eCommerce Worthy Features

As we’ve explored building an ecommerce site with WordPress we’ve covered taxes, shipping, discounts and payment options. Those are some big-ticket items, but there are other cool features you’re going to want in your ecommerce site. Here’s a sampling of must-have features:

• Inventory Tracking: One must-have feature for ecommerce sites that want to run with the big boys is inventory tracking. We’re talking SKUs, bulk product updating and even sending notifications when you’re running low on a popular item.

• Variants & Add-Ons: Sometimes your products can get complicated with different options and extras. Variants might include size or color options—something that doesn’t require an entirely separate product listing. Add-ons are extras that might go nicely with whatever the customer is buying. It’s basically an up-sell option, but one that’s tied closely to a specific product. For example if you sell yo-yo’s, an obvious add-on is extra yo-yo string.

• Related Products: Another popular cross-selling feature is to show related products.

• Customer Accounts: One standard ecommerce feature is to allow customers to create their own login. This can speed up repeat purchases, but you have to be careful about requiring customers to log in—forcing customers to create an account can kill their purchase.

Product Types: What kind of products are you selling? Physical, virtual, services, downloads, donations, subscriptions, membership? Not every store is simply shipping goods. If you’re selling something different—or one day might—you’ll need to make sure your plugin can handle it. Some are better suited and offer special features for different types of products (like managing download links).

• WordPress Integration: How easily can you integrate with WordPress? You should be able to seamlessly plug your products across your site. Use simple short codes on pages or posts, or use widgets across your site to highlight products, show off bestsellers, related products and more. Any respectable plugin should make this easy.

• International: Will you be selling worldwide? Better make sure your plugin can handle translation and localized numbers, dates and currency formats.