How to make a full e-commerce site using wordpress as platform

Hi guys,

Do you have any idea where should I start making an e-commerce site using wordpress as a solution.

I've been asking to create the site by a relative and I wish to help him.

About my basic knowledge on wordpress: I can create advanced wordpress themes like gigaom, techcrunch, gizmodo, endgadget or something like that. All of the works I've done previously are blogging platform. I heard that wordpress can be used as e-commerce site. It never caught my attention until this project.

My target: a full scale e-commerce site that people can buy stuffs and pay online, as well as notify the admin about transaction via an email.

I can do the last two parts but I have no idea about the first one.

Any suggestion of where should I start would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Ket

 

Hi Ket,

Yes you can use wordpress as a ecommerce platform. Here is Top 5 ecommerce plugin for wordpress based ecommerce sites,

1. Woocommerce
Woocommerce is a powerful, yet a simple to use ecommerce plugin. It's fully customizable and support all ecommerce features like: Advanced Store Management, Reporting, Tax and Shipping options, Marketing features, Payment Gateways (PayPal, Authorize.net, eWay, etc.), account panel, one page checkout, ratings, shipping calculator and much more.

2. Easy digital downloads
If you want to sell digital products then this WordPress plugin is probably the best solution for your website. It includes: cart system for buying multiple downloads, payments gateways (PayPal and Manual included by default), payment history, sales charts, data export, Affiliate System integration, multi-language support and much more.

3. WP e-commerce
4. Jigoshop
5. eShop

Hope you will find the right plugin for your ecommerce store.
Thanks
Tawfiq

 

Thank you Tawfiq,

Appreciated. We have been working on the design on paper (whiteboard). I'll have a look into it.

 

You can use woocommerce plugin, no doubt best solution for all your ecommerce need, fully open source so if you want any customization thats also possible and you can add many more extensions included in its extension store.

 

I'll back the other guys here - WooCommerce is definitely the best eShop plugin for WordPress, along with JigoShop. As you already have WordPress experience I doubt you will have too many issues with them as they are very user-friendly and you operate them right from the WP Dashboard which you are already familiar with. WooCommerce is getting more and more popular which means that more new themes and plugins are introduced, more documentation and tutorials and, of course, as the community grows you can get tips and advises from more and more people.

 

Same as the rest, WooCommerce is definitely the plugin for you. It would be easy if you are already good with WordPress.

 

If we use wordpress, I hope it doesnot looks a good and complete ecommerce platform.

 

Thanks RevSan,

It's not my website. The owner choose it. I just do what he want me to do.

 

If the 'main aim' of the website is to do e-commerce, I would advice against using Wordpress/Joomla with a plugin. Go with a rich ecommerce software like Magento. Even OpenCart beats these plugins hands down in ecommerece.