Yesterday Headway Themes released Storefront which is a free Headway plugin that elegantly brings full WooCommerce support to Headway. In case you don’t know, WooCommerce is the fastest growing shopping cart plugin for WordPress.
Storefront essentially brings together the best of both worlds:
Worlds best WordPress theme framework (Headway) + Worlds best WordPress ecommerce plugin (WooCommerce) = Worlds best WordPress ecommerce solution. Period.
Big words I know… But the integration will at least put Headway among the very best WordPress ecommerce themes!
Why? Because Headway is so flexible and easy to use. Many WordPress theme frameworks are indeed flexible! But few of them are as easy to use as Headway is.
The problem with using common WordPress ecommerce themes, even the “premium” ones, is that they are very difficult to customize, to fit to your needs, taste and overall brand! You get a ready-made, one-size-fits-all kind of solution. It will never quite satisfy you in the long run.
Ecommerce in WordPress
A little history lesson, for some added perspective:
WordPress ecommerce has become more and more viable, since WooCommerce became popular. Before WooCommerce, the most popular WordPress ecommerce plugin was the horrendously buggy WP e-Commerce plugin by Instinct. For years it was the most widespread WordPress ecommerce plugin. But it was oh so buggy that I never felt like using it for a real project. I did once, and can only say it was a big mistake! Never, ever use WP e-Commerce. Seriously. I almost get facial tics thinking about it.
Some alternative WooCommerce themes
Anyway, what if you for some reason don’t wanna use Headway? Well, the most obvious place to go for the best WooCommerce themes is… WooThemes of course:) They are the makers of WooCommerce, and also makers of some fine (though in my opinion kind of bloated) WooCommerce themes.
Some WooCommerce Alternatives
What if, for some reason, you don’t wanna use WooCommerce? Well, there are two good alternatives:
The most obvious WooCommerce alternative is Jigoshop – which is factually the WordPress ecommerce plugin that WooThemes forked to base WooCommerce upon. Jigoshop also has an Extension for Headway.
A third option to easily build an ecommerce website yourself, will be to choose Shopify – the worlds simplest, yet very powerful, hosted ecommerce solution.
I have worked a lot with Shopify for my clients, and I can only recommend Shopify. Their support is team is second to none! Superb: Friendly, helpful and competent.
Just note that Shopify only rocks when you are selling physical, shipped products! Wanna sell downloads? Don’t go with Shopify.
What you should NEVER use – is WP e-Commerce. You deserve much better than that.
WordPress ecommerce made simple:
The Storefront plugin is a free download for all (registered) Headway users. Download it here (or get Headway if you haven’t already – you won’t regret it) for free.
That’s all for now! If you have any comments, feel free to let your voice free in the comment section below =)
Marshall says
Thanks. I have been looking for an e-commerce solution to use in conjunction with Headway to sell my fine art photography prints. Will definitely give WooCommerce a try.
Sharon says
In the above comment I meant “WooCommerce” … but I think I have it figured out. Have to install the wordpress addon *and* the WooCommerce plugin. :]
Sharon says
I am wondering if there are any video tutorials on woothemes. I’m guessing no since I didn’t see any in the list on your resources page and I’m not having any luck searching online. I guess I’ll just wing it, lol …