This is a surprising move. WordPress.com has partnered with a company called ShopLocket to enable eCommerce for WordPress.com customers. Anyone ever heard of or used ShopLocket? Seems like a pretty direct response to Squarespace’s eCommerce offering to me.
6 thoughts on “WordPress.com partners with ShopLocket for eCommerce”
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I’ve never heard of them until today. Definitely looks interesting though.
I’ve never heard of the either. Have to wonder why they didn’t go with one of the great WordPress eCommerce plugins that already exist.
I actually like that they didn’t, simply because doing that would literally kill all of the others, at least in terms of total usage.
It didn’t surprise me that they went for a partner we don’t really know. Basically what Pippin says makes great sense, but I also think the plugins that are better know are also too complex to support this. Shoplocket seems the perfect fit to provide a small set of eCommerce features to existing blogs and websites. Not that the better known eCommerce plugins couldn’t do that, but this is obviously easier to maintain.
I think hosted eCommerce plugins/services are completely different to what the WordPress plugins we all know are offering. To me, hosted eCommerce will always be limited in a way, while the plugins give you a lot more freedom. This is basically another WordPress.com vs self hosted, yes it will have advantages but also a lot of disadvantages.
The same goes for the target audience. I haven’t seen or used it myself yet, but it all sounds very limited in terms of features. This is suitable for users who want to add a little selling funnel to their existing blogs and websites, not for someone who gets serious into eCommerce.
Agreed. It’s basically the equivalent of generating PayPal purchase buttons and placing them on your site, just much nicer.