Normally when I think of Ecommerce websites I don’t think of WordPress.  WordPress, after all, is primarily a content management system, so when I saw that Templatic had released “Store”, their Premium Ecommerce WordPress Theme yesterday I was interested in checking it out.  Now is this theme going to run a mid-sized to large ecommerce operation for a company? Probably not!  But if you are a company with a few dozen products in various product lines this is a definite possibility for your ecommerce operations.  Let’s take a more in depth look at it…

Major Selling Points of the “Store” Ecommerce WordPress theme

• Different Modes to sell – This theme offers currently 3 different modes that you can run an ecommerce website using WordPress including selling digital goods, using a standard shopping cart and catalog mode.  Let me explain each of these different modes in more detail.

Digital Goods – If you run a business selling “digital goods” like eBooks/PDFs, scripts, licenses, memberships, etc. this theme can not only help you sell your digital goodies but also control the style of the product pages and the buying experience your customer’s will see when they buy from you.

Shopping Cart – Much like this one sounds, you can give your customers the option to use a shopping cart to checkout of your ecommerce website so that they can enter shipping information, change product attributes like Style, Size or Color and complete a purchase of goods with your store.

Catalog Mode – This allows you the option to display the products on your website and require interested customers to contact you instead of accepting payments online.  This mode does NOT allow your customers to purchase things from your store and if your business pricing is subject to change or requires further feedback to quote interested customers you can use the Catalog mode to get them interested and generate leads.  This mode is not for every business owner out there but it’s really nice to see this option being including in this theme.  It’s not something that I expected to see in this ecommerce theme.

• Get your Coupons! – This theme allows you to create coupons with coupon codes to offer discounts when someone enters the coupon code during the checkout.  It’s a great feature to have if you are promoting your business.
• Bulk CSV Uploads – If you are looking to add multiple products at a time this theme will actually allow you to do this using a CSV (.csv) file.  Simply create a CSV file and upload it to WordPress and the Store ecommerce WordPress theme will do the rest.
• Solid Web Browser Compatibility – I tested this theme in Google Chrome, FireFox 3.x and Internet Explorer 6.x and I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I couldn’t find any bugs with this theme.
• You can still blog! – Another good thing to point out is that you can run a blog for your company.  Since WordPress is the premier blogging platform out there it only makes sense that Templatic kept the functionality and definitely adds something to the fact that you are getting an ecommerce site with blogging capabilities because most ecommerce platforms don’t have this functionality available and most blogging software doesn’t allow you to run an ecommerce website with this many features.

Click here for a full list of features that Templatic’s Store Premium Ecommerce WordPress Theme gives you!

Major “Minuses” of the “Store” Ecommerce WordPress theme

• It wasn’t built for scalability – Don’t get me wrong.  This is a strong ecommerce theme that you can use on WordPress but it isn’t going to give all the features of an enterprise level ecommerce platform and if you are a larger scale ecommerce operation then it may not be fully scalable to meet your needs.
• CRM not included – Many ecommerce packages out there have the ability to store customer data but only a few actually have “full blown” CRM system.  A CRM system for those of you who don’t know what it is stands for “Customer Relationship Management” and allows you to manage your customers and market, view activities of specific customers and other data related to your customer base.  The store theme had limited capabilities to store customer data and if you are looking for an ecommerce solution that doubles as a CRM this may not be what you had in mind without a heavy amount of customization and cost on your part.
• Shipping Limitations – While you have the option to set shipping options with the Store WordPress Theme if you currently have shipping integrations with say FedEx, UPS or another shipping service it won’t be easy to integrate this into the theme without customizing the theme further.  Personally, this is something that you see in more “enterprise” ecommerce solutions so I am not surprised that it isn’t included in this theme but it would still be nice to see.

Our Product Rating

Cost:

9.5

Support and Documentation:

9.0

Usability:

7.5

Web Browser Compatibility:

8.5

Overall:

8.6

SpicyWebDesigners.com rates products on a scale from 0 to 10 with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best.  A typical product review includes looking at Cost, Support and Documentation, Usability, Web Browser Compatibility (using Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer).

Why should you buy this theme?

This is a great ecommerce WordPress theme when you look at the functionality.  Click here for a full list of features that the Store ecommerce WordPress Theme has.  I really like the fact that you can sell digital goods, use the shopping cart for physical goods and develop a catalog for customers to contact you directly.  This meets the needs of a lot of business owners looking for an affordable, “Do-It-Yourself” entry level solution and because it doesn’t require lots of money and offers terrific functionality it makes a highly adaptable theme for your online or physical business.

How much is it?

The Single Use License will cost you $65 and gets you the Store Ecommerce WordPress Theme.  You can only use this theme on one website but you’ve got access to the member access area to help you customize your theme and you also have access to detailed theme tutorials.  This is something I’ve always liked about Templatic’s WordPress Themes (formerly PremiumThemes.net); they support you past the initial sale and show you how and where you can customize it.

The Multiple Use License costs $99 and with this you get access to all the things mentioned in the single use license except you get the PSD files (Photoshop Documents) and you can deploy it an unlimited number of times.

And if you really like the themes that Templatic has, paying the fee of $279 (regularly $399) for unlimited access to Templatic’s Theme Club is well worth the money.  It gives you access to all the themes Templatic offers plus any new themes coming out.  It’s their best deal by far.