Using WordPress For E-Commerce

When most people think of WordPress, they simply just think about a blogging software.  WordPress is a lot more than that.  WordPress offers several free shopping cart plugins to use on your site.  The one that I personally recommend is the WP e-Commerce Plugin.

The setup for this plugin is quick and easy.  Simply install and activate the shopping cart plugin from your Dashboard while logged into WordPress.  From there, it is all self-explanatory.  This plugin allows you to easily upload a mass product list, or create individual products with shipping attributes, tax attributes and photos of the products.  The plugin is free, but does offer extended features for a small fee, $40 for a single blogger and $195 for unlimited usage for a business.

One of the key features of upgrading to the premium package is a larger amount of payment processors and gateways.  Authorize.net and Bluepay to mention two of them.  The free option uses Google Checkout and Paypal shopping cart.

If you don’t have the in-house ability or the resources to hire somebody to build a custom php shopping cart for you, then this is the best way to go.  You will be able to easily manage your inventory and sales reports from within this plugin.  One of my favorite features of this shopping cart is the ability to use categories and sub-categories.  Using categories will help your customers shop through your site.  You are also able to create a breadcrumb navigation for your products and categories for easy use for customers.

Don’t be afraid to jump into managing your own shopping cart. WordPress makes it very easy.

Happy shopping cart building to ya!