Community Forums › Forums › Archived Forums › General Discussion › WooCommerce vs Volusion
Tagged: Cart66
- This topic has 6 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 11 months ago by
nutsandbolts.
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November 18, 2013 at 5:31 pm #74056
elkiehound
MemberWe are looking to develop an commerce site and considering two alternatives.
1. Use an ecommerce plugin (such as woo commerce).
2. Use a third party ecommerce provider (such as Volusion) and create a subdomain in the main website to the store.
Looking for experiences out there of people who may have considered both of these approaches and their feedback on the advantages and disadvantages of each option.
Thank you.
November 18, 2013 at 6:24 pm #74078nutsandbolts
MemberI develop ecommerce sites for clients pretty regularly and have used both options as you described. Overall, I prefer using a plugin (though I'm a Cart66 girl - I despise Woo) for the following reasons:
- It's much easier to keep the look and feel the same - with a third party solution, you often run into templates that aren't as easy to customize to keep the same look as the rest of the site.
- Stats/Analytics are easier because you're still on the same WP install.
- It's easier to troubleshoot if something goes wrong.
- WordPress plugins tend to have better support than standalone ecommerce solutions.
All that said, it really depends on your needs. If you have thousands of products, go with a third party. If you have a few hundred, I'd look at WP plugins first.
Andrea Whitmer, Owner/Developer, Nuts and Bolts Media
I provide development and training services for designers • Find me on Twitter and Google+November 18, 2013 at 9:44 pm #74117elkiehound
MemberThis reply has been marked as private.March 13, 2014 at 5:23 am #94628Gordy
MemberHi Notsandbolts,
I can see that you prefer Cart66 but, when I went through the review, am confused about what people are saying. One is this :
"Most of the people that are rating the plugin high have an expert level knowledge of coding and/or are coders themselves. I know this is true because I've visited some of their pages - their experts and/or developers themselves. So of course working with this would be a piece of cake to them."Would you still recommend it? Or should I go for "Woocommerce."
Please advise, I need to set up an ecommerce on my site.
March 13, 2014 at 9:04 am #94667nutsandbolts
MemberHi Gordy,
I think Cart66 is extremely simple to use - you add your products, then use a shortcode and/or the Cart66 button in the post/page editor to insert your products. I'm not sure how it could be much easier than that, but maybe I'm missing something. Personally, I found WooCommerce to be incredibly confusing - there are so many screens to go through to configure everything - and I didn't like the fact that everything requires a separate add-on at an extra cost (and a cost that must be renewed annually). With most of the ecommerce sites I've done, it would have taken several hundred dollars just to get the add-ons to make the store work, while Cart66 has one price and that's it.
I would definitely recommend watching some videos of each plugin before you make a decision - there are tons of walkthroughs on Youtube that will give you a feel for each one's interface, options, etc.
Andrea Whitmer, Owner/Developer, Nuts and Bolts Media
I provide development and training services for designers • Find me on Twitter and Google+March 13, 2014 at 9:23 am #94675Gordy
MemberThanks for giving more insight into this.
What I mean is to configure it. Not when it is fully configured. Am not a coder or good at design and I would like very simple way to set up any ecommerce that I would go for.
My Question :
Being aware of WooCommerce "price tactics", but would I still be able to use the free features to make a simple but complete online transaction - product appears on my website, somebody can pick it and add to shopping cart, and pay to complete the process? with a standard Paypal wihtout any extra cost on add-on?OR should I go for : WP eStore that is only one time payment?
March 15, 2014 at 10:52 am #95031nutsandbolts
MemberI have used WP eStore in the past and it's a decent plugin. I think the setup is a little more confusing - I had to contact their support a couple of times to get everything working correctly. Any ecommerce plugin will require some initial setup but it's usually not too bad; there is a settings screen where it asks for your Paypal email, currency, etc.
I'm not sure about WooCommerce as far as using Paypal checkout - I *think* you can do that without purchasing any add-ons but I haven't used it enough to know. I installed it on a site last year, freaked out when I saw the screens and screens of options, and decided I'd never touch it again. However, that may not be the case for you. If you know someone who is using Woo, you might ask them to let you take a look at all the options from the WP dashboard to see what you think.
If you want to look at Cart66 on the dashboard end, send me an email ([email protected]) and I can set up a test site for you to log in and look at the setup options.
Andrea Whitmer, Owner/Developer, Nuts and Bolts Media
I provide development and training services for designers • Find me on Twitter and Google+ -
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