Book Image

WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce

Book Image

WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce

Overview of this book

WordPress is easily one of the hottest platforms for building blogs and general web sites. With the addition of the WP e-Commerce plug-in, it's also a competent platform for easily creating and running an online store, capable of selling physical items as well as services and digital downloads. WordPress with e-Commerce offers every feature that a seller and a customer may need. You can build an online store that makes it easier for the customers to find and buy products.WordPress 2.9 e-Commerce focuses on the integration of WordPress with the WordPress e-Commerce plug-in, covering all aspects of building and developing an online store from scratch.This book provides a simple, step-by-step approach to developing an effective online store. It guides you through your initial planning and first steps, plug-in installation and configuration, building your catalog of products to sell, accepting payments for your orders, and dealing with taxes and shipping. You will also learn how to promote and market your new store, handle customer accounts and staff roles, and deal with essential store security.As you work through each chapter, your online store will grow in scope and functionality. By the time you finish this book, you will have a complete and working store, ready to release your products to the world.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
WordPress 2.9 -Commerce
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started with WordPress and e-Commerce
2
Getting Ready to Sell
3
Configure Your e-Commerce Settings
4
Managing Your Product Catalog
5
User Accounts: Customers and Staff
6
Checkout and Payment Setup
7
Shipping, Taxes, and Processing Orders
Setting Up a WAMP Testing Platform
Index

Chapter 6. Checkout and Payment Setup

No e-commerce site is complete without a reliable way to accept payments from customers. Managing payments with the WP e-Commerce plugin is not a difficult process, but it is a process that must be tested thoroughly before opening your site to the public. After all, an online store with a broken payment system is totally worthless.

The nature of an online store inherently requires a fast and convenient method of accepting payments. For most users, this means the ability to accept credit or debit cards. Electronic checks are another option, though not all payment gateways support them.

There are other manual options available, such as allowing customers to send paper checks, but these are generally not recommended. Having customers mail checks is antiquated and can be risky. Therefore, if you have any other options available, we strongly recommend that you take advantage of them.

In this chapter, we will walk through the checkout process and decide how transparent...