Store with lots of additional content

  • Hi – hoping you can help with some advice!

    Short version:

    – Non-trading WP site exists with lots of content, displayed in custom ways, reasonably complex. Will be re-developed from a user centric point of view.

    – Now need to add a sizeable ecommerce section using WooCommerce (possibly creating a child theme for storefront).

    Should I keep the two parts (trading and non-trading) completely separate (i.e. use two WordPress installations, one with WooCommerce, the other with a custom theme, both styled to look similar), or should I bring over all the content into the new WooCommerce site and stick with one WP install?

    I’m currently thinking that from a redundancy point of view, and to keep the ecommerce store as secure and smoothly running as possible it might be best to keep things separate. What would you do? Would it be risky to bring all the content (and theme and function customisations) over into WooCommerce?

    Many thanks for any advice!

    Longer version:

    I’m currently planning a website update for a client.
    They currently have a non-ecommerce site using a completely bespoke theme.

    There’s a lot of content, using CPTs, categories, sections, filtering, hooks etc to get all the different types of content to display as client desires. It ‘bends’ WordPress’ base functionality a fair bit, but that’s why I like developing with WP as I seem to be able to accomplish most things! This site currently receives a couple of thousand visits per day, more at weekends.

    The user journey and complexity of current site desperately needs looking at – it’s grown into a bit of a beast with lots of ‘dead-ends’ or silo’d content.

    They now want to add a store. A few dozen products this year – lots more next year. The store will become the primary focus of the site, but the content will remain, is invaluable, and will help drive users to hopefully purchase.

    As I’m already pretty familiar with WordPress (I’ve produced a few themes over the years), and as the current site already uses WordPress I thought it made sense to try WooCommerce. Although i have experience with a couple of other ecommerce platforms I’ve not used WooCommerce before, other than having a quick play with it.

    I’m wondering if it would be best to keep the two parts ( ecommerce and non-trading with lots of content) completely separate (i.e two separate WordPress installs), or should I heavily customise a WooCommerce Storefront child theme and bring over all of the content into the new developed WooCommerce store?

    If it makes any difference, there are a couple of content editors that regularly update and add content to the current site and will need to continue doing so after development has finished.

    I’m currently thinking that from a redundancy point of view, and to keep the ecommerce store as secure and smoothly running as possible it might be best to keep things separate. I’m sure with a cookie or two it should be possible to keep a cart persistent across both sites.

    What would you do?

    Hopefully that makes sense!
    Really grateful for any advice.

    I appreciate there’s more to think about from a UX and UI point of view.

    • This topic was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by tictok.
    • This topic was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by tictok.
Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • I dont think there is a better way, after all WordPress allows you to customize its pages all you want. Store pages may not include the custom code that is used on non-store pages at all.

    Thread Starter tictok

    (@tictok)

    Hi – thanks for your reply.

    Sorry, trying to understand (as I don’t think my original question was definitive enough), but I think you’re saying you think it’d be best to bring all content into the same WP install as the store?

    Is there any significant speed penalty as database gets bigger? (I guess that depends upon server setup as much as anything)…

    Thanks again

    No, I am not saying its best. I am saying neither is best, there are no obvious pros and cons to decide which is better. Dont forget that two sites share the same host and hardware limits, I dont have the expertise to say whether you win in performance by having two separate databases or just one. Although you can “try before buying”, create both installation types and fill them with test products and examine which works better.

    Thread Starter tictok

    (@tictok)

    Okay, I understand now! Thanks for your advice, it make sense.

    I think the route I’m going to take will be to develop the store separately and bring a little of the content (eg product info pages) over into the store for phase 1.

    Phase 2 will be to massively simplify the structure of the existing magazine site and bring that into the store as in time I will probably need to allow users to login (eg either for account address details or content behind a paywall) or integrate things further. I guess that will be easier to achieve if everything is one place.

    Related query: Is there anyway to display Woo-commerce cart info (at least number of items and total price) on a non commerce WordPress site?

    I can see how it could be done with sessions and cookies, but does anyone know of a quick / easy way to achieve this.. maybe a plugin? Probably need to post a new question for that though!

    Thanks
    Stef

    I dont think such plugin exists. If you need to “utilize” registered users from the regular site, then having one united site seems to be the better option after all.

    If you dont need registered users, just cart content on other ‘non-shop-site’ pages, you may simply create code that generates a simple file at certain url, that you can include from there and display in the required way.

    Thread Starter tictok

    (@tictok)

    Hey – thanks for the info superkot, I apprecite it!

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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