I have been developing for WordPress and OpenCart for some time, and have come to these realizations:
WordPress has some OK, sometimes decent, e-commerce plugins; probably e-shop and wp-ecommerce being the best. But they have their drawbacks, and they have been developed around wordpress for wordpress.
OpenCart is a great, solid, excellently coded, stand alone open source e-commerce system.
I ran across a thread in a forum about the possibility of integrating OpenCart into WordPress as a WordPress plugin, and I liked the idea because WordPress needs a REALLY SOLID e-commerce plugin. So I am now exploring developing that integration.
Here is what I have planned:
- Install OpenCart directly into WordPress as a plugin
- OpenCart would not use its own template system, but instead use WordPress’s theme
- The OpenCart Modules would become widgets
- OpenCart admin login will ride on WordPress admin login for seamless login to both systems.
- OpenCart customers would tie into the WordPress Users table, and that integration would have many benefits
Future Ideas
- Extend OpenCarts plugin-ability with a wordpress powered plugin that would plug into OpenCart
- More?…
Drop me some comments with your thoughts…
Josh