We have launched a new side project called Seaside and Nautical. It will be selling a range of nautical themed gifts, interiors and selected photographs we have taken. The main objective is to test out an ecommerce site based on WordPress / WooCommerce / Genesis and how easy it is to maintain and work with on an ongoing basis. Since the mid 90’s we have always used Sellerdeck, but unfortunately they have pushed the prices up to be beyond the reach of their original target market of start ups and small businesses.
So far we have managed to launch the site without paying for any extras except the product, but as the site grows, takes orders and needs to be more sophisticated then we will move the hosting to something more powerful than the Fasthosts shared hosting it is on now and a install a number of paid for plug ins.
So far, we have been very impressed with WooCommerce, how simple it was to install on WordPress, load new products (both physical and digital), shipping rates, integration with Paypal and much more. The thing Sellerdeck has struggled with recently is that it has been increasingly difficult to customise with ease, the code has been buried elsewhere and hugely bulky. In addition, we have been developing on WordPress for a number of years now and bolting the two together, which on the whole is fine but integration isn’t as tight as it could be for example the search function.
We have also taken most of our own photographs for Seaside and Nautical using a lightbox and cutting them out.
Another benefit of using WordPress is that it is all based on the server so editing and order processing can take place through any browser or location.
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