wpStoreCart seems like a good shopping cart plugin. It is well documented and has a nice clean interface. On top of that, it’s completely free to install and use. It’s not without limitations, though. The free version only supports PayPal as the payment gateway. The coupon code management is not flexible. And it doesn’t support proper inventory control of product variations.
Installation
The code of wpStoreCart is completely open and free. The plugin is available from WordPress.org, which means it is free to download and install. It also means that installation is as simple as any other plugin.
Technical Support & Documentation
There’s an open support forum for all wpStoreCart users. While the makers of the plugin view and reply to posts in the forums, you’re not guaranteed to be helped. If you want dedicated technical support, you have to buy it. It costs $50 per 6-months period.
How It Integrates with WordPress
wpStoreCart uses WordPress Pages for products and other store screens, such as the checkout page.
Adding of products on wpStoreCart happens as follows: you first add the product in wpStoreCart admin panel. Then, you create a WordPress post/page and use a shortcode, like [wpstorecart display="product" primkey="x"] to display the product.
wpStoreCart utilizes WordPress shortcodes heavily. You can use shortcodes to display the checkout page, a specific product, customer’s orders page, recent products, a special message only shown to customers who have purchased a product, most popular products, and products from a certain category.
Product Variation Management
It is possible to sell product variations with wpStoreCart as you can see in this detailed guide. However, notice that you can only set the price for variations. You cannot set a different shipping or inventory count.
Shipping and Tax Management
Currently, you cannot charge taxes with wpStoreCart.
Shipping configurations in wpStoreCart are pretty basic. You can specify three types of flat rate
- each product with its own rate
- one flat rate that’s multiplied by the number of products in cart
- one flat rate regardless of cart quantity
Fortunately, wpStoreCart supports USPS live quotes feature.
Admin User-Interface Design
wpStoreCart UI design needs serious reworking. The plugin’s screens are busy and visual elements seem to be scattered. There’s also the problem of redundant menus. The same links appear in several visible places at once. And not to mention the small UI glitches here and there.
Accepted Payment Methods
wpStoreCart supports PayPal. If you want more payment gateways, you have to purchase a $10 add-on, which will give you access to Authorize.Net and 2Checkout. It does not support recurring billing through PayPal.
Selling Digital Downloads
It is possible to sell downloadable products with wpStoreCart, but the plugin has no means of protecting your uploaded files. And you cannot set an expiration date for the download links or limit the number of downloads per sold product.
Offering Discount Coupon Codes
wpStoreCart support coupon codes, but it’s limited. For example, you cannot have a percentage discount code, and you cannot have a coupon per order. Coupons apply to products, not orders.
Sidebar Widgets
wpStoreCart comes with a few different widgets.
- cart contents
- top product, recent products, product categories
- user account login
For some reason, the developers of wpStoreCart don’t care about the layout of their input Shipping Options fields, so the widgets are kinda messed up by default.
Themes and Styles
There are no pre-built themes for wpStoreCart. However, all of the HTML that wpStoreCart outputs is strapped with CSS classes. The classes are documented, so you can make your own theme for the cart.
Affiliates Management
wpStoreCart has a 15 dollar add-on for affiliates management. It’s called wpscAffiliate PRO.
Multi-Language Support
There are currently no translations for wpStoreCart. However, it is translatable, so you can go ahead and make your own.
Who’s Using It
I couldn’t find any examples of people using wpStoreCart online.
Money Matters
wpStoreCart comes in two versions, free and PRO. There is no difference between PRO and free in the shopping cart software itself, but PRO is actually a bundle. It comes with add-on affiliates management software and ecommerce statistics suite. The PRO package also includes premium business support.
Hi, I’m Jeff, the author of wpStoreCart. I have always appreciated this fair and honest review of wpStoreCart from April 2011, which was around the time that wpStoreCart 2.2.6 was the current release. Since that time, I’ve released 42 new versions, including 50 new features & expanded functionality. I appreciated this review so much, that I actually redesigned the admin panel of wpStoreCart to fit into the style of WordPress and to provide a more consistent UI several months. I also addressed many of the early shortcomings that were addressed in this review, such as lack of tax options. I also added recurring PayPal payments, Moneybookers/Skrill, Liberty Reserve, and Quickbooks Merchant Services to the Payments PRO package. There’s tons of new stuff, like Combos, ShareYourCart integrations, product accessories, group discounts, issue serial numbers, hide prices, more shortcodes & widgets, a Setup Wizard, & too much more to list.
We’re working on a completely new engine for wpStoreCart 3.0, so that we can evolve and innovate. There’s still issues we’re working on, but we’re always progressing, always taking in feedback such as this review & the comments below, and we’re learning, adapting, and doing our best to provide the premiere WordPress ecommerce platform. We look forward to hearing more feedback and I want to thank everyone for taking the time to consider my ecommerce plugin. I’ve spent the last 20 months working on it full time, and I can’t wait to see where we’ll take it in the next 2 years!
Hi Jeff, I’m glad and flattered to hear about the improvements you made to wpStoreCart and how my opinion influenced some of them—they sound very exciting. I really think you have a viable ecommerce solution here. I’ll make sure to include the changes you made in my review of the latest version later on. Thanks!
I just bought pro version and now regret. They claim to provide business support but it do not exist anywhere except the public forum where question go unanswered.
I even email to admin@ but there is no response.
I will definitely not recommend this plugin to anyone.
I am sorry to hear that you had issues. Was this ever resolved for you? If not, I will do anything in my power to resolve any issues or provide a refund if necessary. Thank you.
I am really keen to use this tool as i wish to purchase pro version later on but I am having great difficulty with this plugin. I wonder if you could give me some tips as i really want to use it later on.
The problems I have are:
1. Whatever I do, my widgets do not appear on any page. I have tried other plugins and several other widgets and they all work fine.
2. After clean installs, I still do not get any ‘Theme settings’ option under Theme.
Can someone please give me some advice as to why the widgets for this particular plugin do not appear? What am I missing?
3. Finally is it possible to have a user info page where user can see their orders (I know how to do that) and their registered contact details?
Would be grateful for feedback.
Kind Regards
Annie
Hi Annie, Some of the issues that you listed could be caused by a lot of different issues. It’s difficult to pin down the single cause of the problems from your description. It is best that you utilize the plugin’s own support channels, like their forums and documentation.
1. I’ve heard of this issue on some installations of Internet Explorer. Can you confirm?
2. The default theme was removed from the plugin while we await approval from the WordPress theme repository. The theme should be available again for download shortly.
3. Yes. First create a WordPress Page, and name it something like “Orders” Then, paste this shortcode into the page: [wpstorecart display="orders"] then publish the page. Now visit wp-admin > wpStoreCart > Settings > Display > Orders Page > and you can either select to display just the orders, or with static or editable profile information. Hit “Update” to save the settings, and you’re done.
you could_not find a single example to this cart anywhere on the www? wtf??? what about the digital downloads – you say that there is no way to set an expiration date — does that mean that there is some default expiri date OR that the link is good forever?
Hi James, Yes, I couldn’t find any examples, but that doesn’t absolutely mean there isn’t anyone using it. It just means I couldn’t find them.
About the download link, it’s good forever.