Does Barely what a E-Commerce solution should do

  • This Plugins calls itself “eCommerce solution”, which is half true. At start it seems simple and like a “solution”, but over time you notice a lot features lacking, which should be there in the first place. We are talking about the standalone Plugin and not “extensions”, which of some should be shipped with it in the first place.

    Examples:
    – Some of the most common Payment-Gateways (They even removed “default” Paypal for new installs)
    – An Invoice System
    – Easy Data Import/Export (Products/Orders & Users)
    – Separate Database-Tables for all Orders and not using the messy wp_posts & wp_postmeta Tables (They slows down over time, due to the size, since everything goes in there sadly)
    – A default theme which is also responsible and not barely working with a lot of tweaks

    I was once hired for a shop, which should be build with WooCommerce. I didn’t knew it would turn out that bad over time else I had given the client the hint, they should use something else.
    Problem of the lacking features is, that you have to either program your own plugins which do that kind of stuff or rely on 3rd Party plugins. The more features are missing, the more Plugins you need… All that makes your site more likely to break on updating or plugins are abandoned/bought by other companies which try to sell you stuff then. Not talking about the overall speed they may eat.
    At some Point you’re forced to hire someone to keep that site updated and look which plugins breaks/revert or fix stuff (or disable unwanted new features).

    The other thing is that WooCommerce think its cool to squish all its orders into the wp_posts & wp_postmeta tables. This sucks, because its mixed with all other content, like sites, blog entries etc. Over time these tables grew and become slow. Its also fun to exporting the data from them, thanks to the nature of the structure of these tables. You can make it work, but why is there no export and import feature? Isn’t that the most basic feature a eCommerce “Solution” should have?
    Yes you can use WordPress own import/export feature, but it sucks, it changes IDs of the Orders and doesn’t even exports everything you need, its a mess to do it.
    So even for export and import you have to rely on 3rd party plugins or do it yourself with SQL.

    So overall: Yes this Plugin does what it says, but you probably end up with a lot of tinkering to give it basic functionality, which other eCommerce solutions already have. Plus you get all the “benefits” of the WordPress system (the technical debt and vulnerability)

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Support Sandip Mondal – a11n

    (@sandipmondal)

    Hi there,

    Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback on WooCommerce.

    WooCommerce core is designed to provide a solid foundation for an e-commerce solution, allowing merchants to expand its functionality according to their specific needs and use cases.

    We appreciate your insights and understand your concerns. I’d like to clarify and expand on the points you shared:

    Some of the most common Payment-Gateways (They even removed “default” Paypal for new installs)

    This was done to give users the benefit of using the payment gateway of their choice. If a user does not want to use PayPal or if it is not supported in their country then it becomes extra steps for them. Giving them this flexibility helps them with choosing the payment gateway of their choice.

    An Invoice System

    While certain features like an invoice system are not included out of the box, WooCommerce offers a wide range of extensions and integrations that can address these requirements. You can use plugins that are available out there to integrate this solution into your site.

    Easy Data Import/Export (Products/Orders & Users)

    Products, Orders, and Users can be exported by default from Products > Export and Tools > Export respectively. If you want to export extra metadata of orders that might have been added by other plugins then you will need to use a dedicated plugin for that since the core system does not support exporting of metadata added by other plugins.

    Separate Database-Tables for all Orders and not using the messy?wp_posts?&?wp_postmeta?Tables

    We continuously strive to improve our e-commerce solution and meet the diverse needs of our users. This is already under development and we have introduced High-Performance Order Storage – a solution that provides an easy-to-understand and solid database structure – specifically designed for eCommerce needs – optimized for WooCommerce queries with minimal impact on the store’s performance. You can read more about it here and the stable release will be out by August 2023.

    ?A default theme which is also responsible and not barely working with a lot of tweaks

    We have the default Storefront Theme that you can use on your stores. We understand every store might have its own design, for this, you can explore the Storefront child themes.

    Our aim is to provide a flexible and customizable platform that allows merchants to tailor their online stores to their unique business needs. We encourage you to explore the available extensions and themes in the WooCommerce marketplace and www.ads-software.com, as they can greatly enhance and extend the functionality of your WooCommerce store.

    We appreciate your feedback and take it into consideration as we continue to improve and evolve our platform. If you have any further questions or need assistance in finding specific solutions for your requirements, please feel free to reach out to our support team. We are here to help!

    Thread Starter petschko

    (@petschko)

    This was done to give users the benefit of using the payment gateway of their choice. If a user does not want to use PayPal or if it is not supported in their country then it becomes extra steps for them. Giving them this flexibility helps them with choosing the payment gateway of their choice.

    I’m sorry I don’t believe that this is why you removed it. You could simply “disable” that old Paypal-Payment Gateway, when you didn’t want to use it.

    Now you need to go through your Woo-Market Account creation to download and install the Gateway. Its annoying and if you change stuff in the database, you can still use the old Gateway. Which means its not removed, just hidden for new installs, so you get more people on your market.

    While certain features like an invoice system are not included out of the box, WooCommerce offers a wide range of extensions and integrations that can address these requirements. You can use plugins that are available out there to integrate this solution into your site.

    Understandable, but isn’t it default to need to get invoices? That’s a core feature, which should be included in the first place.

    That’s a part of the problem why I wrote this review, the more 3rd party plugins you need, the more annoying and breakable your system will become.

    Products, Orders, and Users can be exported by default from Products > Export and Tools > Export respectively. (…)

    Yes, the fun part of this is, that it does really not work, you get some data of your orders, while a lot things like products, IDs of orders etc are just changed not showing up/correctly up in the orders when you do that.

    I know I have to do SQL-Magic but some kind of Import/Export (which actually works) should be a core feature, EVERY other Shop-System has these.

    And yet here you see whats the problem again with a lot of 3rd party additions (even for core features)

    (…) optimized for WooCommerce queries with minimal impact on the store’s performance. You can read more about it here and the stable release will be out by August 2023.

    Thats some good news, thank you! Good to hear you move away from the default WordPress tables, as it was a mess (also for exporting, since the default export feature does not really work)

    We have the default Storefront Theme that you can use on your stores. (…)

    I was actually talking about this theme.

    Plugin Support Sven L. a11n

    (@sverleis)

    Hi there @petschko,

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts with the follow-up questions.

    Regarding payment gateways.

    I’m sorry I don’t believe that this is why you removed it. You could simply “disable” that old Paypal-Payment Gateway, when you didn’t want to use it.

    We highly recommend completely removing extensions that you don’t use. Various other sources state this as well:
    GoDaddy: https://www.godaddy.com/resources/skills/remove-wordpress-themes-plugins
    WPBeginner: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/will-inactive-plugins-slow-down-wordpress-should-you-delete-inactive-plugins/

    Having extensions that are unused may still slow down your site, and if not updated continually, may become security risks on your store.

    Now you need to go through your Woo-Market Account creation to download and install the Gateway. Its annoying and if you change stuff in the database, you can still use the old Gateway. Which means its not removed, just hidden for new installs, so you get more people on your market.

    PayPal Standard is specifically being sunset, and no development work is being made on it. For the PayPal extension that is supported by Woo.com, you can get it directly from the www.ads-software.com repository: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/woocommerce-paypal-payments/

    —

    Regarding Invoices

    Understandable, but isn’t it default to need to get invoices? That’s a core feature, which should be included in the first place

    Many sites do not need an invoice apart from what WooCommerce sends by default as an email.

    You can resend an invoice to a customer on an order via the Order actions → Email invoice / order details to customer setting.

    —

    Regarding Order Exporting

    Yes, the fun part of this is, that it does really not work, you get some data of your orders, while a lot things like products, IDs of orders etc are just changed not showing up/correctly up in the orders when you do that.

    Is there a specific reason for exporting orders?

    —

    Regarding themes and Storefront

    Just about all developers who offer quality extensions will test their extensions against Storefront, and other default themes, such as Twenty Twenty-Three. Can you share any examples of when the core themes don’t work with general functionality that you are looking to add to your sites?

    Once again, we value your thoughts, and please do reach out for any other questions or queries that you may have.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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