WordPress Shopping Cart - Additional Resources | Tips and Tricks eCommerce Site

WordPress Shopping Cart – Additional Resources

Categories: Additional Guidance

WP Shopping Cart CSS

The following CSS classes have been included in the plugin. You will just have to update the CSS in the style sheet file (wp_shopping_cart_style.css) of the wordpress paypal shopping cart plugin if you want to customize the look and feel of the shopping cart.

shopping_cart
wp_cart_button.
wp_cart_checkout_button

Where is the Settings Menu for the Shopping Cart?

The settings menu for the Shopping cart is located under the WordPress Settings menu…. please see the screenshot (click to enlarge).

How to Make the Shopping Cart Show the “Empty Cart” Message on a Post or Page

Search for the following line in the “wp_shopping_cart.php” file:

if (cart_not_empty())

Delete that line once you find it and that should do it.

How to Show the Shopping Cart Widget Only When There are Items in the Cart

Search for the following function in the wp_shopping_cart.php file:

show_wp_paypal_shopping_cart_widget

Once you find it just add the following piece of code at the start of the function and that should do the job

if (!cart_not_empty())

{

return;

}

How to Resize the Add to Cart Buttons

Add the following to the CSS file of this pluign (wp_shopping_cart_style.css)

.wp_cart_button{

height: 20px;

width: 76px;

}

You will have to adjust the size to your needs.

How to Collect Special Instructions from the Customer

If you need to collect special instructions from the customer for some customized work on the item you are selling then you can instruct your buyer to put it in the “Special instructions to merchant” box on PayPal during checkout. Please note that this option is shown on the “Review your payment” screen (after you log in to put the credit card details)

Collecting Special Instruction from the Buyer

Review Payment Screen

Return to the WP Shopping Cart plugin page.

Heather Says:
August 12th, 2009 at 2:20 am

I have just recently downloaded the simple paypal shopping cart plugin. I am very new to trying to design myself a website. I think this plugin would be great for my home business; if I can figure out a few things…
1) I have to charge tax on my items for people that live in my state (FL) and tax can vary from county to county. Is there a way to set up a tax table using this plugin?
2) I tried using the variation control for prices. Say I charge $16 for a lunch box and depending on whether they want an initial or a full name on the lunch box, the price increases from $2 to $8. I tried adding this information in the nextgen gallery in the description box this:

but it didn’t change the price of the shopping cart.

3) Say someone wants to add their name to an item, is there a way to make an input field for them to add this information?

I apologize if these questions have been asked elsewhere. I have tried looking but didn’t see anything regarding these questions. I appreciate your help very much.

admin Says:
August 13th, 2009 at 9:10 am

Hi Heather, 1) Charging Regional or International sales tax is pretty easy… the following link should help:

http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/?p=191

2) The simple shopping cart doesn’t have the variation control with different price options (WP eStore has that)

3) Yes, it is possible to add an input field to get additional info from user.

Shelly Anderson Says:
August 21st, 2009 at 7:10 pm

Can you put product and Buy Botton in sidebar widgets?

admin Says:
August 22nd, 2009 at 3:59 am

@Shelly, Yes you can.. use the following PHP function:

<?php echo print_wp_cart_button_for_product(’Demo Product’, 10.95); ?>

Henk Says:
August 24th, 2009 at 10:55 am

Hi there,

First: Awesome plugin! Works like a charm, kuddos to that.

I am still wrestling with one thing:
All the items I used for the webshop are unique, therefor there is only one item available. (e.g. there is 1 necklase with color blue, one with color yellow etc etc)

Can this be altered in the plugin say: inventory = 1. (this way customers cannot order 2 of the same kind, as there simply is only one.

Any tips tricks or hints are very welcome.

Thanks in advance

admin Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 12:16 am

Hi Henk, Glad to hear that you like the shopping cart plugin. Unfortunately the simple shopping cart doesn’t use a database so it doesn’t have the inventory control capability as it can’t keep track of how many items have been purchased. The WP eStore have this capability.

Shelly Anderson Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 1:39 am

August 24th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I sent my html for my products page. I have changed it a bit. This is the new html. Please tell me why I can not add more than 1 item to my cart.

Youngblood by Suse Wristband
[caption id="attachment_77" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="FRONT OF WRISTBAND"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_104" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="BACK OF WRISTBAND"][/caption]
Cost: $5.00 / Shipping: $2.95
Total Cost w/Shipping: $7.95
Click on [Add To Cart] To Purchase
[wp_cart:Youngblood Wristband:price:5.00:end]
Youngblood by Suse Key Chain

[caption id="attachment_109" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="FRONT SIDE OF KEY CHAIN"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_110" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="BACKSIDE OF KEY CHAIN"][/caption]
Cost: $5.00 / Shipping: $2.95
Total Cost w/Shipping: $7.95
Click on [Add To Cart] To Purchase

[wp_cart:Youngblood Key Chain:price:5.00:end]

admin Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

Hi Shelly, this doesn’t look like a HTML issue. Did you try changing your wordpress theme to the default one to see if it’s a theme issue? (Not all wordpess themes are coded properly).

The other reason is your PHP session not working correctly.. can you verify this with your hosting provider?

Shelly Anderson Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 9:24 pm

You were right about the Host being the issue. the the save path as not setup and php.ini.

Thank you so much – you have been soooo helpful.

Henk Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

Thanks for the reply.

I got that plugin, and works as intended. Thanks for the heads up!

Brandon Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 2:06 pm

Hey guys I’m having an issue with the shopping cart, everything else is working fine, but the delete items button does not work. How do i fix this?

http://www.santasprayer.org

You’ll notice that if you click add to cart twice it adds two items, but if you only want one item you are unable to remove the other.

Please help!

Thanks!

admin Says:
August 28th, 2009 at 12:40 am

@Brandon, looks like you have a special character (‘) in the Product name. Try to use a name without that and see if it makes any difference.

victoria Says:
September 1st, 2009 at 7:38 pm

I apologize if these questions are common sense- i’ve been reading online text for so long i might be overlooking something obvious.

First, when I insert [wp_cart:PRODUCT-NAME:price:PRODUCT-PRICE:end]
into my text and change the name and price the only thing that appears is an “add to cart” button. But, there is no product name or price displayed. Is there any way to change this so that product name and price are included as well.

Also, do I have to have my items all uploaded complete with shopping cart installed in order for the shopping cart to be visible? (versus what I see now when i click on “shopping cart”- [eshop_show_cart]).

Thanks in advance!

admin Says:
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:25 am

Hi Victoria, the trigger text for the “Add to cart” button only gives you the button. This is show you can design the way you want to display the product listing.

you don’t have to upload all items for the shopping cart to be viewable.

angus Says:
September 10th, 2009 at 8:12 pm

hi.. im trying to use this *and* the amended version for pagseguro at the same time. i.e….. to give people a choice which one they want.

i cant because it seems the two plugins use similar variables. do you know of a workaround?????

cheers

angus

admin Says:
September 10th, 2009 at 11:50 pm

Hi Angus, If you can give me the version you are working on then I can have a look and see what the issue is and suggest ways to resolve it.

chris Says:
September 12th, 2009 at 7:47 pm

Hey, I’m using the plugin for a simple shopping cart but when the “Checkout” button redirects to PayPal it requires the user to login or create a PayPal account. When you just create a simple PayPal button (via the PayPal website) it takes you to a page where you can simply pay via credit card and don’t have to have a PayPal account. Is there any way to configure the shopping cart plugin to do this? If so it’ll be ideal for my needs and I’ll definitely drop you a donation. Thanks!

admin Says:
September 13th, 2009 at 1:30 am

Hi Chris, you don’t have to configure the shopping cart for this option. PayPal will give your customers the option to pay by credit card if they don’t have a PayPal account. When your customers go to the checkout page on PayPal they will see a line similar to the following that they can click on and use the credit card to pay:

“Use your credit card or bank account (where available).”

PayPal normally figures out if you have a PayPal account or not from the cookies they leave on your computer. Try deleting all the cookies and hit the checkout button to go to PayPal and it will present you with the option to pay by credit card upfront.

Dan Says:
September 27th, 2009 at 4:55 am

Hi – I’m looking at using the WP Shopping Cart plugin for the registration page of an up-coming conference at my church. It looks pretty ideal for my needs except I’m trying to find a way to add a field for the user to assign a person’s name to each item they add to the cart (name of person registering for the conference). I did have a separate form where they’d enter this info for before they were forwarded to the payment/cart page, but this just seems like it would make it difficult to match up names with payments etc. Suggestions?

Hope that makes sense. Thanks so much!!

admin Says:
September 27th, 2009 at 8:41 am

@Dan, Not sure if this will help but you can take a look at the following URL:

http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/?p=175

On the demo page I have a product called “Demo Engraving” that takes a customer input. you could do something similar to that for the “Name of person” using javascript.

chris Says:
September 29th, 2009 at 4:00 pm

That worked on the Paypal cookie, appreciate the info. It seems like I’ve seen other times when I’ve gotten that page in any case when I’ve set up a button via the Paypal website however, interesting. You can see the plugin in action at http://fusionbeans.com/

Thanks for the help!

Roman Says:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:16 am

Hi, I have a problem here – the Shopping Cart is keeping only one item at a time – can’t add multiple items. what can be done ? thanks in advance.

John Morris Says:
October 19th, 2009 at 6:33 pm

Hey! Thanks for the plugin… exactly what I needed!

One question… how would I go about getting the item number of a product to pass through the form to PayPal. I used WP custom fields and use php to dynamically create the “add to cart” button… each product in my inventory has a unique item number. I’ve noticed in the plugin file that this is supported in the shopping cart page… but, can’t seem to get the item number to pass from the add to cart button to the checkout page using the provided template tag. I dig some digging and didn’t find anything. I’ll keep looking, but wondering if you might be able to point me to the right place.

admin Says:
October 20th, 2009 at 4:03 am

Hi John, I kinda didn’t finish the item number part since the simple shopping cart doesn’t utilize the item number (the WP eStore utilize this correctly). But some architecture is there already… Look for the following line in the shopping cart file:

you will have to get the item number and put it in the array and then it will be passed on to PayPal.

Luke Says:
October 21st, 2009 at 5:48 pm

Is there a way to set up the “var:” so that they can adjust the price ? I have 1 item in several colors, but each color has a unique price. I am looking to provide a drop down for ex.

Red at $12.00
Blue at $13.00
Green at $15.00 and have those prices reflected in the shopping cart.

admin Says:
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:16 am

Hi Luke, nope.. at the moment only the WP eStore can do that.

matt Says:
October 28th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

how do it to redirect to my carts URL after i’ve added something?

right now it just refreshes the page … i want it to go directly to view cart after they add something.

admin Says:
October 28th, 2009 at 11:24 pm

Hi matt, The simple shopping cart doesn’t this functionality.. you can add this manually by modifying the code though.

Adam Says:
November 9th, 2009 at 10:18 pm

Firstly .. Great plugin

Secondly, is there any way to add a Empty Cart button i.e. when clicked it will clear the contents of the cart?

Thanks in advance,
Adam

Pete Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 4:16 am

Reagrding what Matt states above about redirecting the page to the cart after an item is added. Does the full WP eStore plugin provide this functionality?

Thanks!
–
Pete

Pete Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 4:51 am

Also, can each variation on the full WP eStore plugin point to its own downloadable file?

Thanks again!
–
Pete

admin Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 5:31 am

@Adam, yes definitely.. I will add it

admin Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 5:33 am

@Pete, the answer is yes for both of your questions. Visit the following link and add a product to your cart and you will see how it automatically redirects to the checkout page:

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

Mike Mahoney Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 3:16 pm

Thanks for working on this great plugin.

But… having problems. I have the shopping page built with NextGen gallery, and the button is there and all that seems fine. The shopping cart page, however, does nothing. The plugin is installed and active, and I have the ” ” code on the HTML tab of the Shopping Cart page. But the page is blank. When I add an item to the cart, then go the cart page, the page shows up as blank.

I removed the line to hide the empty cart, but I still get nothing. I am using a hosted account with WP 2.8.4. The URL of the product page (just one test product for now) is http://gospellightcommunitychurch.com/glcc/?page_id=382

admin Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 7:06 am

@Mike, You seem to have made a mistake when entering the trigger text for the shopping cart on your checkout page. Please note that there are two dashes (not one) at the start and end of the tag.

Mike Mahoney Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 12:50 pm

That’d be it, thanks. Odd, I copy/pasted the trigger text off the plugin settings. For some reason IE8 truncated the two short dashes into one long dash. You might want to note that in the instructions somewhere, to type it and not c/p it.

Thanks so much for a great plugin and the quick response.

jane Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 10:38 pm

wonderful plug in! Just wondering how to get the paypal button to show up–I only get a line of text that says “make payments with paypal-it’s fast, easy, secure.” It works as a link, but I’d much rather have the button. Thanks!

admin Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 11:56 pm

Hi Jane, the paypal button should show up automatically… just make sure that you didn’t miss to upload the following image in the “images” directory of the plugin:

“paypal_checkout.png”