WordPress eStore Installation and Usage Guide | Tips and Tricks WP eCommerce

WordPress eStore Installation and Update Guide

Categories: Installation and Usage

Installing and Upgrading WordPress eStore plugin is very easy. The installation of this plugin is similar to all the other WordPress plugins.

Fresh Installation of WP eStore

First deactivate the WP Simple Paypal Shopping cart plugin if you are using it. WP eStore plugin has all the functionality of the WP Simple Paypal Shopping cart.

Unzip and Upload the folder wp-cart-for-digital-products to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.

Installation Video

Upgrade WP eStore Plugin

Before you ask…

Yes, the plugin will retain all the previous information that you saved. No data (your product details, settings values etc.) will get lost during the upgrade.

Important Note 1: If you have a live site with high traffic where customers are constantly making purchases then you should consider installing the new version of the plugin on a test WordPress site first to minimize any chance of upgrade related issue taking you out by surprise. Most people prefer to have a copy of WordPress installed in one of the sub-directories for testing purpose (you can install it in a sub-domain too). This way if you face an issue due to upgrading, you can report it to us and while we work on it, your main site won’t be affected.

Important Note 2: Some users have this bad habit of keeping multiple copies of the same plugin in the “plugins” directory. This is the source of many problems. Please note that you should only have one version of any WordPress plugin in the plugins directory at any given time. If you want to keep backups then you can keep it in your “uploads” directory or on your computer’s hard drive.

With that said, please follow the instructions below when upgrading the WordPress eStore plugin from an older version to a newer version:

Upgrade Method 1

Please follow the steps below when upgrading the WordPress eStore plugin from an older version to a newer version:

Deactivate the older version of the ‘WP eStore’ plugin from the Plugins menu.
Unzip and upload all the new files using your FTP client (example, FileZilla) overwriting the existing eStore plugin files.
Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.

The plugin will retain all the previous information (nothing will get lost during the upgrade).

Upgrade Method 2

If you haven’t stored the downloadable files anyplace inside the “wp-cart-for-digital-products” directory then you can follow this method of upgrade:

Deactivate the current version of the WP eStore plugin from the Plugins menu.
Delete the current version of the WP eStore plugin from the Plugins menu.
Now, follow the fresh installation steps outlined above to install the plugin.

Don’t be scared to delete the plugin. It will retain all the previously entered settings and product information (no data will get lost during the upgrade).

Basic Usage Guide

1. First add the product(s) to the database through the Add/Edit Products interface. Products can be modified through the Manage Products interface.

2. To add the Add to Cart button simply add the following trigger text to a post or page next to the product.
[wp_eStore_add_to_cart id=PRODUCT-ID]
Replace PRODUCT-ID with the actual product id of the product (example, 1). Product IDs are unique numbers that are automatically created for you when you add a product to the database. All of your products IDs can be found in the Manage Products section.

3. To add the shopping cart to a post, checkout page and/or sidebar simply add the following trigger text to a post or page in HTML view or use the sidebar widget. The shopping cart will only be visible when a customer adds a product in the post or page.
[wp_eStore_cart]

Additional Usage Guidance

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions.

Ivy Says:
September 13th, 2012 at 2:38 am

@ Michelle, You can find the version information for our plugins here:
http://support.tipsandtricks-hq.com/version-info

Michelle Says:
September 12th, 2012 at 9:23 pm

What is the latest version of WP e-Store? I don’t see anywhere on this site where we can tell if our installed version is the latest.

Caroline Says:
November 30th, 2011 at 3:07 pm

Just did Method 1 and seemed to work fine. Thank you! Now, I’m on to update the eMember….

Ivy Says:
September 27th, 2011 at 12:51 am

@Jane, I will look into making updates easier to find. Here is a link to the update option page for our plugins: http://support.tipsandtricks-hq.com/update-request

thank you for your feedback.

Jane Says:
September 26th, 2011 at 6:41 pm

Hiya! Just a comment on this page itself. A link to the upgrade request page w/b really nice to have here. I finally bookmarked the page, but it’s really difficult to find it. I kept going back to a comment in the forum for the link admin put into a reply.

Thanks as always for a great plugin!

admin Says:
January 30th, 2010 at 1:55 am

@SvendK, you won’t be able to use the shopping cart to sell in two different currencies from the same site unless using “Buy Now” type buttons.

SvendK Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 6:43 pm

It sure looks good! I’m buying it in a moment.

Thou, I have a question. If I’m using the WPML plugin to internationalise my website, and I want the danish visitors to buy in danish “kroner” and the north american visitors to buy in dollars, how can I accomplish this – If I do not want to use “Buy now” buttons?

WPML is making pairs of posts/pages link up, so you can switch language and see the other language version of the page. But it is the same WordPress installation, the same site (but the danish version is at the “da” subdomain).

I dont think it is possible to have to instances of eStore installed at the same time. Is it possible to use the same shopping cart for both currencies – but only one at a time off cause. If I add a danish good, and then change to the american site and add another good, an error could show up, that I should empty the basket first.

How could I use eStore in different languages?

Julie Says:
January 8th, 2010 at 7:07 pm

I just want to say, I have downloaded this product for a website that we are building for a client and I am so impressed. It has a tremendous amount of functionality for the price and is very easy to use. I HIGHLY recommend it! My client and I thank you enormously!

admin Says:
November 19th, 2009 at 9:10 am

@Mike, I actively develop this plugin so there is always small updates that I make available to the new customers. I send out updates to my existing customers once I accumulate these small updates and reach a milestone and have performed a reasonable amount of testing. I don’t like to send emails every few days to give you a little update here and there and break some part of your perfectly working site.

I have done some major restructuring to the shopping cart so there is a big update coming for the existing customers but I want to test it more to make sure there are no bugs.

The changelog is a good place to see the release notes for this plugin:

http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/wordpress-estore-plugin-change-log-56

Mike Says:
November 19th, 2009 at 12:49 am

Hey…I was just curious if there is a new upgrade release coming anytime soon to the purchased eStore Plugin?

Also, is there a spot on the site where I can see the history of each of the versions along with release notes? It would be nice to see what has been added as each new version has been introduced.

Still lovin the plugin!

Thanks!

Mike

admin Says:
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:36 am

@Peter, I understand your need but unfortunately I haven’t added this type of product importing capability to this plugin yet.

Peter Lambert Says:
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:01 am

Can I add multiple products at once. Most e-commerce solutions allow you to upload a .csv file.

Please let me know if this is an option, or if you know of any solutions that run in wordpress that have this feature. (I have over 1,000 products which change once a week – one by one is not an option).

Cheers,

Lance Says:
September 15th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

Thanks you! Your plugin is outstanding and I really appreciate your quick response. Unlike the many unbelievable positive customer comment posts on most product sites, the many I have read on your site, I believe.

admin Says:
September 15th, 2009 at 3:01 am

Hi Lance, Your PHP session isn’t working properly. So when you go to the next page or add another item it looses the PHP session information… please contact your hosting provider to get your PHP session to work properly and this issue won’t be there anymore.

Lance Says:
September 15th, 2009 at 2:37 am

I am having trouble with the shopping cart populating more than 1 item. Additonally, when you switch pages, it drops the item in the cart all together. I have tried deactivating all other plugins to check for conflicts. I have tried various page and post designs, with and without html coding. I have tried changing themes. I have checked all the php in the editor and at this point I am simply stumped why the WordPress eStore plugin won’t accept more than one item like it does on other sites. Everything else seems to be working great. Any ideas or suggestions?

I love this plugin, I just hope to fix this last hurdle.

Rosemarie Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 12:53 am

Thanks so much! I appreciate all your work on this plugin and your terrific feedback and service.

admin Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 12:51 am

You can put HTML in the description field of a product. so you can add a link in the description field that says “More Info” which points to this detailed page. You can see how I have done it on this page

http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/products

Rosemarie Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 12:46 am

Thanks! I really am loving this plugin.
I do have one other question: is there a way to individually link the products listed on the “fancy product” page to separate pages describing each product in more detail?

admin Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 12:42 am

Thats the problem… the “Categories” menu was introduced in v2.4 but you should have received an email from me regarding the upgrade (wondering why you didn’t receive that). Anyway, I will send you the updated version now

Rosemarie Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 12:41 am

Thanks for the quick response! I’m using 2.3.1.

admin Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 12:38 am

Hi Rosemarie, What version of the WP eStore are you using?

Rosemarie Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 12:15 am

I’m wondering where the product category page is? It is demonstrated on a documentation page, but when I look at the choices in the administrative panel it is not there. What am I missing? FYI, I paid for the plugin.

admin Says:
August 1st, 2009 at 2:03 am

@Rona, Looks like you have figured it out yourself. Anyway, you can put your PayPal details in the settings menu of the plugin. It’s not part of the install so I haven’t mentioned it here.

Rona Roberts Says:
August 1st, 2009 at 1:43 am

Nevermind for the moment – it was, of course, staring me in the face, but I couldn’t see it. I’ll be back if I can’t get it to work.

Rona Roberts Says:
July 31st, 2009 at 10:37 pm

Really basic question, and I expect I’ll be tempted to hit my head when you reply, but I am stumped.

I have never had either the WP Simple Paypal Shopping Cart plugin or any version of WP eStore. So I think this is an fresh install.

– I read this:

* Fresh Installation

First deactivate the WP Simple Paypal Shopping cart plugin if you are using it. WP eStore plugin has all the functionality of the� WP Simple Paypal Shopping cart.

* Unzip and Upload the folder wp-cart-for-digital-products to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
* Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.*

I don’t have anything to deactivate, but I have proceeded to download, install, activate, and add a digital product.

But where is the setting for linking to my PayPal account? I cannot find it.

Do I need the WP Shopping Cart plugin too? Even though it says on the plugin page that it is the Simple Shopping Cart plugin, and we’re not supposed to need it with the new eStore?

I wish I understood better – advice, please? Thank you.

Ramona Says:
July 30th, 2009 at 12:54 pm

Thanks, the new version works under wp 2.8.2 without problems. Wish list: restriction to only 1 download within a certain time (a year or others).

admin Says:
July 1st, 2009 at 5:06 am

@Corey, To manually add the shopping car to the sidebar use the following code in the sidebar.php:

<?php echo print_wp_digi_cart(); ?>

Corey Says:
June 30th, 2009 at 5:51 pm

I was previously using the free shopping cart plugin and just upgraded to the paid version.

I have my sidebar widgets hard-coded…what is the syntax to add the shopping cart to the sidebar by hand?

In the free version I was using

In wp-eStore I have tried but with no luck.

admin Says:
June 9th, 2009 at 4:48 pm

@Kelly, I had a look and it looks like you were using the simple PayPal shopping cart plugin (remember the tag for add to cart buttons are different for the WP eStore and the other one). This is why one of the installation step is to disable the simple paypal shopping cart plugin if you were using it

Kelly Ling Says:
June 7th, 2009 at 9:20 pm

I love this plugin, but I’m getting an error. Could you please help?

I have the paid plugin installed, nextgen, and the estore template. You can view the shopping area here. Payment goes to paypal, I get a notification from Paypal that a payment was made, but nothing from the cart.

http://www.wpthemesforwomen.com/shopping

Any ideas? Thanks so much!