Upgrade Questions to add a shopping cart

  • Unknown's avatar
    whackeycartoonist · Member ·

    I am on the free version of wordpress.com, using the Rowling theme. I want to add a shopping cart. I know it’s “just” adding a plugin, but I know I need to upgrade.

    Question 1: Do I need to upgrade to Premium or Business? Will Premium work for a shopping cart? (note: this is a site for a new entrepreneur and heavy traffic is not expected any time soon. So if Premium will work, that would be better and we can upgrade to Business if the traffic really picks up).

    Question 2: I really like this theme and want to keep it – if I upgrade can I add the shopping cart to this theme?

    Question 3: Should I merely upgrade to Premium on wordpress.com (seems like the easiest thing to do) and get a unique domain name or should I get a separate wordpress-friendly hosting company?

    I’m new to this and making my way as I go. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

    Becky

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    justjennifer · Member ·

    Hi there, in answer to your questions:

    Question 1: WordPressdotcom does not currently offer an ecommerce solution regardless of upgrade Plan. Staff have indicated that there is something in the works, but there is no timeline for when it will be available. It may or may not be relevant, when it was available, ecommerce was available only to users on the Business Plan.

    The only current workaround is setting up a storefront on a separate service (Shopify, Etsy, etc.) and linking to it in from your WordPressdotcom site.

    Question 2: See #1

    Question 3: if the availability of ecommerce is a deal breaker for you, you will want to look at setting up a self-hosted site using the standalone WP software. That will allow you to do just about anything you need like integrate a shopping cart via a plugin, etc.

    Reading the following Support documents should also give you a good idea of the differences between standalone WP and WordPressdotcom and whether you need to self-host:
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/do-i-need-to-self-host/

    If you have more questions about this, just let us know.

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