You might want to provide a link to that plugin (PHPurchase).
It may not be listed in the Plugin repository because:
1. the plugin author hasn’t submitted it
2. the plugin may not be GPL Compatible
ahhh Michael, here is the link http://www.phpurchase.com/
since it is not free…?
I’m looking at options right now. PHPurchase looks good, but it’s so new there are not many comments from users out there. I find mention scattered on various sites from people running QuietHeadphones.com. They rave about it. Problem is, when you do a WhoIs search on QuietHeadphones.com, it’s registered to the guy who made the plugin. That turns me off right there. Still, I’ve narrowed it down to PHPurchase or eStore
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-estore-plugin-complete-solution-to-sell-digital-products-from-your-wordpress-blog-securely-1059
They both integrate with the affiliate plugin made by the same guy that made eStore. I’m trying to determine why I should go with PHPurchase for more $$ instead of the package deal from the eStore guy. If you are also selling physical products, seems the PHPurchase plugin would be the best option. For only digital downloads, I’m not sure. The only differences I see initially is PHPurchase accepts more payment processors, and eStore integrates with Aweber and MailChimp. And I like the Squeeze Page feature in eStore to build a mailing list. Both are continuing to be developed, though. I know the guy who made eStore is working to add more payment processors including Google Checkout. I also think the integration of the store and affiliate system will be tighter coming from the same author as the products move forward.
It’s a hard call since both are so new. I see more links to sites using eStore right now, and the package price for both plugins is attractive. Right now I am leaning eStore.
I’ll post more once I make a final decision and begin implementing.
The shill self-promotion of phpurchase you have mentioned would certainly put me off using it if the developer is praising it when pretending to be independent.
As you have found there are several free & paid eCommerce plugins available for WordPress. Of the free ones, the e-commerce plugin looks good. I compared the paid e-commerce plugin gold cart paid upgrade with Shopp (shopplugin.net) for a project to build a site and Shopp seems to suit me for this project best so I have paid for a single site usage key and I will be using that for my project.
Adam from Shopp held a free webinar a couple of days ago which helped me get up to speed with setting it up and the support appears to be very good.
Shopp is a paid GPL solution – just as some paid themes are GPL.
I’m pleased to mention that I am in no way affiliated with Shopp except as a happy user of the plugin.
Thanks, numeeja. I’ll check out the Shopp plugin as well. Looks like it’s right around the same price as PHPurchase. PHPurchase may be a great plugin. I just can’t get past the glowing testimonial on the plugin home page from himself. Tacky to say the least.
Hi. I am the developer for PHPurchase and also the QuietHeadphones.com developer. We tried a bunch of ecommerce plugins and because we wanted more control over the site layout and easier product management we developed PHPurchase. We have taken your advice and removed the quote about the QuietHeadphones.com site. We link to QuietHeadphones.com as an example site so folks can see PHPurchase in action and certainly apologize if that caused any confusion. We have added a recent customer review to our homepage. Please let me know if you have any questions about PHPurchase or if there is anything I can do to help.
I am currently running WP eStore for my clothing company. It works great for a physical product with just a few exceptions. In order they are:
1. There is no way to track variations in inventory.
For example we cary a great outdoor soft shell in three colours and seven sizes from youth to adult. Other than manually adding “out of stock” to the “variation” or size button, there is no way to control the inventory count. That’s not to say that eStore does not have an inventory count. It does, but it’s for one item only ie the total number of soft Shell jackets. We have no automated way of telling clients that we are sold out of Youth medium in black.
2. The second detail I would like to change is the option to use a different check out. I have it set up for PayPal but I would prefer I had more control over the process so that my clients did not have to leave my site.
I’ve had a few complaints that users can’t get past PayPal’s initial screen because they have an email or credit card already linked to paypal. Why that should force them to use their paypal account and not allow them to manually input the visa transaction… I don’t know. This would not be such a big deal but the client has long forgotten their paypal account name and retrieving it gives them time to forget about the purchase altogether. But that’s not eStore’s fault. — PHPpurchase has what looks like an integrated cart through Quantum Gateway. That’s one of the major reasons I am interested in it.
3 The last is in regards to coupons. You can put a cap on transactions but not purchases. eg: Suppose you give out 10 coupons for $20 off a specific item. Then your client purchases 20 jackets (what a great problem to have). Thats $400 off the total purchase. BUT you had only intended to discount $200 on your promotion. (10 coupons at $20 off = $200) And it gets worse, there are still 9 more discount coupons available since the coupon was only used once to purchase the twenty jackets.
I didn’t think this would be an issue but then we started a sales promo for our staff that had a limit on the number of coupons they could give out. They kept to their limit but their friends purchased more than one product at a time. oops. The sale was 1/3 over our budget.
Otherwise the coupons work great. If you give 10% discount and want to limit it to 10 purchases. No problem it works like a charm.
Other than these three glitches I am working around, eStore is great. Great interface, Easy to set up, Easy to track sales. For the price – it’s amazing.
Ps I like that we have the option of no shipping <blank> so that we can use the site as a cash register (with an ipad) when we sell on location.
The support is practically nonexistent. Tons of unanswered questions 3-6 months old, even a week is too long for shopping cart support. I’m not happy with it all, they advertise outstanding support, easy installation — I’ve been working with shopping carts for quite a number of years. I’m telling my client to get a refund of her multi-site but even though they don’t 60-day guarantee multi-site, she can get her money back based on their false advertising, which is against FFC, etc.
The few sites that rave about it, you can tell they’re paid.
Cyndi, are you referring to eStore or PHPurchase?
PHPurchase. I was able to get my client a refund on her multi-site license yesterday.
