Market WordPress Theme
- Filed under: Marketplace
“Market” is a new premium theme from Andrew of Astereostudio.com, which allows you to use your blog as an online store or marketplace. View the live demo here.
Via custom fields, you can enter a description, 1 large image with 3 smaller images, a price, and other information for each product or item. It also allows people to pay you through PayPal.
Installation
Market is actually very easy to install. I have a copy of it installed offline (on my computer). It took me less than five minutes to add the first product to the offline test blog. If you haven’t had any experience with using custom fields, which is easy, it might take you ten minutes to read the instructions and to add the first product.
Structure
I’m impressed by how close Market’s layout is to the 17 New Rules for Successful E-commerce Websites. Thanks to the function over form approach, Market is also easy for customers to use. Everything is clearly laid out and you’re not overwhelmed by all of the information for each product.
Function
Andrew integrated the phpThumb thumbnail generator for converting large images for each product, which saves a lot of time for the administrator or store manager by automatically converting the images to the right size without distorting them. Also, one of the product display features that I like is the ability to zoom in on the smaller images. Here’s an example of the zoom feature:
Minor Improvements
This is the first version of Market so of course there’s room for improvement, but the following suggestions are more like bonuses.
- An optional space for a store banner right above the products listing on the front page would be nice.)
- The single product page doesn’t have a direct page edit link for administrators.
- Although this theme is easy to install, I’d like to see extended instructions on how to upload images and how to grab the image locations added to the read-me file.
- And if possible, don’t make the this theme duplicate the smaller thumbnails in case the administrator uploaded only one small image.
Pricing
Market costs only $40 and you can use it on multiple websites.
Conclusion
Besides my suggestions above, I’m thoroughly impressed by Market. It’s compact, easy to install, and easy to use. I think it’s safe to say that premium is not just a marketing term for this theme.
Well, I like the simplicity, but I think the style could do with a little adjustment. Like it nevertheless, quite unique!
Well done on the theme to the author. I saw it earlier today and was quite impressed.
I like it.
Couple suggestion;s
– Place the main nav horizontally across the top (under the site name) and use the right sidebar to display categories. Then the breadcrumb on the product pages could be “site > category > product name”. This would really add to SEO.
– For added monetization, would also like to see the sidebar have a 260px width — which would allow for more options - even side-by-side 125px ads.
Love all the work you’re doing!
@GUY - This one was created by Andrew, not me
Thanks for the suggestions guys! I’ll look into all of them!
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Wow! Impressive work!
[…] for Market: an eCommerce/Portfolio solution that works on blogs hosted on Wordpress.org People are talking about a new eCommerce / shopping cart solution developed by teenage web […]
This is very nice. Wordpress is becoming better everyday. In case you didn’t register DOT COM of that name do it right now
wow, so cool! lol Wordpress blogs really is turning into a cms, I’m even using it for my hosting site lol
Hello,
Just wanted to say that your gossip theme has a small bug in opera.
Check top search in opera.
Regards.
It’s a really good theme and one that will definitely benefit those who wish to use WordPress as a store/shop.
Andrew is giving away two free copies over at my site too
I am starting to see more themes where the emphasis is not on how it looks, (that part is up to you) but how it performs. This theme has great potential. The best alternative that I have been able to find is a plugin, WP e-Commerce. Unfortunately, although I am comfortable using PayPal, some users will be intimidated. I am not certain what it would take to produce, but a plugin or theme that incorporates using major credit cards would fly off the shelves.
Thanks for the suggestions guys!
Skarld, paypal can be set up to accept all major credit cards without users needing to have a paypal account or to join at all.
The store or person will just have to business account instead of a personal one
“without users needing to have a paypal account or to join at all.” How’s that? Really?
i didn’tknow that. In fact, im new with PayPal and i still didn’t sell anything… i thought they have to be paypal users.
this might come in handy for my new shop that i’m opening up!
@Dem, you will need a business or premier account. You can see more about it right on paypal.com front page under…
Need to accept credit cards? section.
Not sure if it is for the United States business accounts only though.
i have been thinking alot about using wordpress for an ecommerce site.
I haven’t seen an ecommerce solution that has integrated blogging very well, so maybe the approach is the other way around?
I was planning to use e-junkie, but I’m going to look at this more closely. It would be best for ecommerce sites with a few products - I wouldn’t want to manage hundreds or thousands of products this way.
[…] up a copy of this in a few weeks for a project I’m working on. Try the live demo or read Small Potato’s review if you still aren’t […]
[…] only costs $40 for a standard license. I predict that this theme is going to be a massive seller. Small Potato has written a very insightful review of this theme, and I plan to discuss it in more detail in my next […]
[…] wpdesigner.com […]
So, this is just a front end solution, right?
I mean it doesn’t allow you to manage products from the admin leve?
Could you use it in conjunction with Instinct’s Ecommerce plugin?
Thanks!
Rajeef
The initial release is front-end only. As far as I know, this theme is under continuous development.
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I’m using the new ecommerce theme from i themes on brand new ecommerce site using e-junkie for payment.
I am going to start another site with this theme on another URL.
I’ll report back on how I do.
One of my favorite themes.
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