So, I have a customer.
Customer wants a new website. They’ve outgrown their existing one.
Website should be an ecommerce site and be really accessible to the search engines (I added the last bit!).
To be honest there is nothing in those short statements that would bother most website designers (which I am not by the way!). I knew that if the customer was ever going to achieve any sort of level of self sufficiency, then the platform would need to be easy to use, and would need little if any thinking about.
So - Wordpress it is then.
Off I go into the wilds of the World Wide Web to find a way of modding the wordpress install to run as a shop. I trip over WP e-Commerce from Instinct.co.nz
Looks good. Download the free lite version.
Installed.
Seems ok.
Bargain - it’s free!
Look at the optional components - fancy a couple and shell out the sum total of $30 - hardly a bank breaker so far.
Spend around 40hrs setting up all the products, pretty views etc and then the https checkout (not that easy to do until I tripped over a plugin!).
The thing is - I was a good 60 hours into this project when my wheels started to come off.
You see - Instinct have created a massive issue for themselves. They simply cannot afford to support the plugin that they have created. The lack of documentation is shocking, and their forum is full of disgruntled WordPress users. Thing is - the plugin IS extremely useful - and for most people it is completely free. Doesn’t stop them getting a slating everytime some piece of code doesn’t quite go as one might hope though!.
Thankfully, my salvation came in the unlikely guise of a bearded Texan who goes by the screename of
Shayne from StasticDesigns.com. Slightly quirky (just take a look at his pic!) but with absolutely solid skills, good Wordpress knowledge, and has established himself as a bit of a guru on the WP eCommerce forums with lots of the faithful clamouring for him to be taken into the pay of the Kiwi plugin team.
Thing is - what Shayne has proven to me (he spent a ton of time helping me to fix some issues), is that the internet still works.
It hasn’t been commercialised.
It has NOT been ruined by big business. It let me create a really cool website here:
It only works because there are Shaynes in the world. They have the skill to make it happen and the willingness to help. Oh, and he is looking for you to commission him to do your blog for you.
Let me tell you - it would be worth the money. Hook up with him at his website,
http://www.stasticdesigns.com/
and tell him what you are after.
2 gets you 10 he can get it done for you at sensible money.
Wordpress shop?
No worries mate!
For Shayne
For Instinct
I have run out of coffee - fancy buying me one? Tags: bank, Bargain, bit, breaker, cannot, checkout, code, Commerce, couple, customer, documentation, download, ecommerce, everytime, forum, good, Installed, Instinct, issue, lack, level, lite, Looks, nothing, piece, platform, project, salvation, search, self, Shayne, shop, site, sort, sufficiency, sum, Thankfully, total, trip, version, web, Wide, Wordpress, world
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