WordPress eStore Plugin Features
Categories: Additional Resources, Featured
Below is a list of the main features of the WP eStore Plugin:
Digital Product Delivery
- Automatic instant digital product delivery. Upon payment the buyer receives a product download link in the email and also on the post-payment return page (eg. a Thank You page)
- Encrypted Product download link (The buyer always receives an encrypted product download link which means the actual link to the product always remains secret)
- Automatic Link Expiration (The encrypted link the buyer receives also gets expired after a configurable amount of time (eg. 12 hours) so the link doesn’t get passed around)
- Ability to limit the number of downloads per link. An encrypted download link will automatically expire after a specified number of downloads (eg. 3 times) if this option is used.
- Ability to offer multiple file downloads per product.
- Variation control for digital product (digital delivery of different files depending on the selection).
- You can also host your digital files at a non-web-accessible URL of your server such as ‘/home/var/digital_products/myproduct.zip’. WP eStore will be able to feed this file to your customer via an encrypted download link.
- Ability to automatically shorten the encrypted download URL using Google’s free URL shortener (this makes a complex URL look nice and tidy)
- Product Specific Instructions for the buyer. This option is useful when you need to give your customer some specific instruction that applies only to that product
- Ability to offer a ‘Squeeze Page’ type form (This allows the site visitors to download a free digital product after they fill in their name and email address. This can be used for email list building). See example
Amazon S3 Integration
- Can be integrated with Amazon S3 so that the downloadable files can be stored on your Amazon S3 account and served via secure encrypted download.
- This method can be used to protect the digital items that you are selling or to protect the downloadable files that you are offering to you members (if you have created a membership site).
- This option can be really good if you have an overcrowded shared hosting and you have a limited memory allowance on your server.
Pay Per View Content
- Simple Pay Per View Content Protection. Instant delivery of pay per view content, the true URL of the page where the content is embedded (e.g. a steaming video) does not get revealed
- The link can be configured so it redirects the buyer to a web page instead of giving them a download (useful when you want to redirect the buyer to a web page which contains streaming videos for example)
Security
- Automatic Instant Payment Notification (IPN) validation (The IPN sent from PayPal is validated against your products database and with PayPal, before the product download link is sent to the buyer. This stops anyone trying to scam the system by sending a fake IPN)
- Automatic post payment product details verification. This stops anyone from trying to scam you by changing the product price or currency on the webpage by injecting queries into the form (learn more)
- Keeps the true location of your digital asset hidden. This ensures the security of your digital asset.
Support
- Free lifetime plugin updates. Please see the following post on how updates are handled.
- Free technical support for our plugin. Please see our support site to find out the available support options.
Currency and Language
- Multiple Currency Support (Can be configured to accept money in any currency that is supported by PayPal or the payment gateway in use)
- Ability to configure a secondary currency that can be used to display the equivalent price of the products in that currency (this is for display purpose only, the transaction takes place in the primary currency).
- Any texts or messages that your visitors can see, can be customized through the language file
- Some language files for the commonly used languages are already included but others can be added upon request
Payment Related
- Ability to use “Add to Cart”, “Buy Now” or “Subscription” type buttons
- Ability to setup Subscription/Recurring payment via PayPal. Configure a “Subscription” button for any type of subscription payment. (See demo)
- Ability to setup “Buy Now” type buttons with different PayPal email addresses (per button basis). Useful on a multi-author blog where different authors can setup “Buy Now” buttons with their products and get the money directly into their PayPal account after a sale.
- Allow customers to specify a product price (learn more).
- Multiple Payment Gateways. Customers can pay via PayPal, 2Checkout, Authorize.net or a manual process (learn more)
Shopping Cart Related
- Ability to specify a minimum checkout amount (example: only allow customers to checkout if the cart sub total value is more than $50.00)
- Ability to specify a maximum checkout amount limit (example: do not allow customers to checkout if the cart sub total value is more than $500.00)
- Ability to specify a per customer item quantity limit (example: only allow a customer to purchase a maximum of one copy of an item)
- Set an automatic redirection to the checkout page once a customer adds an item to the shopping cart
- Hide the quantity field in the shopping cart (can be useful when selling only digital items)
- Optionally display a continue shopping link in the shopping cart
- Ability to specify a custom image that is displayed when the shopping cart is empty
- Ability to add a product to the shopping cart on your site via a simple text link (helpful when you want to place a buy link on facebook, twitter etc).
Setup and Design
- Easy to use and the freedom of adding an “Add to Cart”, “Buy Now” or “Subscription” type button for a product or service anywhere on your blog (posts, pages, sidebars, header, footer)
- Products can be configured with a thumbnail image and a description and can be displayed in a stylish way by using a shortcode. (See demo)
- Shopping cart – session based (The shopping cart can be displayed anywhere on your blog posts, pages and sidebar)
- All the buttons are customizable through the usage of button images and CSS
- Easy Checkout. Simple one-click checkout through PayPal or 2Checkout or Manual Checkout
- Sell both digital and non-digital products with this one WordPress plugin
- WP eStore DOES NOT create any page or post automatically (I find it untidy when plugins automatically create pages). WP eStore gives you all the shortcodes that you can embed on posts or pages to get various functionality but you will have to create the pages yourself (in my opinion this gives the designer more design flexibility)
- Products can be listed under product categories allowing for easy placement of multiple items (the items you specify for this category) on one product page. e.g. You can display all the eBooks you have for sale by placing a shortcode on the products page
- Terms and Conditions – You have the ability to require your customers to agree to your “Terms and Conditions” before they can purchase any item
- PayPal custom template checkout pages can be used with the eStore plugin to customize your checkout page on PayPal
- Simple Up-selling feature (the admin can use this feature to put in some coupon codes which the customers only get after they have made a purchase)
- Collect Customer Input. This will display a text box next to the Add to Cart button where the customer can enter special instruction for that product (eg. a Name if selling Engraving)
- Capability to limit the quantity to be sold for a specific product (Useful when you only want to sell 50 copies of a product for example)
- Coupon Code/Discounts Feature. Offer coupons and discounts to your customers
- Ability to offer product specific affiliate commission when using with the WP Affiliate Program plugin
- Can be used with PayPal’s profile based shipping for dynamic shipping calculation based on location or weight
- Ability to use the simple shipping and tax calculation feature that comes with the plugin or use the shipping and tax settings specified in your PayPal profile.
Integration Options
- Can be integrated with the NextGen Gallery Plugin to create a Digital Photo Store from the NextGen Gallery:
- Can be integrated with Google Analytics E-Commerce tracking (learn more)
- Pre-integrated with the WP Affiliate Platfrom plugin (the affiliate plugin is not included with the eStore plugin). So, in the future if you want to use an affiliate program to boost your sales all you have to do is activate the other plugin
- Pre-intrgrated with WP eMember Plugin (the eMember plugin is not included with the eStore plugin). WordPress eMember is a membership plugin that can turn your existing or new WordPress site into a membership site easily. You can also setup recurring payment via the eStore for membership payments
- Pre-Integrated with the WP PDF Stamper: This plugin allows you to protect your eBook from being uploaded to file sharing sites. Automatically stamping the footer of your eBook with the customer’s personal details (e.g. name, email, address) upon purchase
- Can be easily integrated with the WishList Members plugin (Create Membership a Site)
- AWeber Integration option. customers are automatically signed up to your AWeber list for email marketing purpose
- MailChimp Integration option. This allows your customers to be signed up automatically to MailChimp list for email marketing purpose
- GetResponse Integration option. This allows your customers to be signed up automatically to GetResponse campaign for email marketing purpose
- Can be integrated with OSI iDev Affiliate software
- Can be integrated with the Memberwing Membership plugin.
Miscellaneous
- MySQL Database driven.
- Customer Database (When a Customer purchases an Item his/her details are stored in the database)
- WP eStore works well with any properly coded (valid xHTML code) theme (e.g the Thesis Theme, Elegant Themes etc.)
Visit the WordPress eStore Plugin Page.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Does it support monthly subscription payments via paypal?
October 6th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Yeah it does, please see the following post for a detailed instruction on how to configure a subscription payment:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/?p=400
October 21st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Is it possible to use this plugin with other payment systems, ie Google checkout, or does it only work with Paypal?
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:17 am
@Trudy, At the moment it only works with PayPal but I am working on integrating 2Checkout now.. next I will include Google Checkout.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Hi again,
quick question regarding the sales stats. I have a free trial period of 30 days on one of my products. As of now, thats the only product I sold and tis not being counted as a sale. is it because it is a subscription or because of the 30 day trial? Will it count once the next billing cycle hits and money is actually counted?
thanks,
November 11th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
@Alex, The plugin doesn’t count it as a sale unless it receives the money (technically the customer can still cancel the subscription before the trial period is over and you won’t make a sale)
November 12th, 2009 at 1:51 am
Thank you as always for your help and such quick responses! I will always go back to buy your products!
November 17th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Hi guys,
I am putting together a review/recommendation site and am trying to figure out a plug-in that will allow me to show off the products that we are recommending in the same way your estore plug-in does, is this something I can use it for? We will not be selling the products, just showing them with a description and receiving a click through payment for the referral.
Thanks for your help.
Paul
November 17th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Hi Paul, When configuring the product you can make it so when the “Buy Now” button is clicked it goes to a specified URL rather than adding the product to the cart. This URL can be your affiliate link for this product. You can also customize the button to suit your needs.
This way you can setup all the review products specifying the affiliate links of each and display them on a page with the fancy option. When they click on the button it takes them to the site where they can purchase the product (the link is an affiliate link so you get commission if they purchase it).
November 17th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Awesome, you have saved me a lot of work! Thank you so much!!!
Paul
November 28th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Is there a limit on the number of sites you can use the plugin on?
November 29th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Hi Kevin, you can use the WP eStore plugin on as many sites as you like as long as the sites are owned by you. Here is the full licensing details for this plugin:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/wp-estore-license-479
January 14th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Hello, does this e-comm solution have support for price breaks? ie. buy 3 and get x dollars off? Any possible solutions would be helpful. Keep in mind that creating a product with 3 downloads would not be a solution. would need to have different products, all priced the same, and recognize if there were x amount of products and get one free or certain amount off. Ideas? Solutions?
January 14th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Josh, The only way you can do this is with a coupon. Keep in mind that if you have an item with a $0 Paypal will not process the order.
You can learn more about coupon code here:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-to-use-coupons-discounts-in-wp-estore-364
Ivy
January 15th, 2010 at 2:21 am
Thanks Ivy, that was very helpful!
January 27th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Do you have plans to release a version that supports clickbank payments? If so, when?
January 27th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Sorry we do not have any plans of adding clickbank anytime soon. Our developers are very busy working on a new plugin and getting updates for all of our existing plugins tested and released.
March 22nd, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Hi there,
How are you? I sent the following questions in yesterday but I haven’t received a response. I imagine you’re probably swamped, but you’ve responded so quickly in the past that I thought my previous message may not have gotten through. I have two questions about your plugin:
1) I facilitate workshops and I want to give registrants the choice of either paying the full price up front or paying a deposit. Can I give people that choice with this plug in? I guess one way would be to give them a coupon code if they want to pay just the deposit.
2) I email registrants a checklist after they register to help them prepare for the workshop. I’ve been doing this manually up to now. Can the plugin be configured to automatically send the checklist as soon as someone registers (kind of like an autoresponder)? Perhaps I could set it up so that the checklist is essentially a “digital product”. The plugin reads the registration as someone having bought the checklist so it sends out how to access the checklist after payment has been made. Does that make sense?
Thanks for the help.
Jason
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Hi Jason, For some reason I did not get your first message. Was it a comment or email?
1.) Here are a few options you can use.
A.) They can use the manual payment option this way they can pay however they want and whatever amount you want them to. The only thing is everything becomes manual with this option you will need to add them to the database and email them manually.
B.) Maybe create 2 products 1 a fully payment and 2 a 1/2 or 1/4 payment.
C.) What about using a subscription reoccurring payment where they pay 1/4 upfront then it charges them the remainder over a specified time say 1 payment per month for 3 months. This option can not be added to the cart . Paypal processes these payment differently so they do not allow it to be added to a cart.
2.) You have a few options here also.
A.) You can put the link on the Post Payment landing page / Thank You page.
B.) As you said make it a product that you can include with the workshop purchase.
C.) If you only sell workshops you can put the link in the body of the thank you email.
Let me know if this is what you are looking for.
Cheers,
Ivy
March 25th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Hi there,
Just came across your site during my search and checked all your plugin, seems to be a nice & clean plugin.
a) Read and Noted: This eStore Plugin – Can be easily integrated with the WishList plugin (Create Membership Site).
Q1? With this eStore Plugin, Can I add and create as a Membership site.
—–
b) Pre-integrated with the WP Affiliate Platfrom plugin
Q2? Does this mean, I need to purchase seperately a WP Affiliate Plugin?
—–
Q3? Can your Infinity Remix Theme – create same layout as this site?
Appreciate for your feedback.
Regards
BRIAN
March 25th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Hi Brian,
1.) You will need a membership plugin to do this with eStore (e.g. eMember or WishList). Both of these plugins are pre integrated. If you choose a different membership plugin it may need manual integration. Please ask us if it is possible to integrate other membership plugins before you purchase the eStore. This way you can make sure it will work.
2.) You will need to buy the Affiliate. The pre integration means it is already to work with eStore once you install both plugins.
3.) The theme used on this site is not the Infinity Remix Theme. You can see what the theme looks like at the following sites:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership
http://www.antique-hq.com
Please let me know if you have anymore questions.
Cheers,
Ivy
April 27th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Can estore be integrated with amember (http://www.amember.com) ? if not, will it soon?
April 28th, 2010 at 9:26 am
Nope, I started to have a look and didn’t follow it through as I didn’t get anyone who wanted amember integration.
April 28th, 2010 at 11:08 am
anyone? until now
…I am definitely interested….will be a great addition….
May 21st, 2010 at 6:12 am
Is it supported for the physical product selling?
May 21st, 2010 at 9:25 am
Hi Prasan, You can sell physical products with the eStore as long as you do not need complex shipping. Please see the following post on the shipping options available with the eStore here: http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-the-shipping-cost-calculation-works-in-wordpress-estore-50
Please let me know if you have anymore questions.
Cheers,
Ivy
May 25th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Hi,
I have a question about Digital Product Delivery. How many times can a customer download the product? Or the only protection against file sharing is the Automatic Link Expiration feature?
Please let me know.
kind regards,
Bas
May 26th, 2010 at 1:51 am
Hi Bas, At this time you can only limit the time the link is good for (e.g. 12 hours). We do plan to add a download limit on how many times the product can be downloaded. The ETA on this is unknown at this time as our to do list is always changing.
Cheers,
Ivy
June 26th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Hi there, is there a way to show a product say for a “Featured” product on the sidebar?
June 27th, 2010 at 1:17 am
Hi, You can do this by placing the PHP function to display the product/button you want to feature in the sidebar. You can read more about this here in the section called “How to Display Button(s) on the Sidebar”:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/wordpress-estore-miscellaneous-tweaks-215
July 6th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Which e-store theme/s would you recommend that works best with WordPress eStore?
July 7th, 2010 at 1:10 am
Hi, Our plugins will work fine with any properly coded theme. You can read more about how to tell if a theme is properly coded here:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/when-themes-go-wild-importance-of-using-a-properly-coded-wordpress-theme-2270
September 13th, 2010 at 6:25 am
Hi,
What is the easiest way to capture delivery addresses if I am shipping a product?
Thanks
M
September 14th, 2010 at 1:59 am
Hi Matt, By using email tags in the email you are sent as a seller. You can find a list of all the email tags here:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/wp-estore-shortcodes-and-functions-reference-460
There is one called
{shipping_info} – Buyer’s shipping address
Just place the email tag “{shipping_info}” in the body of the seller email in the eStore settings. Remember to save the settings after you make the changes =)
You can also use these email tags in the buyers email so they know where the item will be shipped to. All the information for these email tags is from PayPal this way the checkout process is quick and easy (no extra steps before checkout).
September 15th, 2010 at 8:57 am
Thanks Ivy!
M
November 9th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
This is a great piece of information, a much appreciated one also. Kudos to the author for highlighting the potential of these plugins, I am sure to get that server of mine up and running so that I can finally get that online store on my site going. Thank you!
February 13th, 2011 at 7:18 pm
just reading this good tool, so maybe i wanna purchase one, thanks
March 12th, 2011 at 6:56 am
I really like the free plug in and can see using this paid version for a subscription based membership site on my next project , will your plug in support a limited number value , for instance the site above is a in the antique market, vintage tea cup and therefore there are limited quantities that I am able to offer customers also I may want to limit an info product to a certain number of copies or registrants to create a scarcity tactic and stimulate buying in that way.
March 12th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Hi, Yes the eStore has quantity control you can specify the amount of an item you have and once that item is sold out it will change the “buy button” to a “sold out image”.
August 12th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Can the store list the amount of items available on the page?
ex. 25 items in stock
Instead of having it just change from available to out of stock?
August 13th, 2011 at 12:45 am
@Stephen, I believe the following shortcode is what you are looking for.
[wp_eStore_remaining_copies_counter id=1]
Display the “Available Copies” counter on a post or
page
You can find a list of all the shortcodes here: http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/wp-estore-shortcodes-and-functions-reference-460
October 9th, 2011 at 3:23 am
Hi, Does the estore can process the credit card payment and how?
October 9th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
@Jim, There are 2 ways you can accept cred cards.
The Standard way (free with our plugins) – When redirected to the payment gateway (example: PayPal) your customer can pay either by their PayPal account or credit card.
The Extra Payment Gateways Bundle (extra fee): This allows you to accept credit cards on your site so the customer never leaves your site to make a payment.
Please note that there are some limitations to this and you needs other tools such as a SSL.
You can read about the payments gateway bundle here:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wp-payment-gateway-bundle-plugin
October 20th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Great article, I’ve bookmarked this page, thank very much.
October 28th, 2011 at 3:36 am
This sound so good.. maybe I can purchase this plugin for my blog
November 7th, 2011 at 7:01 am
I am extremely impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your weblog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it is rare to see a great blog like this one today..
November 7th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
@James, This is a custom theme Amin the developer created =)
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November 16th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Thanks you very much admin.
November 21st, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Thanks so much for all of these questions and answers. This tips and tricks site has helped me immensely. Favorited the page…
December 4th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
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December 6th, 2011 at 5:24 am
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January 31st, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Hi there…
I have a site that I am planning and the use of your plugin would seem to be the best bet.
My question is regarding loading products through the admin panel(s): Is it possible to load a bunch of products at once, say if the data was arranged properly in a csv file?
Thank you!
February 1st, 2012 at 5:36 am
@Jeffery, I believe the following option is what you are looking for: http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-to-bulk-upload-estore-products-from-a-csv-file-775