Last night we sent out our newly designed newsletter with information on a couple of our upcoming product releases, amongst other news. We encourage our users to sign up for the newsletter as we hope to promote more developments/company news/special offers going forward, first via your inbox.
For the really big online shops
We tweeted about our Superstore theme concept a few weeks ago, and Jay has since been busy planning it. Superstore is perfect theme for retailers who have a large catalog of products with many categories and attributes. It has a no-frills design and a clear purpose – to get your products sold as frequently as possible.
View the Superstore theme
Teach a course via your WordPress website
Our other exciting theme we’ve had designed and now at the development stage is LMS. LMS is an app theme allowing one the functionality to run a course through their WP website, & even charge for it thanks to WooCommerce integration. Enabling anyone to be a teacher & make some extra dosh.
View the LMS themeWe’ve created an upcoming products page for you to bookmark and track all our new significant future product releases. You can then also express your interest in particular upcoming products, and be notified of their release, by subscribing for more news on them specifically.
Awesomeness!
Superstore intrigues me. It got me thinking about how many products you can use WooCommerce for. I guess “as many as you like” would be the answer?
Anyone have any examples of sites running it with thousands of products?
I want to track my newsletters as you do. Which service is it? 🙂
Campaign Monitor. And the map is part of their “World View” reporting facility.
Wow, it’s a great idea with the upcoming product page. I’m definitely looking forward to the LMS theme and I hope you will also release a plugin to integrate the WooCommerce with Clickbank. The Clickbank integration together with the LMS will make it a killer package to sell courses online!
Following Andreas, I’d be also interested to learn which service you use to track the newsletter activity.
Really excited about Superstore. You’re right – no theme yet has embodied the majority of needs for an enterprise-level website.
And the new mega menu feature – can’t wait!
We really need an affiliate solution for WooCommerce.
I did find one, but can’t find any reviews for it anywhere.
http://www.itthinx.com/plugins/affiliates-woocommerce
We have a good option for an affiliate system for WooCommerce – http://woocommerce.com/extension/ambassador-affiliate-program-integration/
That extension is great if you want to spend a minimum of $99 per month on it, but that’s not realistic for the majority of users.
I agree. $99 is a lot for a small and not-for-profit stores. Woothemes – please think about making an alternative. Obviously, it doesn’t have to have all the bells and whistles like Ambassador, but something to make it simple to reward people for recommending your store.
Actually, I was excited when I saw the map because I thought it was that tracking plugin you were developing!
It’s a shame the course app is a theme rather than a plugin because most of the time I’d want to add courses to existing themes and this is something I’m looking for at least two sites right now. I just don’t need a whole theme.
I agree, it would be amazing to have this as a plugin that is bundled with the theme but could be used on it’s own. It should be a paid plugin, this way you aren’t limiting your audience to people that buy WooThemes. 🙂
Another vote for making this a plugin rather than an app theme, the same for all the functionality in the app themes. Why do do them the same as WooCommerce – a plugin and then child themes for the specific functionality?
A LMS is indeed a good idea and I think the theme looks great but at the same time I also really hope that it will become a plugin with a market for extensions (like woocommerce). For LMS the extensions are just as important as the base system. As an example: to be able to sell a LMS-system to schools you often need to show a solution for integration with existing administrative systems and/or base LMS (A system used for comunication between teachers, students and parents but might be weak in the actual educational department so teachers use other LMS to compliment) to be considered an option.
If the target market is corporate training it should be done in a way so we do not need to set up another install for it and force users to get yet another login.
Having a theme for running courses is a good start but a dream would be long term commitment for a LMS infrastructure built ontop of wordpress. (I like Moodle but if I could have a LMS on wordpress it would certainly make life easyer)
BRAVO – finally someone who understands this. Woothemes PLEASE TAKE NOTE – your intended new release could potentially change the educational /training web landscape – if done right.
We are presently developing a Woocommerce solution for one the UK’s most prominent traditions centres. We would love to tell you what out our specific needs are and if possible, help enhance the product – or have a preview, as you could save us hundreds of hours (and thousands) on development.
Ken
LMS sounds really interesting. You could use this also to support your clients with tutorials, screenshots and notes how to install e.g. their mail account. Great!
I hope I can use screencasts there with login.
Super excited about the LMS! Any chance there’s gradebook functionality? Probably hoping for too much. Can’t wait to try it out. I’m in the middle of building some online courses right now.
Wait! Learners can interact with each other (under Overview page details): does this mean a forum or discussion board is built in?
And, hold on….tests & quizzes? Are you sure I’m not dreaming?
All of this in WordPress? Hallelujah!
If LMS included basic forum functionality (ie ‘learners’ interact with each other) and the ability for authorised users to upload documents to a document library + a best practice sign up system then there would be many uses beyond learners – groups of professionals working together, simple team solutions; private areas on web sites …
What sort of timeframe are we looking at for super store? Very excited!
Having deployed LMS sites with Moodle, this interests me greatly, this Woo LMS. We’re currently working on a turn-key extranet/intranet solution for private security guard companies, and being able to deliver their customized internal training content would be a powerful leveraging tool for these firms to use our product.
Upcoming Products Page – Fantastic addition!!!
These also look great, if i could ask for one thing it would be the addition of an implementation timeline 😀
Great job Woo!
This is so good that I don’t even wanna share it with any one else. Sorry Woo this is ttotototoototot EPIC!!!
A wooLMS would be a godsend to use mere eLearning mortals.
Of course support for SCORM or other reporting/integration with things like Captivate and Presenter would be fantastic, but probably just wishful thinking.
LMS sounds good. 🙂
Please, don’t forget about “Buy” and “Buy now” buttons!
Thanks
Nice!
Ha ha i love that my hit appeared on your map for Granada, Spain 🙂
Do you have a date for LMS.
We are about to build one in Canvas with Woocommerce. Can your theme do the following:
1. Take a one-off payment.
2. Have a customised Homepage (ie. it can be designed easily with some blog posts on the home page.
3. I can view products/courses by cat or calendar
Can’t wait to see
Very excited! the perfect solution for us.. CIAO WLM 🙂
LMS is one awesome theme idea I have seen in ages. Excited to see it released.
Like many others thumbs up to the LMS theme, I just hope this type of application theme is consistently developed upon. Sometimes I have seen on other theming websites that these niche app themes have 1 or 2 releases and then the roadmap is cut off which is a shame. LMS will have a strong up take in my opinion but it will still be a niche – hopefully it will get the development hours to make it a real player. The testing and Multi-choice area of these would need to be pretty powerful and pull from a larger pool of questions – only testing is tricky for a lot of reasons. I know the initial version needs to be light and nimble but the features needed in the test and quiz area are vast from IP tracking to 50 questions being pulled at random from say 100 questions or else this is pretty useless in the long run. I am sure others will contribute more on this – can’t wait and great to see it being pushed on WordPress now.
In case the Superstore theme is feeling a bit lonely and left out, I’m also eagerly awaiting that 🙂
Guys this is all fantastic to see new developments, however one huge thing seems to be left behind in every update so far, and that is the product addons extension. Use a product addon like wrapping a parcel or whatever, the price does not automatically adjust your products. This is such a shame to see something so powerful as product addons get pushed aside for new development. Sorry, but I am so frustrated that I have been asked if I would like to pay a developer to sort this out when at the end of the day it is a function that should have been sorted right in the early days of development for WooCommerce. I bat for WooCommerce in every game through my membership of 3000 plus members, and through every argument in LinkedIn that WooCommerce is the way forward in Online Stores. Can you feel my frustrations yet? 🙁
And if you want to see some arguments of how I push the hell for WooCommerce, then you can see some here:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=2203862&type=member&item=135389218&commentID=89962844&report%2Esuccess=8ULbKyXO6NDvmoK7o030UNOYGZKrvdhBhypZ_w8EpQrrQI-BBjkmxwkEOwBjLE28YyDIxcyEO7_TA_giuRN#commentID_89962844
Yours Truly,
“Lonely Ambassador of Woo”
LMS sounds really good! Do you know when it will be ready? 😉
“App Themes”…interesting wording. Is this the future of Woo? I hope that LMS doesn’t eventually go into early retirement like FaultPress did even if not enough people buy it.
Stoked!
As others have said, if it’s done right – it would be a game changer. Also as mentioned, it should be treated like WooCommerce is with a separate area set up for Extensions and Support. It’s just too big of an idea to make it a theme and forget about it.
There is a multitude of needs in eLearning out there and there should be a strong 3rd party plugin support infrastructure around this to make it thrive.
I would have no problem dropping an open source LMS like Moodle in favor of a WP LMS as long as I know it will be around for a while and security is up to par.
I see it more as a corporate/small business solution at this point though. Tapping into the schools and higher ed is a needed feature. There would need to be some ways to get other systems to grab user information and sync it to other HR and Academic reporting systems. Otherwise, for a 1 or 2 course solution – it should work fine. This is why I think an Extensions area for the LMS Theme would be key… there are so many different needs out there depending on the school or business. Just take a look at all the different plugins that Moodle has and you’ll see what I mean.
The need to communicate with SCORM would be a good one too. There should also be some heavy privacy features.
Looking forward to it! Awesome idea.
If you’re launching a superstore or LMS, I’m happy to pay $100’s for it – providing we get premium support. We’ll recoup investment in time saved not going mental.
We also need EVERYTHING at control panel level with minimal custom CSS.
Blow SCORM – too complex with legacy architecture.
MOODLE IS CRITICAL AS IT’S A..M..A..Z..I..N..G
SCORM is huge in eLearning. So many infrastructures and systems can tap into it’s power. Don’t discount it Woo! 🙂
Can we get an approximate release date on these products please? Thank you.
Three things.
1. For the Superstore you would not go far wrong if you emulated the function of http://www.polyvore.com, have a look at how it auto updates if you go to the end, also look at the links on the left with the ability to choose what is on sale or within a price range. Check out how different it is if you choose a product type e.g. jelly shoes http://www.polyvore.com/jellies_shoes/shop?p=3&query=jellies+shoes but also how you can still use the links on the left to break it down to Jelly shoes on sale or Jelly shoes within a price range. These are just URL parameters
2. With regard to LMS, this is interesting as long as you include Amazon s3 and cloudfront support but also you MUST protect the content. This means having a checker to make sure that permissions at s3 and cloudfront are secure but also that you either develop a player or use something like this secure video player http://bit.ly/SecureVid – This is seperate from the theme, for that you need a membership site, something along the lines of https://bitly.com/ProTheme which costs $97 so if you had something like that it would add real value to the membership, it would need levels of membership (probably around 10).
3. One thing I have noticed is that you guys do not seem to have an Iphone theme, people need these for two reasons, one is as App themes that profile their apps and display demo pages, the other is to demo mobile versions of websites that they have designed. The market for mobile is huge, I have seen a basic theme for the App demo called myapp at http://bit.ly/Etheme but it is dull and boring, I am sure a Woo one would be better.
Finally I agree with others that it is about time you split the Woo membership, perhaps offering Woocommerce for $15 a month and the non WooCommerce for $15 or $25 for the two (all Dev memberships).
Hope this helps
Nice themes. I’m interested in beta testing them before it is released. 🙂
Oops… *they are
Will the LMS run solely on WordPress? Or will it require a plugin like buddypress also?
It’s all awesome! I look forward for the upcoming products!! Thanks for the post!!!
I see that you have now shelved the Superstore theme, is LMS still going ahead?
Why do you say it has been shelved? Has there been an announcement?
If you take a look at the Facebook page, it was said in answer to a question.
The question asked was:
“hey guys – can you give me some sort of ETA on when you will release Superstore? (it will determine how much customization I continue to do on my current woocommerce site, or just wait for it to come out)”
And the answer from WooThemes was:
“Unfortunately this product has been declined for production for now. We may revisit the idea in the the future though. Please don’t base any current projects on this.”
Ah ok, well if this is true thats a shame. I actually mentioned above in an earlier comment that with application themes a roadmap for constant development is key – releasing an application theme and not bringing out regular key updates is what makes most this application themes not very reliable. Hopefully someone can crack this space as alot of value can come here. I am a little worried for the LMS theme now 🙁
I’m really interested in the LMS theme and will use it a lot for sure when its available.
I’m looking for a way to use different WooThemes on subdomains as part of a multi-functional site but only require a user to have one profile/login with which to use all the different parts of the sites located on different subdomains. Would I have to use WP Multisite for this? Is there a plugin that can help me on this?
I love all the different functionalities available now with WooThemes, would like to take advantage of each theme without driving my users nuts with multiple logins.
Thanks for any tips you can provide…