Web Design Inspiration Blog | SpicyWebDesigners.com

Every once in a while a well executed and developed plug-in comes around.  Today I am talking about “Shopp”, an ecommerce plug-in for WordPress.  Shopp is highly intuitive, simple to use even for those of you newbies out there who might not have all the years of industry knowledge about running an ecommerce website.

Shopp eCommerce plug-in installed in WordPress

Shopp eCommerce plug-in settings in WordPress

Shopp eCommerce plug-in product administration area in WordPress

Things that I love about this Plug-in

Training videos answer your questions – Someone was definitely thinking when they decided to include short but informative videos that explain the interworking of their plug-in’s features and that is exactly what the developers of Shopp did!  This is definitely a plus because this feature alone shows you how the plug-in can be used quickly and easily.

Documentation, Documentation, Documentation – The key to selling a solution that people are going to use to develop something is to give them solid documentation on how to do what they want to do.  Shopp has an extensive library of documentation included when you buy the license (Yes, you need to buy the product to access the documentation but it’s worth it) and the documentation goes into heavy detail about topics like customization, setting up shipping and taxes, etc.

System Check Plug-in – Shopp needs a number of things to be successfully installed on your WordPress website including…

• Running an instance of WordPress 2.6 or higher
• Support for MySQL 5+ databases
• Support for PHP 5+
• PHP cURL Library with SSL support
• PHP GD 2 Library

The developers of Shopp decided to create a System Requirements Check plug-in that when activated will tell you if you are good to go ahead and use the Shopp plug-in on your WordPress website.  Pretty nifty and its free to anyone considering the use of the Shopp plug-in on their WordPress website!  Click here to check it out for yourself

Things that might turn you off this product

The only complaint is that the plug-in doesn’t have any free versions or basic versions of the plug-in available.  A lot of other premium WordPress plug-ins that I’ve reviewed in the past usually has a free basic version to stir interest and give you the basic features so I was kind of surprised in Shopp’s chosen method of delivery.  The only way I chose to buy and install this plug-in was through reading a review of the product but I was very pleasantly surprised with the functionality that I got for $55 for a single site license.

The Costs:

The single-site access license is going to cost you $55 however the functionality that it gives you to get an ecommerce website off the ground is simply amazing.

The developer access license is going to cost $299 if it’s the first time you are purchasing the plug-in however it gives you a lot more functionality and it can be deployed on an unlimited number of WordPress websites.  If you’ve already purchased a single-site license there is a developer access [upgrade] license available for $259 which is definitely a help to web designers and developers using this plug-in on multiple ecommerce websites.

Update! – December 29, 2010. – I recently had the chance to interview Jonathan Davis, the creator behind the Shopp plugin.  Please click here to read the interview!

OneStepCheckout is one of those rare plugins that so aptly meets the needs of ecommerce website owners out there.  I’ve talked about this product before and reviewed it as well and it’s a great add-on to any ecommerce website.  I received an email the other day from Asbjorn Johnsen, the CEO of OneStepCheckout who let me know that come August 1, 2010, OneStepCheckout is going to release a new version of its core product.

The release will include the following functionality when it’s rolled out on August 1, 2010…

• This version fully supports Magento Enterprise 1.7 and above and Magento Professional with store credit and loyalty points
• A much easier installation process that does not require any change to templates and just activates from the backend
• Your customers have the choice of multiple addresses for customers who are logged into their account
• Administrative setting for displaying pricing with or without taxes
• Administrative setting to configure whether the email newsletter checkbox should appear “checked” or “unchecked” when a customer is checking out.
• And some more fixes and tweaks to OneStepCheckout’s functionality

When I originally reviewed OneStepCheckout, a Magento Commerce add-on that gives you the power to optimize your ecommerce website’s checkout process I covered the core product.  Recently they added some new features for registration options in OneStepCheckout that definitely improve how your customers can login when they purchase from you.

Registration Modes

In this update Magento website owners can use different modes to allow their customers to register when they checkout using OneStepCheckout including:

• Registration Required – Much like it sounds when you select this option your customers will need to register during the checkout process
• Registration Disabled – This gives any customer the option to checkout of your ecommerce website without needing to register
• Allow guests and logged in users – This mode offers your customers the option to check out as a guest meaning that you don’t need to create an account and previous customers to use their account to log in and purchase from you again
• Enable registration on success page – This mode gives your customers the option to create an account after they’ve checked out and are on the thank you page of your website
• Auto-generate account for new emails – This mode will create accounts for each new email address your customer enters during checkout which

In case you didn’t get a chance to read my original product review click here to read it! To read about more details that these new registration modes offer click here to see the article that the team at OneStepCheckout wrote about this on their blog.

After reviewing the latest release from SilverThemes, I decided it was time to review another company that offers modules for popular and widely used e-commerce platforms like Magento, osCommerce, Volusion and many others. I came across a set of modules being offered by Magic Toolbar. The great thing about the modules being offered by Magic Toolbox is that are highly extendable for the following e-commerce platforms…

• VirtueMart
• Joomla!
• Magento
• osCommerce
• CRE Loaded
• X-Cart
• Xt-commerce
• Zen cart
• Cubecart
• Drupal
• WordPress
• CS-Cart
• Or you can customize it to suit your custom needs!

One of their most widely used plug-in is “Magic Zoom Plus” plug-in and it boasts the ability to zoom images 2 different ways either by hovering over which displays a zoomed area or click the image to enlarge the image full size. The great thing about it is that it’s easy to install, it uses clean and valid HTML code, and it’s very customizable which allows you to customize it any way you want!

Here are a few more examples of the Magic Zoom Plus in action…

Magic Zoom Plus – Multiple Images with a Wide Zoom

Magic Zoom Plus – Internal Zoom

Magic Zoom Plus – Multiple Images with Text Links and Titles

You can purchase the Magic Zoom Plus module from Magic Toolbox three different ways…

• Single Site License – £ 39 (This option allows you to install this module on one site)
• 5 Site License – £ 129 (This option allows you to install this module on fives sites)
• Unlimited License – £ 495 (This option allows you to install this module on an unlimited number of sites)

If you are not sure about this plug-in feel free to download a FREE trial version by clicking here and enjoy customizing your e-commerce website!