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

Shortcode and PHP tags


Shortcode and PHP tags are advanced means of customizing your online store. Using literally a short snippet of code, you can add any number of functional bits to your store. These can:

  • Display default products

  • Display shopping cart

  • List categories

  • Display products from a specific group

  • Buy now

  • Add to cart

So, what is the difference between a shortcode and a PHP tag? From a visual standpoint, a shortcode is a snippet of text between square brackets, such as this: [dosomething]. In a nutshell, a shortcode is really just a macro code that can be expanded at runtime to reflect some dynamic contents. WordPress started supporting shortcode as of version 2.5, and many plugins now take advantage of it, allowing end users to gain functionality without the need to dig into any complex HTML or embedded codes.

On the other hand, PHP code tags harness the power and versatility of the PHP scripting language to perform a specified action or display some content. Visually, it looks like this...