. We will construct an example store in the book with enough information and flexibility to adapt the store to your specific needs. This book is for you, if you are interested in using WordPress as the basis for a store that can sell physical items, downloads, or services. It is ideal for a sole proprietor or small business owner with only basic, in-house technical skills. Some prior knowledge of WordPress will help, but is not required. No knowledge of PHP is expected, but it will also be helpful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Release date: Jan 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9781847198518

Book preview

Table of Contents

WordPress 2.9 -Commerce

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting Started with WordPress and e-Commerce

Why WordPress

WordPress is free (as in money)

WordPress is free (as in speech)

WordPress is widely used

WordPress is flexible and extensible

About the WP e-Commerce plugin

Site and business possibilities

Photography shop

Music shop with digital downloads

Clothing shop

Accessory shop

WP e-Commerce feature overview

Organization and layout

Shortcodes, tags, and widgets

Easy integration with all WordPress themes

Products and merchandising

Product groups

Product variations

Checkout and payments

Marketing tools

Coupons

Suggested items

Integration with external sites

Test platform

Summary

2. Getting Ready to Sell

Installing the WP e-Commerce plugin

Installing from the WordPress Dashboard

Manual installation

Plugin activation

Installing third-party themes

Installing themes through the WordPress Dashboard

Uploading themes via FTP

Activating third-party themes

Enabling and disabling comments

Disabling comments globally

Disabling comments on individual posts and pages

Removing comment traces from your theme

Setting up a static front page

Using widgets

Creating text widgets

Complementary plugins

Akismet

All in One SEO Pack

Google XML Sitemaps

WP-DB-Backup

WP-Polls

Adding a contact form

WordPress SpamFree contact form

Contact Form 7

cforms II

Adding a business blog

Summary

3. Configure Your e-Commerce Settings

General Settings

Base Country/Region, Tax Settings, and Language

Default language

Currency Settings

Presentation Settings

Button Settings

Product Settings

Product Page Settings

Shopping Cart Settings

Cart Location

Use Sliding Cart

Display + Postage & Tax

Product Group Settings

Show Product Group Description

Show Product Group Thumbnails

Show Product Count per Product Group

Thumbnail Settings

Pagination settings

Comment Settings

Admin Settings

Digital downloads

Purchases

E-mail settings

URL Settings

Checkout settings

Summary

4. Managing Your Product Catalog

Creating new products

Creating a new physical product

Creating a new digital product

Groups, categories, and tags

Groups and categories

Deleting categories and groups

Product Categories widget

Tags

Price and Stock Control

Variations

Advanced Options

Custom Meta

Merchant Notes

Personalisation Options

Summary

5. User Accounts: Customers and Staff

Enabling user registrations

Understanding WordPress roles

Administrator

Editor

Author

Contributor

Subscriber

Staff accounts

Creating staff users

Manual registration

Self-registration

Customer accounts

Creating a test customer account

Dealing with the WordPress Dashboard

Redirect customer logins with 'Peter's Login Redirect'

Dominate logins with 'Theme My Login'

Purchase history

Summary

6. Checkout and Payment Setup

Planning the checkout process

Payment gateway versus merchant account

Integration and checkout seamlessness

Available payment gateways

Chronopay

Google Checkout

Manual Payment / Test Gateway

PayPal Payments Standard

PayPal Express Checkout

PayPal Payments Pro

Authorize.net

Setting up PayPal Standard

Playing in the sandbox

WP e-Commerce Payment settings

Setting up IPN

Set up Auto Return

The test transaction

Setting up Google Checkout

Playing in Google's sandbox

WP e-Commerce Payment settings

Google integration settings

The test transaction

Summary

7. Shipping, Taxes, and Processing Orders

Locations and tax setup

Shipping Options and Calculators

General Shipping Settings

Shipping Modules

Flat Rate

Table Rate

Weight Rate

Using an external Shipping Calculator

UPS Calculator

USPS Calculator

Processing a test order

E-mails sent to the customer

E-mails sent to you

Sales log

Summary

8. Themes and Design Elements

WP e-Commerce included widgets

Latest Products widget

Price Range widget

Product Donations widget

Product Tags widget

Product Categories widget

Product Specials widget

Shopping Cart widget

Shortcode and PHP tags

Display default products

Display shopping cart

List categories

Display products from a specific group

Add to Cart / Buy Now

WP e-Commerce theme engine

Creating a new e-Commerce theme

Tweaking your WordPress theme

CSS basics

CSS selectors

Class and ID selectors

CSS properties and values

Changing the header image

Replacing the theme fonts

Changing the theme colors

Additional CSS tutorials

Additional WP e-Commerce themes

WP e-Commerce tips

Change the appearance of the shopping cart widget

Use a custom Add to Cart image

Remove the sidebar Google Checkout button

Summary

9. Deploy, Secure, and Maintain Your Shop

Getting ready to deploy

Necessary WordPress adjustments

Your WordPress database

Database export via phpMyAdmin

Database export via command line

Hosting and domain names

Uploading your shop

Setting up a new database

Importing your WordPress database

Uploading your WordPress files

Editing your WordPress config file

Man the hatches—essential site security

User passwords

Rename or replace the admin user

WordPress and plugin updates

SSL for Dashboard login

Eliminate directory browsing

Backups—preparing for disasters

Database backup and restoration

Server data backup and restoration

Summary

10. Alternative e-Commerce Plugins

YAK (Yet Another Kart)

What YAK offers

Basic YAK setup and usage

Adding a new product with YAK

eShop

What eShop offers

Basic eShop setup and usage

Adding a new product with eShop

Shopp

What Shopp offers

WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart

What WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart offers

Basic WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart setup and usage

Adding a new product with WPSPSC

Market Theme

What the Market Theme offers

Summary

11. Marketing Your Shop

Coupons and discounts

Cross sales

'Share This' plugin

Purchasing advertising

Google AdWords

Microsoft adCenter

E-mail, newsletters, and blogging

E-mail/newsletters

Option 1: Spreadsheet only

Option 2: Find a plugin for WordPress

Option 3: A third-party service

Business blogging

Summary

A. Gold Cart Module Extendibility

Purchasing and installing the Gold Cart module

Installing the Gold Cart files

Grid View

Multiple image upload

Product search option

Additional payment gateways

DropShop and other modules

Summary

B. Setting Up a WAMP Testing Platform

Download and install WampServer

Overview and configuration

Enable the rewrite module

Running a test server

Install WordPress

Summary

Index

WordPress 2.9 -Commerce

Brian Bondari

---

WordPress 2.9 -Commerce

Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: March 2010

Production Reference: 1220210

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

32 Lincoln Road Olton

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-847198-50-1

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar (<[e-mail]>)

Credits

Author

Brian Bondari

Reviewers

Dan Milward

Taeke Reijenga

Acquisition Editor

Usha Iyer

Development Editor

Rakesh Shejwal

Technical Editors

Dayan Hyames

Krithika Sabareeshwar

Hithesh Uchil

Indexer

Monica Ajmera Mehta

Editorial Team Leader

Akshara Aware

Project Team Leader

Lata Basantani

Project Coordinator

Joel Goveya

Proofreader

Joel T. Johnson

Production Coordinator

Shradha Vichare

Cover Work

Shradha Vichare

About the Author

Brian Bondari is a musician, composer, and teacher with equal loves for both music and technology. His hobbies include reading, hiking, composing music, and playing with his pet rabbit. He also spends an exorbitant amount of time lying on the floor grading papers.

Brian earned his doctorate from the University of Kansas in 2009, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Texas at Tyler. When he is not writing music or grading papers, he serves as Senior Editor for the multi-author technology blog, http://www.TipsFor.us.

You can also visit him at http://www.bondari.com.

There are many people I would like to thank for their help and support while writing this book. First of all, many thanks to Dan Milward and the team at Instinct for their hard work in developing the WP e-Commerce lugin, without which this book would not have been possible.

Also, thanks to Usha Iyer, Rakesh Shejwal, Joel Goveya, and other members of Packt Publishing for their help and support during the organization, writing, and editing processes. Additional thanks go to Taeke Reijenga for his work in reviewing the book.

Finally, utmost thanks to my wife Katrina for her unending love, support, and patience.

About the Reviewers

Dan is a 31-year-old self-taught entrepreneur living in Wellington, New Zealand. He enjoys working with WordPress and making games for obile honesis earliest happy childhood memories are of playing computer games on his Commodore 64/128. If not for the relaxed attitude of his parents around computers and games, then perhaps the WP e-Commerce pwould never have been made.

Dan and his team have been contributing to the WordPress ecosystem in one way or another for the best part of 6 years, mostly through their work developing WordPress plugins, most notably the world-famous WordPress e-Commerce which has had over 500,000 downloads.

His company Instinct has an office in Wellington where they focus on making WordPress plugins, and investors in Tokyo where the focus is on user-generated games for mobile phones.

Many people around the world have contributed to the WP e-Commerce but none have contributed as much as Thomas Howard and Jeffry Ghazally. These guys are the real stars behind the WordPress e-Commerce .

I'd like to thank Amber for going easy on me and allowing me to work on this book during family time I'd like to thank Jane Wells and Matt Mullenweg from Automattic for all the moral support that they have provided us over the years, and I'd like to thank all the parents out there who allowed their children to play on computers in the 90s. Those children are today's developers and our peers in the WordPress community.

Thank you.

Taeke Reijenga is the co-founder of Level Level, a web design agency from Rotterdam, Netherlands. Level Level focuses on custom WordPress design and development for businesses. Amongst numerous WordPressbased projects are several e-commerce sites build with WP e-Commerce. One of them offers over 100,000 products.

In his spare time, Taeke loves to cook and enjoy a good glass of wine.

You can contact Taeke via http://level-level.com

Preface

So, did you decide to build an e-commerce site using WordPress as the foundation? Wonderful! You've made the choice that more and more people are discovering: that WordPress is capable of far more than just building a great blog. With the extensibility provided by third-party plugins, it can handle almost any task, including powering a growing e-commerce site.

By pairing WordPress with the free WordPress e-Commerce plugin, you can easily create a powerful online store capable of selling a variety of goods, including digital products with automated downloads. It is an ideal combination for hobbyists and small businesses alike. If you have ever dreamed of running your own online shop, or want to add an e-commerce element to an existing physical store, this book is for you.

While installing WordPress and the (WordPress) WP e-Commerce plugin are relatively simple tasks, the work does not stop there. There is still a lot of information that you need to know, and there is plenty to learn about the installation, configuration, payment setup, security, and even design elements. We are going to cover a lot of ground in this book, and by the time we get to the end, you should have a fully functional, powerful, and secure online store at your disposal.

Let's get started, shall we?

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with WordPress and e-Commerce, provides an introduction to WordPress and the WP e-Commerce plugin, both of which will power our new online store.

Chapter 2, Getting Ready to Sell, covers all of the basics of installation and a feature overview. It also covers the essentials of transforming your WordPress installation from a blog into a business-ready platform.

Chapter 3, Configure Your e-Commerce Settings, offers a step-by-step walkthrough of all the settings for the WP e-Commerce plugin and lays a solid foundation for creating a catalog of products.

Chapter 4, Managing Your Product Catalog, builds upon the preparation done in Chapter 3 and shows you all of the steps necessary to build a product catalog of both physical goods and digital downloads.

Chapter 5, User Accounts: Customers and Staff, offers insight into how WordPress handles multiple users and their roles in our upcoming online store, including options related to user registration.

Chapter 6, Checkout and Payment Setup, covers the most important element of any online store: getting paid. This chapter provides details on available payment gateways and offers a step-by-step tutorial on setting up both PayPal Standard and Google Checkout.

Chapter 7, Shipping, Taxes, and Processing Orders, explores the myriad of options available for getting your product out the door and to the customer.

Chapter 8, Themes and Design Elements, provides an overview of customizations with regard to appearance. Topics covered include shortcodes, a CSS overview, and the WP e-Commerce theme engine.

Chapter 9, Deploy, Secure, and Maintain Your Shop, shows you how to move from the testing platform to a production server, including watching for any pitfalls that can happen along the way.

Chapter 10, Alternative e-Commerce Plugins, explores a range of other plugins that also offer e-Commerce functionality in conjunction with WordPress.

Chapter 11, Marketing Your Shop, covers a final, but essential, aspect of running any e-commerce site: ways to make your site known to the world and bring customers through your virtual doors.

Appendix A, Gold Cart Module Extendibility, offers a view of available upgrades in the paid modules of the WordPress e-Commerce plugin.

Appendix B, Setting Up a WAMP Testing Platform, shows you how to set up a testing ground on your own computer for installing WordPress and all associated plugins.

What you need for this book

For this book, you will need:

WordPress version 2.9 or above

WordPress e-Commerce plugin version 3.7.x or above

FTP software of your choice

WampServer (optional, but recommended)

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone interested in using WordPress as the basis for a store that can sell physical items, downloads, or services.

It is ideal for a sole proprietor or small business owner with only basic, in-house technical skills. Some prior knowledge of WordPress will help, but is not required. No knowledge of PHP or CSS is expected, but that will also be helpful.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive.

A block of code is set as follows:

#header {

  background: #73a0c5 url(‘images/kubrickheader.jpg') no-repeat bottom center;

  }

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

user@yourhost:~$ mysql -h mysql-hostserver -u mysql-username -p databasename < wp-database.sql

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: Once you are finished with the General Settings, switch to the Presentation tab at the top of the page.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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