WordPress for Business Class 8 (ecommerce & Membership)

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Berenice Gardner
6 years ago
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1 WordPress for Business Class 8 (ecommerce & Membership) Slides:

2 Class 8 - Agenda Coaching groups extension (reminder) WP Encyclopedia project (May 2013) Newsletter, auto-responder systems, RSS-to- systems Payment Gateways & Merchant Accounts Hosted Shopping Cart solutions WordPress shopping cart plugins WordPress Membership Plugins Demonstrations: Mailchimp Mailchimp RSS-to- for a single post category (like News ) Paypal button Simple Paypal Cart WooCommerce plugin Wishlist Member (Membership plugin) tour Special discussion re. Digital downloads

3 Newsletters & auto-responders (definitions) A Newsletter system manages subscribers to your site (allows them to subscribe and unsubscribe) [All services do this] A Sequential auto-responder system also allows you to send multiple s automatically, days or weeks after the prospect subscribes [Most services] An RSS-to- system reads an RSS feed and automatically sends new content (posts) to subscribers [Feedburner, Mailchimp, Aweber, Constant Contact] All newsletter systems can send Text or HTML s (HTML s can have images, bold, bullets etc); but only some have a WYSIWYG editor for pretty newsletters [Mailchimp, Constant Contact] You can always send HTML mails by composing the mail inside WordPress visual editor or Windows Live Writer and then copy-and-paste html into the newsletter provider Many externally-hosted shopping carts (so-called all-in-one carts ) provide newsletter service as well. The main advantage of this is for tracking & following up with buyers, and managing affiliates (See later) A few plugins can send newsletters from your own hosting account (WP Autoresponder, Digital Access Pass). Note hosting policy limitations for this (typically max 500 mails per hour)

4 Newsletter System Newsletters & Auto-responders systems Cost / mth for 499 / 10,000 Subscribers HTML Editor Integrated Cart / Affiliate Management RSS to Sequential Auto-responders Feedburner Free No No Yes No WP Autoresponder (plugin) Mailchimp Free (uses host ) $0 / $75/mth (up to 2000 free) No No No Yes Advanced No Yes Yes Feedblitz $10 / $75 /mth No No Yes Yes Aweber $19 / $75 /mth Basic No Yes Yes Constant Contact $15 / $75/mth Advanced No Yes Yes VerticalResponse, icontact, others (Varies) No (?) No No Yes Newsletter Systems that integrate with shopping carts or membership systems (These all provide affiliate management as well) 1ShoppingCart $29 / $29/mth No Yes ($99/mth) No Yes InfusionSoft, Office Auto Pilot From $299 + Initial (?) Yes No Yes Ebizac $29.95/mth (?) Yes No Yes Digital Access Pass Plugin (DAP) $167 one-time fee for 1 site No Yes No Yes

5 Payment Flow (1) Customer Shopping Cart Software (Accepts credit Card) Merchant Account / Payment gateway (Charges the card) Paypal Your Bank

6 Payment Flow (2): Definitions Shopping Cart: software that runs on your website OR externallyhosted cart (such as 1ShoppingCart, InfusionSoft, E-Junkie) Merchant Account: a commercial bank that allows you to accept credit card payments (either over the internet, or card-in-hand) Payment Gateway: a software service that goes between your shopping cart and merchant account (such as Authorize.net) Affiliate Management System: a system in which resellers sign-up for an affiliate link, and then send you traffic via that link, which allows you to pay commissions on sales through that affiliate links. Affiliate systems must be compatible into your shopping cart (which is where things tend to get complicated) Paypal: a payment service that combines a simple merchant account & shopping cart, and is also the easiest and most affordable way to take recurring payments

7 Merchant Accounts / Payment Gateways Gateway Monthly Cost Discount Rate Virtual Terminal Require SSL Compatible with Carts Comments PayPal Business Free ~ 3% No No Excellent Good for recurring payments. Will take clients off your site for payment PayPal Pro $30 ~ 3% Yes Yes Good Requires shopping cart software (Extra $) Traditional merchant account w/ Authorize.net gateway (Google merchant account review or check Costco) $ % Yes Yes Excellent Requires shopping cart software (Extra $) ClickBank None 15% No No N/A Automatically splits commission with your affiliate and deposits money into your bank, but charges a hefty fee (15%)

8 WordPress Shopping Cart Options For a small number of physical-ship products, or services, just add a Paypal payment button to a site you don t need a shopping cart plugin for that You could also use an external cart linked to a merchant account (ie. E-junkie or 1shoppingcart linked to your Paypal or Authorize.net-compatible merchant account ) For selling memberships, use a membership plugin linked to Paypal or to an external cart (ie. 1shoppingcart, Clickbank). Your membership plugin must be designed to integrate with the external cart / merchant account For stores that need order tracking, shipping calculations, discount coupons, upsells, customer reviews, etc., you need either a specialized ecommerce software (ZenCart, OSCommerce), an ecommerce provider (ie. Yahoo Stores), or a good WordPress shopping cart plugin There are lots of WordPress Shopping Cart plugins. Many are pretty bad, but there are now a few good ones (see below) Membership plugins, on the other hand, are excellent, and can also be used for digital downloads You could say that membership plugins are specialized shopping cart systems that provide both payment and access control for WordPress For Digital downloads you can use either a membership plugin, the s2member digital download feature (that does not require user registration), a shopping cart plugin like WooCommerce, or an external cart that implements digital downloads (e-junkie or 1shoppingcart)

9 Externally-hosted Shopping Carts (not for large shops) Name Cost / mth Affiliate Management Recurring Payments Feature set Comments PayPal Business Free No Yes (basic) Basic Popular system, cheap for recurring subscriptions E-Junkie $5 Yes No Intermediate Good for digital downloads w/ affiliate management 1ShoppingCart $69-$99 Yes Yes Advanced The Cadillac of carts (second only to Infusionsoft) InfusionSoft, Office Auto Pilot ~ $299 and up Yes Yes Super Advanced Integrated CRM Ebizac $29 Yes No (?) Intermediate Cheap alternative to 1SC, works with Authorize.net ClickBank 15% of sales Yes Yes Intermediate Popular for digital downloads, includes Merchant account

10 WordPress Shopping Cart Plugins Name Cost Feature Set Digital Download Requires SSL for non-paypal Comments Simple Paypal Cart Free Simple No (NA) Generates Paypal button, Store product price in WP WooCommerce MarketPress Free for basic functions Free for basic functions Advanced Yes Yes (Unless using Authorize.net DPM) One of the best Shopping Cart Plugin. Advanced Yes Yes Upgrade available with WPMUDev service. Multisite compatible WP-E-Commerce Free Basic Yes Yes Bad reputation? Shopp $55 Basic Yes Yes Solid but simple? Cart66 Free Basic Yes Yes So-so? S2Member digital download feature Free (NA) Yes (NA) Good for digital downloads

11 Top WordPress Membership Plugins Vendor Newsletter Integration Payment Systems Affiliate Systems S2Member (free), Pro version $69 Mailchimp Aweber PayPal ClickBank Authorize.net (Pro version, no recurring) idevaffiliate ($99) ($$$) Wishlist Member ($97) Internal (built-in) Mailchimp Aweber Infusionsoft Many others PayPal Clickbank Infusionsoft Many others idevaffiliate ($99) ($$$) Digital Access Pass ($167) Internal (built-in) Mailchimp Aweber GetResponse PayPal Clickbank Authorize.net (with recurring) Internal (built-in)

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