The WP e-Commerce Plugin has had its fair share of constructive criticism, some of the above points are true… some aren’t.

Whatever the case may be I want you to know that when I’m concerned, honest constructive criticism never falls on deaf ears and that it is the putting right that counts.

The latest version of WP e-Commerce is really coming along. I’m quite happy with the progress the developers have been making.

The latest WP e-Commerce 3.7.5 RC3 is available and ready for testing – I really hope you like it. This version of Plugin is generally a whole lot more industrial strength and easy to use then ever before.

A book is being written about the WP e-Commerce Plugin and WP e-Commerce was chosen to power the ticketing behind the wordcamp.org website – so it can’t be that bad right?

All in all his thread hasn’t been all bad for me. Sure the personal attacks have taken their toll but at the same time I’ve met Lori. And I’ve also met a number of other people here who although were once negative towards us are now supportive and some are even using WP e-Commerce again.

Sadly though I’m leaving this town – I can’t keep coming back to this thread. It is important for me to focus on the things that are important in my life. Like our own Blog, the ongoing work on the WP e-Commerce Project and maybe even my family

Hopefully at some point I’ll see you here again when (and if) Lori decides to post another new comparison based on the latest versions of both pieces of software.

I wish you all the best of luck with your respective businesses and thanks ultimately to Lori for helping us make WP e-Commerce a better Plugin.

Best Regards,
Dan Milward

1) There are a lot of WPeCommerce users that have had a lot of trouble using that plugin.
2) Dan has validated #1 in his post talking about all the people he had to help in just one day!
3) Dan appears to be a pretty thin-skinned guy.
4) Dan can’t be bothered to answer his Tweets even though he invites us all to follow him on Twitter (personal experience). I guess finding a dance party or Jazz club is more important than answering inquiries from potential clients.

So my conclusion – I have liked what I have seen of Shopp, I have NOT liked what I have read about WPeC, nor does it seem to handle what I need, at least I can’t get the answer as to whether it CAN do what I need (nevermind whether it will actually work).

THANK YOU LORI for starting this discussion. I don’t think we’ll ever know how many people will save themselves countless hours of frustration by reading your review and the comments posted since.

What I totally dislike, however, is the support/documentation of this plugin. As we can all see from the comment thread, Dan from Instinct certainly has a reputation for being a zealous promoter of his own product. I reckon that he’ll be better of doing marketing full time, and leave the Public Relations and Customer Service to someone else.

I must admit, seeing the “flame war” in the comment thread was really interesting! First of geek gal, and then came Dan. And oh boy, did things get interesting from that point or what?

Here’s my own rants about the plugin: http://pinobolino.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/wp-ecommerce-vs-magento/

Oh, and there’s no point asking me to post links of my own store for credibility sake. The plugin did not make it past the testing stage, so it doesn’t meet the requirements and qualifications of a “live” plugin.

Allow me to just say this, I have read the readme.txt that came along with the plugin. I’ve been to the documentation wiki of the plugin (http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/docs/), and I’ve visited the forums (http://www.instinct.co.nz/forums). So on my part, I’ve done my homework.

I’ll keep this short: There won’t be a need for users to “buy” documentation (http://www.wpecommercebible.com/) if the support / forum / email / FAQ is already doing a good job.
To make matters worse, the ebook is sold by a third party. My gosh, that says ALOT.

P.S. @Dan Instead of declaring war on me, win me back as a customer. Due to the nature of the plugin, some users of your plugin run businesses and commercial sites. We have specific requirements and expectations. We know what we want, and we know how to source for alternatives.

Dan must be hard accepting criticism but please be more polite. it will go both ways and a long way indeed.

Again I’m here to debate the big issue. I was here on may 19th on the verge of buying shopp dev version.

Verdict: I love it. Compared to old versions of wp-ecommerce. ( i have to admit I haven’t played with wp-e since they have templating)

I am even implicated on the shopp forum to help other peers with css and templating. (which I was doing with wp-ecommerce as well)

Good support for a new product.
Now for easeof pain they have paypal standard.
Shopp is a 5 minute process as well like anything else out there for wordpress.
Upgrade is smooth.
I can get a new design up in a couple of hours.
Sure shopp probably lack all the extra features wp-e does. But what it does it doing it well.

Shipping options, variations are good as well.
Order history, client list are all exportable with csv, excel, txt format.

Anyhow One thing to spark another debate. Does wp-e comm works in tandem with Qtranslate?

This is the only thing thats getting to me from shopp, otherwise I am an happy wp dev/des for now with Shopp.

Cheers all

5 Minutes or Less….
Any WordPress plugin installs in 5 minutes or less – so what’s the point? I could install 10 plugins in 5 minutes or less, and I usually do when I create a new site. For anyone who is investing hours or even days troubleshooting all of the shortcomings in your software, this tells them absolutely nothing except that you like to promote yourself.

Anyway, keep up the good work – one annoyed customer in your forum resolved, about 1,000 to go, unless selectively ignoring customer’s questions is still part of your business strategy. You should definitely hire someone for this.

Tripple shame on you

***** news flash ****

1) WP e-Commerce does work out of the box!!

http://wordpress.tv/2009/06/08/create-an-ecommerce-website-with-wordpress-in-under-5-minutes/

Enjoy the 4th most viewed video on wordpress.tv

2) We honestly try to cater to everybody who needs support. And woot we actually are employing a community manager (so anybody looking for 1 – 2 hours of php work per day let me know).

Done today: http://www.instinct.co.nz/forums/topic.php?id=5964

Done today: dev@instinct.co.nz personally responded to 7 emails and logged into 5 servers and fixed 5 user errors (sigh…)

Done today: I have responed to about 15 emails

Done today about 15 man hours of work on WP e-Commerce Plugin

Done!

When it comes to anything you pay for, there are two expectations: 1) It works out of the box. 2) It’s possible to get real support.

I haven’t seen evidence that WP-Ecommerce does either of these things well. There are some handy features in WP-Ecommerce that Shopp is missing, but it’s far too buggy.

Dan,

Spend time in your own forums answering customer’s questions.

I’d definitely not be annoyed if I saw more Forum engagement instead of discovering multiple posts on here promoting a book, promoting yourself, pitching your links, defending your software, and suggesting a lack of credibility to the intelligent folks who share the same annoyances and have taken the time to post here.

You even stated above you IGNORE emails and posts from paying customers when you know an answer lies somewhere deep in your forum or docs?

Nothing shows indifference like ignoring someone whose PAID you for your product – at least point them to a link or a Chapter for crying out loud. Heck, pay someone $10 an hour to do this for you a few hours a day and you will never worry about missing Easter again.

A little attention goes a long way in business – people will feel satisfied instead of hoodwinked – isn’t that worth the minimal expense so people will want to spend more money with you???

You’ve got competition now – and I’m definitely going with Shopp. I’m more than convinced after reading this forum post.

Double shame if you respond to this before helping your paid customers.

Lori, thanks for the great post. This is exactly the info I was looking for tonight.

Oh, thanks Dan! You were faster than me

Interestingly enough with the launch of WP e-Commerce 3.7.1 a lot of Shopp users are emailing us to let us know that they going to be using WP e-Commerce Plugin instead. Woot!!!