This week we’ve a new free WooCommerce theme; Mystile. There’s also 6 new extensions including smart coupons, MSRP pricing and 4 payment gateways as well as a core WooCommerce update.
On with the goodies…
Mystile
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Mystile is a clean, lightweight, free WooCommerce theme, designed as a canvas which you can use as-is, or easily create a unique design on top of to match your products. The theme is responsive as standard, and comes bundled with plenty of options and alternate colour schemes.
Although Mystile has been designed for use with WooCommerce, it works equally well without it. The homepage can be configured to display an introductory graphic / stand first, latest blog posts, an optional sidebar and recent products if WooCommerce is installed and activated.
View the demo Download the Mystyle theme for free
Smart Coupons
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Smart coupons provide a powerful, “all in one” solution for gift certificates, store credits, discount coupons and vouchers. The plugin allows customers to buy credits for themselves or gift them to others.
Developed by StoreApps.
View this ExtensionMSRP Pricing
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The WooCommerce MSRP plugin allows you to record Manufacturer Suggested Retail Prices / Recommended Retail Prices against your products, and have them displayed on the sales pages. This allows your customers to see why it’s a good idea to buy from you.
Developed by Lee Willis.
View this ExtensionPayza Gateway
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Available in 197 countries and 22 currencies, Payza (formerly AlertPay) is a money transfer service with a truly global reach. This gateway allows you to safely and securely accept payment from your customers Payza E-Wallet. Customers are automatically redirected to Payza’s secure servers for payment, and redirected back to your site after paying, meaning that you don’t need to spend time installing and managing SSL certificates, and can focus on selling more goods and services.
Developed by Justin Stern.
View this ExtensionAmazon Simple Pay
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Amazon Simple Pay is an Amazon Payments service you can use to monetize, improve conversion and attract valuable customers to your gaming application or website. Customers easily make payments using the payment information stored in their Amazon.com accounts.
Developed by Matt Gates.
View this ExtensioniPay88 Gateway
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iPay88 is a leading payment provider in Malaysia. iPay88 offers many payment options to their clients including credit/debit cards, direct debit for countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, China, and alternative payment options like AliPay, Paysbuy and more. iPay88 also is able to process payments in multiple currencies depending on your account, some of those include Malaysian Ringgit(MYR), US Dollar (USD), Yuan Renminbi (CNY), Euro (EUR), Pound Sterling (GBP) and more.
Developed by Ivan Andreev.
View this ExtensionPayTrace Gateway
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PayTrace was founded in 2004 and is an industry leader for providing a safe and easy to use payments processing services. PayTrace has more than 24,000 users and is dedicated to provide merchants with excellent customer service, while increasing security and reducing costs to them. Currently PayTrace is able to process payments in US dollars made with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB credit cards.
Developed by Ivan Andreev.
View this ExtensionWooCommerce 1.6.2
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WooCommerce 1.6.2 is mainly a maintenance release fixing minor glitches in 1.6, but also contains some neat little tweaks such as;
- Additional analytic event tracking
- Saving of customer IP’s and user agents
- New hi-res (for retina) admin icons
- Admin usability improvements for large stores
View the full changelog here.
WooCommerce survey
↑ Nach obenWe had a fantastic response to the WooCommerce survey with over 700 completed. There were some fascinating results and your submissions will be a valuable asset in managing the direction WooCommerce takes in the near future. Without further ado, here are the winners of the prizes;
- Sphero winners: Jon Bowers, Samuel Eden, Mark Nicholls
- Winners of 3 WooCommerce extensions: Wes Kriesel, Igor Glavatski, Ho Young Hung
- 5 Tshirt winners: Thomas Kuzma, Joey Kudish, Josse Ford, Jeff Bertholdi, Billy Hur
- 5 Ninja Plushie winners: Dave Campbell, Julian Rosser, Nick Gazard, Greg Cooper, Johnathan Mullins
All winners please send me an email (jay[at]woocommerce.com) providing your woocommerce.com username and/or postal address.
About
I like the mix of Woocommerce plugins this week… not just payment gateways. MSRP & Smart Coupons sound amazing. I will have to try them out in my stores.
When should we expect the LMS theme? 🙂
Thanks Shawn. 🙂
There is currently no set ETA on the LMS theme. I’d recommend keeping your eyes peeled on the blog and our tweets for more information as we have it. 🙂
Aw, not even a hint of which month? I’m dying to see it 🙂
Man, I am going to have sweet dreams tonight. I voted for Smart Coupons so I’m very chuffed it got up, but Mystile is icing on the cake. Nice work guys!
Congrats to the winners!
Oh and look at those extensions! I know that many people have been wanting the MRSP and a better way for gift certificates. Great stuff!
I can see the MyStile Theme being used for a non-WooCommerce site too 🙂
so slowly I’m getting really pissed. Yet another Woocemmerce and again a free theme. Not that her last month have released only a theme, now again a Woocommerce. Slowly, I wonder what I’m paying the monthly fee?
You can see my comment on the value of the WooThemes Club here.
If you are really not receiving value from the club, then we understand if you’re going to cancel / suspend your subscription. If you’re not cancelling, then you’re obviously paying the monthly fee because there’s value for you. Either way, I suspect you’ll in all likelihood comment negatively on about 9/10 of our releases. 🙂
Yes, but then he will loose the access to your support and the theme updates…
I wouldn’t like to cancel and then find out that my site was compromized because of some bug that was fixed in an update after I cancelled my subscription.
Well, that’s a reason not to cancel your subscription then: there’s definitely value in paying $15 / $20 / $25 a month then.
This is then probably because it almost exclusively Woocommerce published. When I look at your magazine themes, but then see the same in almost all very well and half-finished. You should finally get you to the themes easy to give, you do not get the big money. The last magazine theme is the best example of a very bad and half-finished theme. If I have to pay money, I expect professional work and not in the magazine theme ever and always the same.
When I look at the magazines, look at her theme from ThemeForest is a long way behind when it comes to creativity. Previously you were once a leader, what Magzine-themes are concerned, but now since its pretty much the bottom in terms of magazine themes.
In her last update several magazines themes have taken out. You should see this number of magazine-themes to be delivered. But probably the next theme will be a Woocommerce uder his business theme. Even sad when the greed for money is paramount.
I also think it is an impertinence for a free tool only offer support for a fee.
We just can’t win with you Ronny. 😉
Fact is, every 10th theme *might* be a Magazine theme. Based on download statistics over the last 2 years, our users just aren’t using Magazine themes as much as they did, so we’re not going to waste our or their time by working on more themes.
If ThemeForest solves your needs in this regard, then you should really consider purchasing your Magazine themes from there, because we’re unlikely to do many of those going forward.
>’because we’re unlikely to do many of those (magazine themes)going forward.’
Wowza, that’s a big statement to slip in there!
I’ve been religiously checking in each Thursday hoping for some new, hot magazine theme action being announced on the blog. Would you say that I’d be better off spending my time over at ThemeForest rather than waiting for a WooThemes magazine theme?
Narj
We are more likely to be adding maybe a magazine template or other functionality to our business themes going forward, so they are more multi-purpose. We haven’t got any Magazine only themes in the pipeline in the coming months.
Yes – Magazine themes are a declining category amongst WooThemes users, which means our time is better spent elsewhere.
For those users that still want Magazine themes, we have many great one’s available that will do a great job on your new websites.
Your response is summed up in the classic line, “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
It was a sly move changing the Theme Pricing and Membership details page to “Minimum 1 new theme per month” after recent comments. This comes less then a year after a $5/mo price increase to ensure delivery of two WooThemes a month. Of course, those locked in at $20 were forced into $25 when payment processing “issues” arose. In June, seventeen themes were retired in spite of this price increase. It wasn’t until major customer upheaval last September did Woothemes decide to bundle WooCommerce themes into the membership packages.
Telling Woothemes developers to cancel their subscriptions if they don’t like it, is a bully’s move. You’re saying if they don’t like the altered deal, they can give up the support they need for the previous themes and framework they developed for.
tl;dr: Woothemes is missing the mark and trying to cover it up.
It’s a conspiracy! They’re covering it up, just like WooThemes did when they killed Tupac!
It’s not a conspiracy. WooThemes is altering their their contract (ToS & Pricing) with us, the membership, on a whim. They have edited several pages to reflect their new stances, but have yet to notify club members of these rather important details. For example, subscribers are only guaranteed 12 themes a year instead of 24 and free themes are included. This is a major difference.
Hi Foo,
We’ve changed it to *minimum* one theme per month instead of 2 (read: more than 12), since we’ve changed our strategy to adding more functionality into each theme, instead of two themes themes with less functionality. This makes more sense when you see the big back catalog of themes to choose from.
Regarding the price increase, this was announced, and all old subscribers were grandfathered in: http://woocommerce.com/2012/01/price-changes-for-new-club-members/
Hope that clears up any confusion you had about our strategy going forward.
agree with Ronny. Waiting hard for your two announced themes to see if I can use one. Wanted to write in support forum since yesterday about a bug in Theme FlipFlop but cannot because of some redesign. FAQ does not help.
There’s still a “Contact Support” button in the sidebar to create support tickets for our Support Team. 🙂
You’re not the only one! I guess their ‘strategy’ is to dump club subscriptions and just go all out for WooCommerce and plugins.
Nope, that isn’t our focus at all. The existing strategy & value proposition is however changing.
Yes, but the change should be only for the new subscribers, not for those who signed up for two themes…
And if you unable to keep up with two themes/month, then you should lower the subscription fee by half for the old subscribers.
Then you can continue delivering one theme/month, new subscribers would pay the current price and the old subscribers (who signed up for another deal) would pay half the price.
That would be the honest move.
What about the policy on support – is that staying the same…
“Both Club Subscription and Theme Packages include lifetime access to our support forum and tutorials.”
So club members who cancel / pause membership still get unrestricted access to support via the forum yes?
Yes you’ll still be able to contact us via support as stated here: http://woocommerce.com/frequently-asked-questions/#supportaftercancel
totally agree
Nice work guys!
On initial perusal Smart Coupons looks like it could be a real winner. Unfortunately, however it also makes the money I recently spent on your Store Credit extension a complete waste!
Not quite. Smart coupons (gift certificates) is for selling/awarding/gifting coupons automatically. (customers buy them)
The store credit extension has always been for the store owner to email credit to customers manually from admin – so you’ve only wasted money if you bought that for something other than it’s purpose.
Why not to merge those two plugins? They are about the same functionality – the coupons.
Different plugins, different authors. We’ll be bulking up the store credit extension over time. Again, its for admin usage. Not for selling gift certificates to customers.
I agree! I’d suggest not to double the functionality of existing plugins, or better, to give a free/discounted upgrade to the buyers of the old plugin.
I’d also suggest to remove the Store Credit plugin from the repository, as it’s functionality is depreciated now.
I don’t want to see the WooCommerce plugin repository turning into a similar mess as the WordPress plugin repository. It’s really hard to choose a plugin there, as there are way too many plugins with the same functionality!
Ideally, each piece of functionality should be represented by one plugin, so it’s easy to choose what needs to be bought. If you have more than one plugin doing the same, how do we choose if there’s no possibility to test them before purchase? I don’t want to pay for, e.g. Store Credit only to find out that I don’t like it and then go to pay again for the Smart Coupons.
We totally agree. This is the last thing we want. However, it’s easier to say than to do. Please try to remember that we’re working with 3rd party developers and we cannot force them to collaborate.
Having said that, in the last couple of weeks we’ve put policies in place to take a stricter stance on extension developments which will hopefully help keep these kinds of overlaps to a minimum. This is something that will grow and evolve over time. Nobody is perfect and this is still something of a learning curve for us. Please bare with us whilst we iron out the kinks 🙂
Good to hear, I was afraid that you had another idea how to proceed with the plugins. I’m relief now. 🙂
Any news about ccbill gateway???
I made the plugin for CCBILL gateway, if anybody want it, can contac me at grupodesdeabajo.com.ar
Any progress on a Facebook sign in/register for woocommerce?
So, when you say Mystile works just as well w/o Woo Commerce, do you mean it can be used as a business theme?
Sure, it can be used as a Business theme, but is probably better suited as being just a blog (when WC isn’t activated).
Thank Adii!
Thoughts.
Blowback
It seems the Woo Team are getting lots of blowback on the seemingly new focus of Woo Commerce. It is an exciting new product and for the most part it is relatively easy to use.
Woo Commerce Add Ons
The idea of add ons is perfect as all other solutions are just a whole bunch of stuff trying to please everyone.
Costs
It’s good value – full stop
WordPress Themes Per Month
Updating the site to say only one new theme per month – I think this is fine, but I would expect people to get upset if they are just very similar style themes. The upcoming section of the site is a great idea, but I think you should have expected release dates on these. The LMS will be huge, but it needs a set release date. Otherwise we are all trapped hoping that it does not slip.
Continued Focus on Canvas
For many of the Club Members developer package, Canvas is the cream. It allows us to pretty much build anything and I now use it on 50+ websites as the standard framework. The one thing this framework needs though is for canvas commerce to be just simply integrated. Nearly all dedicated Canvas Developers use child themes, and having Canvas Commerce, basically we have to add the canvas commerce to our child and when it updates, update it. Considering it is a very minimal add on, it should just be integrated.
Attitude to Disgruntled.
I too get a little miffed with all the Woo Commerce stuff, but I understand it from a business perspective. However, as you would know, people dont often write in good comments, they like to voice their anger. IMHO – The responses from Woo on some of these are a little troubling from Woo from a human perspective.
We live in a world where we dont really have choices with so many services we receive, if you look at phone companies, utilities, banks etc. They just cut you off if you dont pay. and they also dont really care, they take you to the brink knowing it is probably too much of a hassle to leave.
Responses that tell people to leave if they are not happy are understandable from a boardroom point of view, but not a direction I like any company taking publicly.
It basically tells us that hey, for every one person that leaves unhappy, we get another 10 join – so turn rate is low and they probably wont leave anyway. It does not address the root. There is a need for excellent releases that add some spark each month if you are only doing one theme. This is because if it is just like any other, then that two months people are waiting.
Woo has built itself from its humble beginnings because of your ficus on great themes, excellent options and customer service. Keep it that way and dont lose sight of the reasons you are successful.
Our Behavior
We as users also need to understand realities of business. What I did 12 months ago is different of what I do today, but not be extremes. I can speak for myself. When I get a client that just wants a basic website, I always use Woo. I have tried many them forest type sites, but I always turn back to woo, because stuff just works.
I once used Press75 and OBox and although great, the options are severely limited leaving much to be manually developed.
Thanks for listening.
Fair points across the board.
We’ve just published these thoughts on the Club Subscriptions and the discussions that have been going on here about them.
how do i download the extensions: smart coupons, MSRP pricing and 4 payment gateways?
Really pleased with the RRP plugin as have been wanting this for ages.
Is there any way to turn the side bar on in the Mystile theme? It kind of sux if you are in a shop and can’t easily see categories?
Thanks!
I could build this theme in about 20 minutes using Canvas? Why so simple and design-less?
I don’t think everybody has the skills you do, and Canvas comes at a cost 🙂 We want to open the door for more people to use WC, and this is a great starting point for anybody who wants to customize.
I think if you look closer you’d see that’s not the case.
There is more to design than lots of flashy graphics and photoshop textures / filters. We have other themes for that. This theme is for people who want their content / products to be the focus and fits in nicely with our other free offerings. If you want a free WooCommerce theme with lots of graphics and design flourishes take a look at Artificer.
Well that was a waste of time.
MSRP plugin doesn’t work with product variations.
It did when I tried it. You might have a JS error – please contact support so we can look into it.
Nothing displays on the frontend.
You can input a MSRP, but it doesn’t display to the customer ie pointless. I have put in a support ticket on the 16th (not heard back yet).
Hi – it says in the documentation for the MRSP that it displays by default struck through and also that you can change what it’s called on the front end.
I can’t see options for any of this?
Also when I turn the plugin on it’s displaying on products even where I haven’t entered a MSRP – as ‘$0’!
Found how to change it in woocommerce/settings/catalog
The Mystile theme has major flaws. After installing, it shows no product numbers for woocommerce and no product information at all, even on checkout. So major flaw there. Just fyi.
Hi Mac – products installed fine for me.
I think the Mystyle theme , is a good theme for ecommerce and I think that is unbeatable for free download. The truth is that almost all WooThemes themes are the best.
Can the Unique “Apply Coupon with One Click” technology be turned off on the Smart Coupon extension?
Definitely believe that that you said. Your favourite justification seemed to be on the net the simplest factor to have in mind of. I say to you, I definitely get annoyed at the same time as folks consider concerns that they just do not realize about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top as neatly as defined out the entire thing without having side-effects , folks could take a signal. Will probably be back to get more. Thanks
Why is it that no gift certificate plugins/modules seem to function the way real world gift certificates do? i.e. I want to be able to sell a gift cert that the PURCHASER can set the amount, and not have to create a plethora of $10, $15, $25, $30, $35, etc. gift certificate options. Is there an existing solution that does this?