Since u r based in Australia it could be good to use a kiwi based company http://getshopped.org/ has a amazing eshopping plugin for wordpress, they have a free version you can give it a try.
or you can go in for more commercialized woo themes – woocommerce — great support as such.
Depends on how complex your store is.
If you are just using PayPal (or something similarly simple), and are shipping less than 100 products, and don’t mind spending you own time customizing WordPress, then WordPress is a good way.
But if you are planning something a bit larger scale…Shopify is the way to go. Everything works out of the box. And it might be cheaper overall than getting stuck with a WordPress bug and having to bring in a consultant.
Basically what I’ve seen (I do AdWords, Analytics, etc) is that WordPress is great to start…but Shopify scales better, and allows you to focus on the store rather than the tech.
@robin – I’d add a bit of nuance – wp ecommerce is a good example, it takes a *lot* of customization to get just right, but is free and fast to plugin to get started.
WP-commerce has a paid version as well which u can buy to get there full support,
I would disagree with you about scaling
woocommerce from woothemes are perfect when it comes to scaling
and i personally dont like solutions where all my details and stuff reside on someone else server as in case of shopify
specially when u have to scale you need full custom control on every aspect of your product and your user shopping experience
and regarding payment all wordpress shopping plugins i have used can be connected with any payment gateway you can think of , amazon, paypal, google checkout, dps, banking scripts
and if you are scaling it is better option to have an expert to help you setup and custom design your theme
Robin,
Yeah – I mostly agree with that. WordPress + shopping cart does of course scale, but for someone who’s not technically-oriented – it’s a choice of who to rely on…. a WordPress consultant or a company. They both have up and downsides.
If you can find someone awesome (like yourself – I like your stuff BTW – we should talk), and understand the costs + advantages, then yeah, WordPress is a safer, more customizable, and sometimes more affordable fit long-term fit – but sometimes it’s hard to get the right client/consultant fit, so it’s better to go with something out of the box.
But I’d still disagree with wp ecommerce – even their paid support just wasn’t up to a good standard when I used them (a month ago), and their feature set has been really outpaced over the past year by WooCommerce and Shopp – I wish they could get on it, because I feel like they have a much more unbiased setup.
WooCommerce steers you way too much towards WooThemes (of course) and Shopp is a bit pricey. If WP eCommerce could catch up – that would be awesome.
hi nate, thanks 🙂
i would try to pass your concerns to Daniel the guy behind WP-commerce
and yes woo themes guys are definitely doing some amazing stuff
recently i implemented shopperpress for a client, as he wanted a magento style shopping cart but didnt wanted to move away from wordpress as he is comfortable using it.
they have really good support to and not expensive at all, you should look into it.
