Category: Blog

WooCommerce vs Cart66

WooCommerce and Cart66 are both e-commerce solutions for WordPress. In this article we’ll talk about the similarities and differences between WooCommerce and its marketplace of WordPress plugins versus the suite of services and e-commerce features you get with Cart66.

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Shopify vs WordPress For E-commerce

Historically there has been a big difference between Shopify and other hosted solutions and WordPress when it comes to e-commerce. With WordPress it was up to you to install your own SSL certificates and worry about PCI compliance. Then you try to find and assemble a bunch of different WordPress plugins to get all the features you need for your store while hoping that all the plugins work properly together and all the different plugin authors keep their plugins up to date. Cart66 Cloud solves these problems letting you harness all the power of WordPress to design your store while giving you a rock solid, secure, e-commerce platform that includes everything you need in one easy to use package.

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Reasons Why Behind Cart66 Ecommerce

When it comes to e-commerce you need a lot more than just “know how” – you need to “know why” you make your decisions. My friend, popular blogger, and WordCamp presenter Chris Lema gave an excellent talk at WordCamp Los Angeles where he said, “Know Why eats Know How’s lunch every day of the week.” In these notes from my presentation at WordCamp Raleigh we’ll go deeper than just how to install a plugin and uncover the reasons why you choose one payment gateway over another, why you want to store digital files somewhere other than your WordPress file system, why you should use a transactional email service with your e-commerce site, and more. So let’s get started.

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Upgrading To Cart66 Cloud

Upgrade In 3 Easy Steps

Cart66 Cloud is rebuilt from the ground up to take advantage of our secure, PCI Compliant cloud.

You can upgrade from Cart66 Pro to Cart66 Cloud in 3 easy steps.

  1. Set up your products in your Cart66 Cloud account
  2. Update the shortcodes on your product pages in WordPress
  3. Skin your secure checkout page with your WordPress theme in one-click using PageSlurp

You do not need to change your theme or rebuild your site.

Here is a quick tutorial on getting started with Cart66 Cloud.

Once Cart66 Cloud is setup and you have updated your shortcodes, you can disable Cart66 Pro. Or, if you’d like to keep Cart66 Pro active so you can see your past orders that’s fine too. If you need any help getting setup, just let us know.

Can I Auto Upgrade To Cart66 Cloud?

We do not have an auto-upgrade system for migrating to Cart66 Cloud. Some of the differences between Cart66 Pro and Cart66 Cloud include:

  • Products are stored securely in the cloud
  • Gravity Forms is not needed because Cart66 Cloud has built-in support for products with unlimited variations
  • Some of the shortcodes are different in Cart66 Cloud
  • All the customer data and orders are stored securely in the cloud, not in your WordPress database

For these reasons, we do not have an auto-upgrade system for upgrading to Cart66 Cloud. We do, however, have a team of WordPress experts available to help you.

When you are ready to upgrade to Cart66 Cloud, if you need help getting set up just let us know and one of our WordPress developers will be in touch.

Watch out for gateway costs

If you are accepting credit card payments online, you are probably paying more fees than you think you are. When you signed up for your payment gateway and merchant account you probably saw compelling transaction rates and maybe even some “free” features like a free payment seal (that is just a picture). Beware, unless you know what to look for, you are virtually guaranteed to pay more than you are expecting. Here is a guide that will save you from getting hammered by unexpected expenses. Read more

Sell Your Benefits, Teach Your Features

If you have ever baked anything you know that you wouldn’t want to eat the raw ingredients by themselves. I absolutely love cinnamon buns, cinnamon sticks, cinnamon pies… In fact, I can be coerced into doing almost anything if I’m promised something made with cinnamon. But you can’t eat cinnamon by itself. You have to bake it into something before it is appealing. In the same way, you can’t sell a product based on the features. You have to bake your features into benefits.
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