Half-Elf on Tech

Thoughts From a Professional Lesbian

Tag: ecommerce

  • Mailbag: Multiple Download Buttons

    Mailbag: Multiple Download Buttons

    Less a mailbag and more a forum question that grew from a logical question.

    How do you link ‘external’ stores from your product pages?

    Well, for me I do it by having a custom page I designed for my products, and listing three shortcodes. One for EDD (the default [purchase_link]) and then two for my own links. In non-shortcode, its like this:

    [Buy from Me][Buy from Amazon][Buy from Apple]

    The actual code is below. I try to keep things as simple as I can when I do this, and I did nick a bit of code from EDD core (you’re supposed to) to make it match. All this does is the most basic of links and it all fits in a nice little box like this:

    The sales box sits on the upper rght of the page and lists image, price, and links.

    I like that layout. Reminds you a bit of Amazon, and there’s a reason. If you keep the space open and clear, it’s easy for a visitor to grasp their options. Also I can put below a link to my EU/VAT page and say this “Purchase disabled? Here’s why…” I don’t right now, though I probably should. I couldn’t think of how to elegantly handle making the button a link like that.

    The code

    	// EDD Buy Externally [edd_external store="iTunes" link="http://apple.com/foo" text="Add to Cart" ]
	function edd_external_shortcode_func( $atts ) {
		global $edd_options;

	    $atts = shortcode_atts( array(
	        'store' => '',
	        'link'  => '',
	        'text'	=> 'Buy Via',
			'style' => isset( $edd_options[ 'button_style' ] ) ? $edd_options[ 'button_style' ] : 'button',
			'color' => isset( $edd_options[ 'checkout_color' ] ) ? $edd_options[ 'checkout_color' ] : 'blue',
			'class' => 'edd-submit'
	    ),
	    $atts, 'edd_external' );

		// Override color if color == inherit
		if( isset( $atts['color'] )	) {
			$atts['color'] = ( $atts['color'] == 'inherit' ) ? '' : $atts['color'];
		}

		$content = '<a href="'.$atts&#91;'link'&#93;.'" class="edd-external edd-'.$atts&#91;'store'&#93;.'
		 '.$atts&#91;'style'&#93;.' '.$atts&#91;'color'&#93;.' '.$atts&#91;'class'&#93;.'
		"><span class="edd-add-to-cart-label">'.$atts['text'].' '.$atts['store'].'</a></span>';

		return '<div class="edd_purchase_submit_wrapper">'.$content.'</div>';
	}

	add_shortcode( 'edd_external', 'edd_external_shortcode_func' );

    Like I said. Pretty basic.

  • Catch a Session

    Catch a Session

    When I was at WordCamp Chicago in 2013, Brian Richards asked me if I’d be interested in giving a WordPress ‘Session.’ Since not everyone can make a WordCamp, what if there was a live, online, session they could watch to get the same information? Thus was born WPSessions!

    I said yes, and months went by. Then he pinged me again, asking if I was still interested, and would I might talking about eCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads? That was new! Most people want support, community, or multisite. Since I’d recently written a book about running an ecommerce bookstore, I said yes again, and on Thursday gave a session.

    If you missed it, and you probably did since I did a terrible job promoting (sorry Brian!), you can check it out at WPSessions – eCommerce for Site Owners. It’s $30 for four sessions (mine is 51 minutes long), and while my slides are online , you never get quite the same impact as seeing me give them, do you?

    http://slides.halfelf.org/wpsedd/

  • eCommerce Dream

    eCommerce Dream

    At the end of my WordCamp San Francisco talk, I said I had a dream. A dream about a plugin that can share an inventory between WordPress sites on a Multisite Network.

    Firefly_-_WhitefallImagine, if you will, a store with a physical products (Geisha dolls). The store has a bunch of different types of dolls. The store has satellite stores, one in Ariel (their flagship store) but now one on Bellerophon and another on Whitefall. While the Companion-Style dolls sell well on Ariel and Bellerophon, the Cowboy-Style ones sell best on Whitefall. Also each store has a different kind of clientele.

    So the Dollhouse Store makes a website, and then using Multisite, makes another site for each location: whitefall.dollhousestores.com and so on (or maybe whitefalldollhouse.com even). At first, the webpages are just a list of the local store products, come and buy them here, photos of the locale, employees, and local events. Then they decide to sell stuff on line. But they only want to list items for sale under specific criteria.

    1. All items for sale are stored on the network admin
    2. Each store can select what products they have at their store
    3. Each store controls product volume.
    4. Stores can request more product from homebase

    Now of course they could have a separate store for each site, but they want to manage what possible items could be sold online, so having that controlled by the network makes sense, doesn’t it?

    Firefly4_LMeanwhile another store sells cows. All the cows live at Persephone, and are shipped out to Jiangyin and other stores. They’re doing well with everyone going to cowship.com, but they too want to have jiangyin.cowship.com and so on. Each store lists what cows are for sale that live well in each location because Holsteins’ don’t like Bellerophon, who knew? This way, someone on Jiangyin can order Holsteins but not Texas Longhorns. Obviously they need to control which product can be sold at each location, same as the Dollhouse, but they also have a different problem. Their product amounts must also be stored in one location and shipped out from there, so they want to make sure they don’t oversell their cows.

    Their criteria:

    1. All items for sale are stored on the network admin
    2. Network admin controls absolute amount of products
    3. Network selects what products they have at each store
    4. Orders per store base product volume on the network amount

    These are pipe dreams. Today there is no plugin that ‘shares’ an estore across multisite sites on a network. You can’t even do it with ‘digital’ products which now that I say it aloud, I think Pippin should totally get on that.

    Today, all sites are separate, and since estores have their content saved per-site, there isn’t an easy, friendly way (if there is at all) to pull data between sites in a way that preserves shopping carts and such. I wish there was. I get asked about this at least once a week, and I have to say “Today, there is no plugin that can share an inventory between WordPress sites on a Multisite Network.”

    But this is a complicated thing. Multisite itself isn’t actually built to handle that kind of thing, since the network doesn’t have posts or pages. You’d have to dedicate a site on the network to the shop and pull in content from there, which of course has a switch_to_blog() overhead penalty. I can’t even begin to get past the paper thoughts I have here.