Lets take a quick look at what any half decent e-Commerce solution “should” do.
1. Products. Allow you to upload products or services for sale online. In your admin section click WP e-Commerce > Products. From here you can add products, upload images, setup product variations and much much more.
2. Product Grouping. Allow you to group and categorize your products and services so your customers can find them as easily as possible. This is managed under WP e-Commerce > Groups in your websites admin section.
3. Accept Payments. You want to interface with a Payment Gateway to accept financial transactions online. By default the WordPress e-Commerce plugin comes with Paypal IPN and Google Checkout LVL2 integration. Make sure that when you setup your Paypal account you upgrade it to a Business account and that you turn IPN on. You won’t look back… Otherwise if it suits then you might want to take a look at Google Checkout.
You can manage these options under WP e-Commerce > Settings > Payments in your websites admin section.
4. SEO. You want to know that your e-commerce site is SEO friendly. And by that I mean it is well indexed and linked by all the search engines. And by that I mean it is easy for your customers to find your products and services online. There are a number of ways WP e-Commerce achieves that – and if you want to know more read our article on WordPress e-Commerce SEO.
5. Shipping. Shipping products out the door and charging your customers the right amount is important and the WordPress e-Commerce plugins comes with a number of options to suit your needs. Shipping options are
6. Purchase Logs. So you’ve made some sales. Now you need to know about it! The WordPress e-Commerce Sales page contains all the information you need to manage your sales and stock – from packing slips to, digital download management all the way through to being able resend purchase receipt emails to your customers. You also recieve an email each time
As you can clearly see the WordPress e-Commerce plugin does all of the things you need at a fundamental level. Next week we’ll write about all the extra things that the WordPress + e-Commerce plugin does though that will set your shop apart from your competition for it is the little extras that will help you gain sales at the end of the day.