I’ve noticed what seems to be a predilection, by those who write reviews of WordPress shopping cart plugins and themes, to stick YAK at the bottom of the list. Probably because the number of downloads is below the others. But the final result is something along the lines of:

WP-Ecommerce: feature, feature, feature, feature…
Shopp: feature, feature, feature, feature…
Eshop: feature, feature, feature, feature…
YAK: [gawd I'm tired of listing features... let's not bother with it any more... what can come up with instead... oh I know] it’s a simple plugin!

It’s getting old. Frankly.

So, this is an attempt to come up with a reasonably objective comparison of the shopping cart plugins for WordPress, without excluding the one at the end because someone-got-bored-before-they-finished-writing. You might be wondering how I can be objective when I develop one of those very plugins — well, we’ll see how I do, I guess.

I’m going to take a look at the major e-commerce plugins (not themes, because this probably should be an apples-to-apples comparison). First up, let’s bundle all those features together into one nice big list and see who does what… this might end up being a work-in-progress, because in some cases, it’s not immediately obvious whether the features are included. If I’ve missed something, let me know.

Hard to draw any real conclusions from this matrix — WP E-commerce probably leads in terms of features, but those features come with a (resource) cost. Shopp looks like it might come second (in terms of featureset), and certainly covers the most payment gateways, but it’s also a reasonable investment (particularly purchase of a developer license). Given it’s commercial-only, it’s impossible to know what performance or memory usage is like.

Given that no single plugin covers all the possible features, I guess it’s very much a case of identifying the things that are important to you, then choose the plugin which best covers that featureset.

…At least, until YAK2 comes out, because that will do everything.

That’s a joke by the way.

More to come later, and do let me know if I’m made some glaringly obvious omissions.

Update #1: Added number of downloads, and project links.

Update #2: Changes to eShop features, kindly provided by Rich.

Update #3: Added info on WP E-commerce product search.

Update #4: Added info on Shopp, provided by Jonathon.

Update #5: Added iDeal to wp-ecommerce, i18n to eshop.

Update #6: Added 2 new YAK features

So, I’ve just finished Batman: Arkham Asylum (almost twice), and currently playing GTA IV. Does anyone else wish that someone would take the Batman gameplay mechanics (and voice acting) and merge with a world the size of GTA?

Gotham City instead of Liberty City.

Imagine glide flight from the top of a skyscraper, rather than just a few storeys up on a gargoyle. Tracking criminals from building to building. Remote driving the Batcar or Batwing for a pickup. Using the “real” Batcave facilities to investigate crimes.

The possibilities are endless…

…and I want that game!

Just a minor bug fix release this time. Sorting the following issues:

• fix an incompatibility problem with Contact Form 7.
• fix a problem with Google Analytics tag ()

YAK 1.7.4 includes a fairly major change, to do with the storage of options. This is significant enough to post a health warning on the box (so to speak): Before upgrading, make sure you backup your database. At the very least, note down any major settings (PayPal, Authorize.net config, etc), just in case.

This release fixes a major problem in WordPress MU, and also a minor issue with the sidebar widget. Which reminds me, I really must update the Handbook to include details on using the Widget. If you’ve purchased the handbook in the past, expect a copy in the (e)mail in the next day or 3…

…try, try again.

Release 1.7.1 managed to introduce a couple of bugs — my automated tests didn’t quite provide the safety net I was hoping for, in this case. Hence, versions 1.7.2 and 1.7.3 include the following fixes:

* fix a problem with PayPal IPN
* fix a problem with Accounts Receivable payment
* fix a problem with (manual) Credit Card payment
* reduce memory usage
* add instant update of pricing promotions in the first page of the cart (after hitting update)

Note: I’ve had one report of weird issues when upgrading. It doesn’t seem to break anything, but please let me know if you do have problems, because I’m yet to identify exactly what the cause might be.

YAK version 1.7.1 has just been released. This release (and the previous 1.7.0) includes the following changes:

• Fixing a problem with Authorize.net url
• Add checkbox for Authorize.net test mode
• Separate PayPal Pro return url (from Standard)
• Refactor payment types into separate classes to allow for easier extensibility
• Minor change to ipaddress sent to PayPal (only affects internal testing)
• Add ‘demo’ payment gateway
• Fix promo date saving problem
• Fix promo price calculation (causing problems in PayPal)
• Automatically create the Checkout page on activation
• Automatically create the “products” and “default” categories on activation
• Fix (hopefully) an odd error_log problem in certain environments

Enjoy!

…or “Snake Wrangling for Kids in Spanish”, has just been released. Well done to José for getting it finished.

Download from the Google project page: http://code.google.com/p/swfk-es

Muy bueno! (I hope that’s right… )

That’s Snake Wrangling for Kids, in French for the linguistically challenged.

Congratulations to Michel for releasing the first non-English edition of SWFK. Awesome effort!
See the project downloads for version 0.0.1.

Spanish edition soon to follow (at least judging from the commits)…

YAK version 1.6 has just been released. There are mainly minor changes (a custom out-of-stock message, removing the link back to the project page, and minor restructure), apart from one fairly major enhancement — to support WordPress MU.

At the moment, I’d say this feature is “beta” quality. The full YAK test suite runs without problem, but I haven’t really spent a huge amount of time checking that there are no issues between multiple blogs. More testing is definitely recommended for anyone who decides to enable this on an MU install…

Is there a market for a hosted version of YAK? Configured for you, with PayPal standard as a base, products loaded (perhaps from Excel or something else) out of the box?

A few years ago, back when the project was a lot less mature, I had one tentative query along those lines. But I wasn’t in a position back then to do anything about it. I am now, but I wonder is there a market for it? After all, every “man-and-his-dog” has a hosted shopping cart solution — and some are a lot more comprehensive than YAK is, even now.

Gut feeling says, probably no, but perhaps worth asking the question…?