What’s New?

In short, more functionality.

In detail…

1. Option to disable the image "slide" effect on the Front Page, Category Pages that display
   categories and Category Pages that display products
2. Option to use different Image effects on the Product’s Single Page. Now supporting jQzoom
   and FancyBox as alternative options to Magic Zoom. As well as no effect at all!
3. Option to display an image thumbnail instead of the default numbered tab
4. Option to embed a video with simple custom shortcodes. Supported sites include:
   • Vimeo,
   • YouTube,
   • Google Video,
   • Blip TV,
   • Veoh,
   • Viddler,
   • Revver
5. Option to have Images (or just one image) alongside an embedded video (they appear in
   their own tab!)
6. More “Shop by” widgets
   • Style
   • Brand / Labels / Producer / Manufacturer
   • Price
   • and a "Shop by" – All Purpose one to cover what I did not think about!
7. Display "Shop By" widgets also as select drop down (not only as rows of images)
8. Option to disable related products when viewing the Shopping Bag
9. Fixed appearance when uploading only one product image
10. Added the option to maintain a regular Blog Section along with your Shop
11. Adjusted the help files to include instructions on the new features.

The Anouncement

You will notice that on the Dashboard there’s a banner advertising a Desktop Application called
bbShopManager.
This programm is by no means required to run our eCommerce Themes however you may like to look into it
because it enables you to check your orders without going into your Admin backend everytime.

Benjamin Bunse is the talented man behind the creation of bbShopManager.
He has created a very comfortable shop management solution with some nice features such as:

• Be notified almost instantly when new orders come in
• No more need to browse to your shop administration
• Communicating with secure 128 bit AES encryption

Do check his website. He has prepared an easy to follow video so you can get a better idea of the programm. For support or questions or customization requests please refer to bb[at]bbshopmanager.net

The Coupon Offer:

Exclusively for our client base: 25% DISCOUNT on bbShopManager – Use this voucher code on the checkout page: 14283R6Z

(voucher code only valid till 8th November)

That’s it everyone. As always we welcome your suggestions and feedback so please feel free to leave a comment below!
Thanks for reading and have a nice weekend.

So we have finally completed the ecommerce series of updates with the wpShop. folioShop, ArtShop and wpShop; all have the same shopping cart functionality now.

As some of you may have noticed, there’s a new theme around: wpShop reloaded. This has been added in as many of you have asked for the ability to have a regular blog alongside the shop section of the original wpShop theme. Again this one has all the shopping cart features that the other 3 themes have.

Finally, if you are updating from a previous version of any of the themes and have made changes to the parent theme’s template files please update carefully. Make a backup of what you have or better yet test the new version using a subdomain and import all your current content into the test installation. When things are running as they should then you may update your “live” site. Shoot me an email if you need help.

Well, that’s really it for now. I’m working on a new theme and after that I’ll be coding The Clothes Shop into a WordPress ecommerce theme with some added functionality that I will reveal at a later stage.

Enjoy the new themes!

The other anouncement has to do with the folioShop. Some bugs with the inventory system have been found and corrected so if you have purchased version 2.1 already please redownload it and update the following folders and files:

• the entire lib folder,
• the entire email folder,
• functions.php and
• dl.php

This is all. Enjoy everyone!

There’s an installation wizard now included to make the whole installation process a breeze. Please read the help file again even though you may have purschased and installed the theme already once and if you are upgrading and have made changes in the folioShop parent template files please contact me.

Hope you like the new look of the theme options page. Looking forward to reading your feedback either here or on TF.

Thank you for all your support ( in suggestions and encouragement) and above all your patience!

Enjoy!!

just wanted to give you the latest on the folioShop update. Many of you have already been asking when it will be ready. I’m sorry it’s been taking so long but the good news is that we are putting the finishing touches on it as I’m writting this so it won’t be too long now.

There is one thing that I need from you. I need some feedback on some of the features. Well, on one of them for now.

The theme options admin area will feature a mini-dashboard were you can have a quick overview on how many new (if any) orders you have. My question to you is: what else would you like to see on this mini-dashboard?

Please leave your comments below so that others can see and add to them.

Thanks in advance for your responses!

Hi I have a few questions about the “folioShop – folioBlog” theme. Is the theme built on your own shopping cart code or is it based other plugins? How does it compare to something like the WP e-Commerce plugin http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/ ? Do you provide updates for your themes when new versions of wordpress come out? Thanks Tom

I’ve started writting a reply but then I thought: "Wouldn’t this be a good opportunity to write something on my new blog and at the same time benefit others that may be having the same thoughts/questions running through their heads?"

So here I am, writting this post instead.
Tom, hope you don’t mind your answer arriving this way.

Lets take a question at a time.

Is the theme built on your own shopping cart code or is it based on other plugins?

All our ecommerce themes are based on our own code. We wanted to develop our own solution so no, we do not use any plugins.

How does it compare to something like the WP e-Commerce plugin http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/ ?

This is not an easy question to answer as we are too close to this project to give an unbiased yet objective opinion. I’m not going to say which solution is better than the other simply because it really depends on what you are looking for and which solution better fits your needs.

Although I cannot speak for either the wp e-Commerce plugin nor for any other e-commerce plugin out there what I can talk about is our code.

We started in December 2008 and I must say, considering there’s only 2 people working on it, we’ve covered quite some ground since the first theme’s (wpShop) initial release.

Our solution is simply a different approach.
Note: The "issues" bellow are not necessary problems or disadvantages of any WordPress e-commerce solution that may be using or be based on what we considered as "issues"

The issues?

1. Too many plugins slow down our websites. A slow loading website makes end users wait longer. If potential customers must wait too long for a page to load they won’t stay, they leave. Less visitors = less sales = less profit = not the reason why you decided to open up an eShop.
2. E-commerce solutions not taking advantage of WordPress’ post and pages
3. Not always having a theme to go with the plugin.

Solution?

1. Move the shopping cart code away from a plugin driven solution and inside the theme. Well, in a folder within the theme, but still part of the theme.
2. Use Wordpress’ excellent core abilities and functions from creating and categorizing content to archiving and searching existing content. In other words treat shop products as posts.
3. Develop a theme around it

The advantage?

1. One less plugin to install = more room for other essential plugins.
2. Products can be created, categorized, archived, searched for, etc.. basically do with them what you can do with normal posts.
3. E-commerce solution that comes with a theme taylored to fit.

Is our e-commerce solution perfect? No, and we do not claim it is.
We have big improvements planned and many are on the way. We respect and value our customers and we are seriously commited in always working and improving our code. We use it ourselves (this website for example is based on the folioShop theme) – what better way to find out how things can be done better!

…and finally,

Do you provide updates for your themes when new versions of wordpress come out?

This is another advantage, I believe, of not depending on a plugin for your shop’s functionality. The danger of the code not working as it should when a new version of WordPress is out is greatly minimized.
Why?
Our shopping cart code uses a minimum of WordPress native functions and the ones we do use have a backward compatibility policy.
According to what I read about 2.8 so far, all of our themes should still work just fine.
That said however, we will anyway make sure that our themes use the latest WordPress version so when 2.8 is out we will go through the themes one at a time and upgrade them all if necessary.

I hope this post has provided some satisfying answers to your concerns Tom and to anyone else that may have had similar questions.
Over to you. Tell us what you think.

What will you find here?

• Premium Wordpress Themes, XHTML Templates and PSD files
• Tips on how to customize the themes you purchased
• Friendly and fast free support on all Wordpress Themes

So what are you waiting for? Browse the themes here, find out what’s planned for the upcoming versions and vote for features you’d like to see.

Enjoy!