I’ve been researching a number of new plugins that extend the functionality of the WordPress E-Commerce plugin. Why reinvent a dead horse?
eCC
http://www.webgility.com
Free for 15 days. Then starts at $99 +$20/mo
Summary: QuickBooks integration application designed to deliver a comprehensive eCommerce management solution:
- Keep your QuickBooks current and accurate
- Streamline order fulfillment
- Manage product catalog, inventory & pricing
- Securely maintain your data
Ari coments: looks powerful. This tool works with 13 different ecommerce systems – WPEC is just one. So that’s a sign they are serious developers. Might solve complex inventory issues but I’m not sure how helpful it is if you don’t use quickbooks? Does lots of other stuff including integrating with a iPhone app.
See also this video that is WordPress-specific:
http://www.webgility.com/quickbooks-integration-word-press.php
StoreApps – “smart manager”
Free “lite” version or $100 “pro” version
Summary: “will boost your productivity 10x in managing products, customers and orders.”
You can browse, search, add, update and delete multiple products, customers or orders using a familiar, single page, spreadsheet-like interface.
Their site has videos and more… View screenshots of new version.
They also have a new “smart reporting” tool… But little info is available online yet. Looks like their website is out of date.
Manual Ordering
au$65 (@us$63)
This solution allows store owners to process sales immediately where a customer prefers to call in/mail order and gets around the inconvenience of creating a new customer order through the Checkout page.
Ari coments: this might be an interesting solution for a POS (point of sale ecommerce) system in a physical store. Check out the screenshots:
http://www.visser.com.au/wp-ecommerce/plugins/manual-ordering
Note that this guy (visser) makes lots of WPEC plugins so I trust him that he knows what he’s doing – he’s an expert at WordPress e-commerce.
NoStock: A stock notifier
Free – but may not work with wpec 3.8
When a product is out of stock, customer will see a button to request notification. Plugin will record email address in a list and when the quantity is updated (the product is back in stock), anybody that requested notification will get sent an email.
http://getshopped.org/fpt-plugins/wp-nostock-a-stock-notifier-plugin
http://fusionized.com/2011/02/announce-nostock-a-stock-notifier-for-wp-e-commerce
WPEC Bulk Tools
Free – but does not work with wpec 3.8
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpec-bulk-tools
WPEC Bulk Tools provides bulk management tools for the WP e-Commerce plugin. actually 3.8 has this kind of bulk import “You can import your products from a comma delimited text file”
UPDATE: some of these services also work with WooCommerce