Emporium theme, 2 extensions and WooCommerce v1.2

Written by Mark Forrester on November 3, 2011 Product News.

Today sees the release of a new responsive WooCommerce theme called Emporium, equipped with all the homepage modules to showcase featured and recent shop products, recent blog posts, sticky notes, sales banners and a featured slider. Not to forget the widgetized footer region to add those personal touches.

Emporium’s uniqueness lies in it’s fixed top navigation that is always accessible even when at the bottom of a long page of content, with space for two menus – one top right and one bottom left, and also includes a cleanly designed shopping cart dropdown.

Emporium's fixed top menu.

Similar to Argentum the theme adapts to the media device it is being viewed on, even the homepage slider will scale, like our Buro theme. That’s if you want to use it at all, you might prefer to have the prominent homepage real estate display featured products, or even have the blog and recent products right under the header space. All is possible with Emporium.

Scale the window and look around the various product pages.

Clean monotones, brushed chrome and gun metal is the easy on the eye default color/texture palette, but dig around the alternate styles to see what else is achievable with the theme.

The veneer alternate style with the blog posts and recent products in focus.
Emporium doing it's thing on the iPad.

Let us know your constructive feedback, dive deeper into the theme in the demo, and read more about it on our Emporium theme listing page.

Grab Emporium with an 11% discount coupon, valid until 10 November. Just use EMPORIUM11 as your coupon code on checkout. 🙂

More extensions

Today we’ve got two new extensions available for your WooCommerce powered shop.

Visser Store Credit Extension

Michael Visser certainly knows a bit about WordPress e-commerce and develops extensions for various WP e-commerce plugins. We recently reached out to Michael to ask him to partner with in developing some kickass WooCommerce extensions.

Generate store credit coupons that enable customers to make multiple purchases until the total value specified is exhausted or the coupons life expires.

For example a $50 store credit voucher used at Checkout for a $30 purchase will allow for a future purchase of $20 or until the total value expires or is exhausted. You can even buy Products worth more than the remaining store credit and just pay the difference at Checkout.

View the Visser Store Credit extension

PayU Payment Gateway Extension

Developed by our very own Polish support ninja Daniel Dudzic this extension enables WooCommerce shop owners to use the Polish payment Gateway PayU (old Płatności.pl) on their checkout page and charge in Złoty. Hopefully enabling a heap more Polish shops.

View the PayU Payment Gateway Extension

WooCommerce v1.2

Today also see’s the release of a new version of WooCommerce with a new “Best Sellers” widget, basic RSS feeds for products and product categories, further performance upgrades for ratings, the installer and WordPress multi-site and quick status change buttons (processing/complete) to the orders panel – to name but a few. See the full changelog here.

Quick status change buttons for order processing.
cta-banner-10-product-page-v2_2x

47 Responses

  1. Peter Ricci
    November 3, 2011 at 4:33 pm #

    Very nice again, little confused as to the policy on focussing too much of all these extensions for Payment gateways and NOT not an import /export extension. Many many people are waiting on this to move from another provider to yours 🙂

    Again two cents 🙂

    • Mark Forrester
      November 3, 2011 at 4:57 pm #

      It’s coming. Don’t worry 🙂

    • Jay
      November 3, 2011 at 5:04 pm #

      We’re working on several things, some more complex / time consuming than others. As Mark said, don’t worry, it’s on it’s way 🙂

      • Peter Ricci
        November 3, 2011 at 5:58 pm #

        Great, thank you

  2. Suren H
    November 3, 2011 at 4:38 pm #

    @Jay Koster

    Wow! Well designed WooCommerce Theme! The new extensions are extraordinary! 🙂

    • Jay
      November 3, 2011 at 5:04 pm #

      Thanks 🙂

  3. style
    November 3, 2011 at 4:39 pm #

    Nice! Just curious – how long until Currents is out? 🙂

    • Mark Forrester
      November 3, 2011 at 4:58 pm #

      It’s next in line, so expect it very soon.

      • style
        November 3, 2011 at 6:57 pm #

        Awesome – thanks! Any chance it’s responsive 😉

    • Broxter
      November 7, 2011 at 5:44 pm #

      Amen to that question. Cripes. I’m about ready to give up and move on.

  4. Scott Webb
    November 3, 2011 at 5:40 pm #

    Demo this baby because that fixed top menu is pretty hot!

  5. Alejandro
    November 3, 2011 at 6:29 pm #

    Yes, I agree with Ronny, all the woocommerce is great, but, it’s too much, we also like to see a none sale themes, more than all those e-commercer site’s; they are great, but frankly, they all look the same!

    Cheers!

    • Jay
      November 3, 2011 at 6:41 pm #

      The theme release schedule is the same as ever so expect a non-woocommerce theme soon 🙂

      If you have any unique ideas for an eCommerce theme we’d love to hear them 🙂

      • style
        November 3, 2011 at 6:58 pm #

        How about a theme that allows individuals to login and sell items through your site, like a marketplace. I think this would be a game changer.

      • Alejandro
        November 3, 2011 at 7:13 pm #

        Great, Jay! Thanks for the quick response.

        I see that all of the woocommerce themes have pretty much the same layout; how about not the same squares featuring products in the homepage, maybe a big slider with just one product in the home page, dunno, something more personal, try to dive more in too fresh design ideas…

        Thanks again for listening to us!

        Cheers and I’ll be waiting for the new regular themes.

        Keep the good work

        • Jay
          November 3, 2011 at 8:49 pm #

          You can do that with emporium 🙂 just hide the featured products / recent posts via the theme options.

          The designs will become more adventurous as we get a better idea of what the WooCommunity desires 🙂

      • pedro67
        November 4, 2011 at 8:51 pm #

        ok Jay…. here we go.

        You guys made extraordinary work with the custom posttypes und taxonomies in theme “Listings” as well as the impressive search functions. Great.

        But this theme is hard to use for a normal page – the functions would be great to have in Canvas – as Canvas is so flexible in Design.

        I am trying to figure out which theme to modify for a major project.
        We would need the flexibility from Canvas, but also the custom posttypes and taxonomies and especially the wonderful search functions from Listings.

        Do you plan to do something in this way?
        Would it be possible to include some of the functions in Canvas?

        I´ve asked already some Woo specialists when asking for assistance but the answere could not be found yet.
        Here is a link what it should look like (except the navigation).

        • Jay
          November 5, 2011 at 12:27 am #

          So you’re saying you want the functionality of Listings and the customisability of Canvas? The problem with a theme like that is that it would become ridiculously bloated and end up being a jack of all trades, master of none.

          • pedro67
            November 5, 2011 at 12:32 am #

            I can understand your point of view. But fact is that I have to decide which theme would fit best for our needs.

            We would like to offer new clients to register their business in a category on front end and you should be able to search like in Listings, as there might be thousands of companies like flower stores, restaurants, Hotels,… you don´t want to show them all mixed up. Get´s confusing.

      • pedro67
        November 4, 2011 at 8:58 pm #

        idea for woocommerce?

        Sometimes you would need to offer a free product, but you also want to offer an upgrade in one piece.

        Example (what I am searching for)
        A customer can add his business contact to the page in a category. If he wants to upload further staff like his logo, weblink, pics, videolink…. he must pay a small ammount.
        So the entry list would expand.

        • Jay
          November 5, 2011 at 12:28 am #

          That sounds like a fairly custom job to be honest with you. You could achieve this with WooCommerce and some pretty hefty modifications. All the core aspects are there though. Perhaps discuss this with one of our affiliated Woo Workers? 🙂

          • pedro67
            November 5, 2011 at 12:34 am #

            just asked if this makes sense for you at woo. Upgrading is very comon online – to free some more options as you bought an add-on

        • Lucas Stark
          November 14, 2011 at 3:26 am #

          I am working on an extension that would allow something like this. Look for something in the next few weeks. Contact me directly if you want more details.

      • Broxter
        November 7, 2011 at 5:54 pm #

        Hyperlocal is where it’s at. We need a City/Community oriented theme. Newsblogs, multimedia galleries, robust event listings and PAID business directory listings. Think Geoplaces meets Currents.

    • Ryan Ray
      November 4, 2011 at 12:16 am #

      Technically you can still use these themes as a great blog theme right? Set your blog page as your home page, still has the contact form page template and is responsive to boot. 😉

      Just takes a little imagination.

      In all seriousness, like mentioned, other types of themes are on their way!

  6. rgregory
    November 3, 2011 at 9:28 pm #

    Another master stroke with the Store Credit plugin, another nail in the coffin of Shopp Plugin.

    Great work, keep it up!

    • Scott Webb
      November 4, 2011 at 4:17 am #

      Such a slick extenstion/plugin. Lots of ways to be creative with this I think. I remember using shopp for a weekend and should have asked for my money back 😛

  7. nichs
    November 4, 2011 at 12:51 am #

    a responsive theme that works with buddypress (and a facility for ecommerce) would suit me fine, any lined up?

    looking good woo, great stuff

    • Mark Forrester
      November 4, 2011 at 8:30 am #

      No BuddyPress integration just yet, but we have partnered with a BP developer to work on an upgrade to our Canvas BP child theme. We’ll then access this further.

  8. Scott Webb
    November 4, 2011 at 4:16 am #

    As the community grows and grows, the theme released isn’t going to satisfy all. I don’t know if a new blog theme each month is always needed when a theme like Emporium (eCommerce focused sure) can easily be a blog as well and is so much more in a longer vision.

    Coming from the Forums, I would say to go check out the amount of topics that are flowing in with customizing parts of WooCommerce and it’s adoption. It’s becoming really big and to ignore it would be silly.

    As said, looking forward to the upcoming themes that are non-commerce specific.

    Cheers!

  9. best themes
    November 4, 2011 at 7:16 am #

    great for e-commerce

  10. Leah Anderson
    November 4, 2011 at 5:59 pm #

    Wow, this looks great!!!! Totally impressed! 🙂

  11. Johnny
    November 4, 2011 at 8:32 pm #

    Hi.

    Just wondering what the 1 cm blank space to the right of the images in the Emporium slider is for? Can’t seem to get rid of it..

    • Jay
      November 5, 2011 at 12:29 am #

      Hi Johnny, please send me a mail with more info (IE which browser you are using); jay[at]woocommerce.com and I’ll look into it. Doesn’t sound normal 😛

  12. iPhone Gadget
    November 7, 2011 at 7:12 am #

    Looks nice, but I’m using zencart now

  13. Alan
    November 7, 2011 at 5:09 pm #

    Hi there

    You might want to check out the theme in IE 8, the main menu drop down does not work for me, also there is a gap of about 40px between the top menu and the main nav which is not the case in firefox & chrome

    • Jay
      November 7, 2011 at 9:37 pm #

      Was fine when we checked IE. Could you send me some more info to jay[at]woocommerce.com ?

      Thx

  14. Chris K
    November 8, 2011 at 11:49 am #

    The Store credit looks great. Could this be used some how for Gift Cards? Or is it Admin use only to assign a certain customer credit?

    I have read the description but I wouldn’t know if this was possible.

    For someone to buy someone else store credit would be great for a gift, resulting in a gift card.

    Cheers

  15. Soccerupdated
    November 8, 2011 at 4:03 pm #

    The demo site cannot scroll down on my iphone 4. Is it possible to make it viewable for smartphones?

  16. Jennifer
    November 8, 2011 at 9:36 pm #

    Wow this looks great! I’m looking for a WooCommerce theme for my husband’s guitar store. This one with the wood veneer is SO music store, I love it! Although the slider is a bit massive. I’m glad that it can be disabled. Loving the new Store Credit extension as well.

    More varying product store themes please! For example music store (both instruments and CDs), bakery supplies, vintage finds, SLR camera supplies, knitted goods, etc. Everything so far has been quite technology centric (games and tshirts fit perfectly as the products, but cupcake liners might seem strange on the cool toned layout). This one with the great wood grain and Coquette are the only 2 I see that have the type of personality that I could help appeal to a niche shop.

    Will there be POS integration extensions in the future? He uses AIMsi which I’m having difficulty finding much support for. Fearing that he’ll just have to manually transfer the purchases from POS to online and vice versa.

  17. passauwebdesign
    November 8, 2011 at 10:49 pm #

    Wow great new theme. I just working on a german translation of WooCommerce. The first Beta you can find here: http://www.passau-webdesign.com/2011/11/woocommerce-deutsche-sprachdatei/

  18. Soccerupdated
    November 9, 2011 at 4:36 pm #

    http://demo.woothemes.com/wootique/ The Featured Products don’t display nicely using my iphone 4. Some of the featured products are not shown. It spills over to the right side of my phone’s screen and could not seen. Other than that the other stuffs are good.