Turning your wordpress install into an e-commerce site

A recent article How to Turn a Normal WordPress Installation into a Working Online-Shop discusses how to turn a normal WordPress installation into a working online shop. Although the article is very thorough and well written, it is not the easiest method to turn your WordPress installation into a working online shop. The easiest way to achieve this is by downloading and installing the WP e-Commerce plugin.

e-Commerce Install

Assuming you have a working version of WordPress installed you must do the following:

1. Download the e-Commerce plugin
2. Copy the folder to your local plugins directory
3. Activate the plugin and configure it to your liking

e-Commerce setup

Once the plugin is installed the most important things to do are:

1. Set your default shipping country and associated shipping settings
2. Setup and configure the presentation settings
3. Setup your receipt notification email address
4. Setup your payment gateway
5. Add products
6. Upgrade to gold if you want to add multiple images to products

PayPal Setup

These are the instructions for setting up PayPal for your WP e-Commerce store.

1. Browse to PayPal and sign up using your email address
2. Under Profile > Shipping Settings check the allow transaction-based shipping values to override the profile shipping settings listed above

Google Checkout Setup

These are the instructions for setting up Google Checkout for your WP e-Commerce store

1. Browse to Google Checkout and click sign up now
2. Select whether or not your business has a Google Account for services like AdWords or Gmail?
3. Create your account using your Gmail email address

At your WP e-Commerce store’s Admin

Now that you have a Google Checkout account setup enter your Google Checkout Merchant ID and Key into the payment gateway settings page in the WP e-commerce admin panel

1. Under e-Commerce > Gateway Options choose Google Checkout as your payment gateway.
2. In “Google Checkout Merchant ID” enter your Merchant ID.
3. In “Google Checkout Merchant Key” enter your Merchant Key.
4. Choose your Server Type (Sandbox vs Production), currency, and button style
5. Click the button that says “Submit”

Conclusion

Now that you have setup your shop and have a working PayPal account you are ready to start selling! Upload your products and have fun.

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