I created an Online Store with eStore from ElegantThemes and wanted to share with you the installation process.  It was a little bit of a learning curve for me too as I didn’t realize, in addition to downloading the eCommerce Wordpress Theme, I would also need to download 2 Wordpress Plugins.  You need to download the eCommerce and eShop WordPress plugins because eStore is only a Wordpress Theme and has NO ecommerce functionality.  You need to download the 2 WordPress plugins to have all eCommerce – shipping management, product management, payment management features.

The only reason I downloaded the WordPress plugins is that they were free and from the WordPress plugin Directory.  So they looked pretty reliable.  One of the WordPress plugins you need to install is called eShop.  I got confused with the eShop and eStore installation packages.  So just keep in mind that the eShop is the WordPress plugin when you get to that stage.

eStore Wordpress Theme

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Below is high level overview of steps to get your eStore up and running.  All these steps should take you about 30 minutes.

1. Download eStore WordPress Theme
2. Install eStore WordPress Theme
3. Activate eStore WordPress Theme
4. Customize eStore WordPress Theme
5. Change the WordPress Permalinks
6. Create a New Post (Product) – See NO Ecommerce stuff
7. Download Simple WordPress Paypal Shopping Cart WordPress plugin
8. Install & Activate Simple WordPress Paypal Shopping Cart Wordpress Plugin
9. In the Navigation, you should see the WP Shopping Cart
10. Download eShop WordPress Plugin from WordPress Plugins Directory
11. Install & Activate eShop WordPress Plugin
12. See all eShop functionality – in navigation etc

1.   Download eStore WordPress Theme

Download the WordPress Theme from ElegantThemes.  After you join their membership – which is only $39, you have access to download as many themes as you want.

2.  Install eStore WordPress Theme

Now you can go into your WordPress control panel and install the WordPress Theme.  Do NOT unzip the eStore file.  You can upload the whole zip file to your WordPress control panel.

• Login to your WordPress admin control panel
• On the left navigation, click on ‘Appearance’, ‘Themes’
• Click on ‘Install Themes’ tab
• Click on ‘Choose File’, select the eStore.zip file
• Click on ‘Install Now’

3.  Activate eStore WordPress Theme

After install is complete, you will see this ‘Installing Theme from uploaded file: eStore.zip’ window.  You can activate, take a live preview of the WordPress Theme on your website.  If you do not want to activate the theme, you can simply click on ‘Return to Themes page’.

• Click on ‘Activate’

4.  Customize eStore WordPress Theme

You can change the Site title, tagline, colours, background image from the eStore customize feature.

• In Manage Themes, Click on ‘Customize’
• Enter in the Site Title, Tagline
• Change colours and background image
• Click on ‘Save & Publish’

 

 5.  Change the WordPress Permalinks

By default, WordPress uses web URLS which have question marks and lots of numbers which is not SEO friendly.   I would recommend to change your links to be the post link name.

• On the left navigation, under Settings.
• Click on ‘Permalinks’
• In the ‘Permalink Settings’
• Select ‘Post name‘ – http://www.dopies.ca/simple-post
• Click on ‘Save Changes’

 

 6.  Create a New Post (Product) – See NO Ecommerce stuff

So now I am finished installing the eStore WordPress Theme.  I searched through the theme and saw no ecommerce functionality.  I went to create a post to add a new product and almost quit using this theme.  Creating a new product only allowed me to add thumbnails etc.    Had no functionality about shipping, coupons, payments.  It only had:

• Price
• Product Description
• Thumbnails

7.  Download Simple WordPress Paypal Shopping Cart WordPress Plugin

Easily add a shopping cart with paypal checkout by downloading the Simple WordPress Paypal Shopping Cart WordPress plugin from the WordPress Plugin directory.

• Go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-simple-paypal-shopping-cart/
• Click on ‘Download Version”
• Do NOT unzip the file

8.  Install & Activate Simple WordPress Paypal Shopping Cart Wordpress Plugin

Activate the Paypal WordPress plugin shopping cart.

• Click on ‘Plugins’, ‘Add New’
• Click on ‘Choose File’, Select the ZIP file from step 7
• Click on ‘Install Now’
• In the Window ‘Installing Plugin from uploaded file’
• Click on ‘Activate Plugin’

 

 

9.  In the Navigation, you should see the WP Shopping Cart

Now you have a WP Shopping cart where you can configure your payment, currency and shipping cost.

10.  Download eShop WordPress Plugin from WordPress Plugins Directory

With eShop you can manage your orders, shipping, products, downloads, discount codes and more.  Download eShop WordPress plugin from the WordPress plugin directory.

• Go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/eshop/
• Click on ‘Download Version’
• Do NOT unzip the downloaded eShop file

11.  Install & Activate eShop WordPress Plugin

Install and activate eShop WordPress plugin from the WordPress plugin directory.

• Click on ‘Plugins’, ‘Add New’
• Click on ‘Choose File’, Select the ZIP file from step 10
• Click on ‘Install Now‘
• In the Window ‘Installing Plugin from uploaded file’
• Click on ‘Activate Plugin’

 

12.  See all eShop functionality – in navigation etc

Now you will have eShop store management functionalities in your WordPress theme.  You will see a new ‘eShop’ link on the left navigation.

• In the left navigation, click on ‘eShop’

Now you can enter in all your shipping, product and paypal information.  Visitors can use your eStore WordPress theme to purchase products.  This is a really cool them and now I will take the time to create my store to sell products.

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Thanks,

Elaine