what's the best ecommerce plugin for wordpress? [closed]

Question

I would like to design an eCommerce website with WordPress. I don't want to do it from scratch so I'm looking for a free plugin. The features I expect it to have are:

• shopping carts
• shipping modules (Canada post etc..)
• payment using Paypal
• customizable themes

I came across : WP-eCommerce

it claims to be free, however I found out that some documents require payment. All the payments, shipping modules are not free, am I right?

Actually, I'm not very familiar with Wordpress, if possible, could someone suggest an easy to pick up, but powerful enough eCommerce plugin for Wordpress?

Thanks!

Answer 1

WP-eCommerce is the only plugin for WordPress worth looking at when it comes to eCommerce. You do get a lot for free.

That said, Alex makes some great points about how WordPress is NOT ideal for eCommerce.

However, after having completed 2 websites with WP-eCommerce and 2 websites with Magento Commerce, I can say that there is a HUGE difference in the time it takes to complete.

WP-eCommerce can be set up relatively quickly with very little customization to get it to look decent in your own WP Theme. A full eCommerce system such as Magento, on the other hand, has a huge learning curve and you will spend 3 times as long anytime you want to change anything.

It all depends what you're going for. If you want something simple that can be tweaked a little but doesn't need to be a great robust long-term solution, I would definitely consider WP-eCommerce. Otherwise, go for a real eCommerce platform.

Alternatively: Zen-Cart looks simpler than Magento but without some of the flexibility. Whatever you do, DON'T go anywhere near osCommerce.

Answer 2

Trick question: WordPress, a very simplistic blogging platform, should never be stretched into something as intricate as an e-commerce solution. An e-commerce platform offering a simple blogging module is another matter entirely.

Since you don't know much about WordPress anyway, you may want to consider using a e-commerce platform like magentocommerce.com, zen-cart.com, or oscommerce.com. All of them are PHP/MySQL based, like WordPress.