Subscription Ecom...

[alan-87]

Does anybody here run a subscription / membership based Ecom site?

I've got an idea which is in its infancy and am currently looking at the options available for creating a site.

There's a few formats specifically for the US market such as memberly but at the moment I am swinging towards something like shopify and making use of a recurring payment plugin .

Any thoughts or advice much appreciated.

[jammy_basturd]

I'd be looking at Wordpress + WooCommerce + subscription plugin (not looked but I imagine there will be a few).

[Altrezia]

Why would you run wordpress (blogging platform) for a shop?

If you want open source then use Magento surely?

Otherwise, bespoke build something which is right for the task at hand.

[uber]

Altrezia said:

Why would you run wordpress (blogging platform) for a shop?

If you want open source then use Magento surely?

Otherwise, bespoke build something which is right for the task at hand.

Wordpress is open source and far quicker to develop in than Magento. As Jammey says there are tons of off the shelf membership plugins for Wordpress that will do a great job with minimum outlay

[MrSparks]

Take a look at Opencart, great open source ecommerce platform but it does repeat subscriptions via paypal as standard (v1.5.6 onwards)

[alan-87]

Thanks all, I'll have a look at the options mentioned. How secure is woocommerce over say something like magento or shopify?

I'd be keen to take payment by standard credit / debit card rather than just limiting it to PayPal so something I'd need to consider.

[Altrezia]

I'm sure WooCommerce is pretty good as it's widely used (for some reason..)

That said, wordpress hacks are rife (as with anything so popular - it's a huge target) and keeping your site up to date can become a chore (from experience!).

[jammy_basturd]

I'll admit that I've seen less Magento hacks than Wordpress, but that could also be something to do with the architecture behind Magento making it so damn frustrating to develop against. It doesn't take more than 30 minutes to add some extra security to lock down a Wordpress install quite well. Personally I think a lot of problems come from poorly coded extensions that are rarely updated - the same problem Joomla often suffers from.

The main reason I'd recommend Wordpress over Magento is that it'll be much quicker for a small to medium sized site, on account of it using far less server resources. This also means you can stick it on shared hosting, saving you in hosting costs too. Then there's the fact that I'm sure it'll be easier to set up paying subscribers with Wordpress than with Magento.

Magento seems to be the go to solution for any ecommerce website and I'm not sure why (having developed numerous sites with it before becoming so incredibly frustrated with it I looked for alternatives).

[alan-87]

Jammy,

Thanks for that. Interesting point of view. Seems like woocommerce could be the best option.

Ill have a play when I get home from work tonight.

[jammy_basturd]

No problem. If you have any more questions feel free to post them up in here, there's a number of us that'll be able to answer.

Alternatively feel free to contact me through my profile and I'll be happy to give you my Skype or G+Hangout details.