Ideas for ecommerce, social, forum, membership based site?

[kerugma]

Hi,

1. I am building a new website that has ecommerce (woocommerce) for digital goods.

I want some members to be able to upload their own e-item, sell it to the public and then I receive a commission (or vice versa).
I will also be having a forum (bbpress).
I am thinking of buddypress to add some social networking aspects as well as groups.
The membership base will be paid membership with varying tiers.
Members want to sell e-courses. When someone buys into an e-course, they also get access to private content on the site as well as access to either a forum or private group.

I am a little bit stuck as to the best plugins to use. I'm not adverse to paying for quality plugins but prefer not to pay annual fees for them.
Ecommerce / Members / Social / Forums / Groups / Affiliates / Courseware

OR maybe this is all too hard and I should look at hiring a developer to build the site for me. Any thoughts?

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Susan

[Christoph]

Hi Susan,

this is quite a project!

Make sure you have very good hosting.

You won´t get around paying recurring fees for your extensions. You want to get paid for the membership, the software developers want to get paid for continued development, updates and support.

As for plugin recommendations:
If you want to go with Woocommerce and offer different membership levels you probably have to go with Groups and Groups for woocommerce.
Woothemes is planning a new membership plugin but it´s not known what functionality that will have.

For the submissions of vendors you will probably need this woocommerce extension: woothemes.com/products/product-vendors/

There are several options for affiliate programs that integrate with woocommerce.
affiliatewp (affiliatewp.com)
affiliatespro (woothemes.com/products/affiliates-pro/)
wpaffiliate (tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-affiliate-platform-plugin-simple-affiliate-program-for-wordpress-blogsite-1474)

As you mentioned for the courses you can use WP Courseware. An alternative would be Woothemes Sensei.

I would recommend you get a developer on board who has experience with this kind of setup.
Curtis McHale specializes in eCommerce and membership sites: http://sfndesign.ca/

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https://www.christophherr.com | Genesis Customizations | Buy me a coffee

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