Caching for Shopp

[markb1439]

Hi,

We're thinking of deploying the Shopp plugin in a multisite environment in conjunction with Quick Cache. Although caching is not generally recommended with shopping carts, Shopp has a Cache Helper plugin that works directly with W3 Total Cache. It is said that Shopp can also work with other caching plugins if the following instructions are followed (and supported by the plugin):

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1) Tell your caching plugin to not serve cached pages when the cookie is detected (default cookie is 'shopp_items_in_cart').

2) Tell your caching plugin to never cache the pages listed in the 'No-cache paths' setting of this plugin.

3) Make sure your caching plugin honours the 'DONOTCACHEPAGE' constant. Currently W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache are known to honour this constant.
==========

I know that #2 is an easy one. How about #1 and #3? Can they be achieved with Quick Cache? If so, how?

Thanks,

Mark

[webfocusdesign]

I would actually like an answer to this as well as I just started using Shopp.

Thanks!

[markb1439]

Do you like Shopp so far? We've also been trying Cart66, and we like them both to be honest.

[webfocusdesign]

Do you like Shopp so far? We've also been trying Cart66, and we like them both to be honest.

I love Shopp so far. It is a much better product than Cart66 for me for a several reasons. YMMV. I quickly realized that Cart66 would not work for me when I got replies to two pre-purchase questions emails I sent them (I sent similar ones to Shopp later). I did not actually spend a lot of time playing with Cart66 as they were quick to respond... and crush my hopes in the product

From Cart66's support person's responses, there were huge cons to their product for me:

1- I live in Quebec and most of my clients are francophone. Cart66 is not localized. I don't mean not translated to French, I mean not localized at all! Their support guys told me I'd have to hack core files to translate it... yeah right! That was a deal breaker for me right out of the gate and a very strange thing in WordPress' ecosystem where this has largely been a non-issue for me. I have yet to try even an obscure plugin that is not localized, even if I have to do the translation myself. Come on! This is the *WORLD WIDE* Web! Really disappointing but that was not all. Shopp on the other hand is localized and a decent French translation is well on its way.

2- Second deal breaker: Cart66 apparently does not calculate shipping by weight... Now I was really scratching my head. I mean, how many online stores that ship physical goods calculate shipping by weight, size or both? I worked in a company for years where I handled shipping (Fedex, Purolator, UPS, Canada Post... you name it, they all charged by weight). Not an issue with Shopp. It does, and very well too. Easy to setup and all. There's more:

3- Now this won't be important to everyone but according to the Cart66 support guy, their cart doesn't have hooks, not one. Hooks are a WordPress developer's bread and butter. That's how we can modify plugins, themes and even WordPress' behavior without touching core files. Shopp on the other hand has about 400 hooks... yes... four hundred! I'll be able to do with hooks what I had to hack core files on another product to achieve (client wanted to prevent checkout until 4 lbs of products were in the user's cart. He sells coffee online.... by weight But wait... there's more!

4- The same client processes credit card transactions himself on a terminal. I asked Cart66 if their cart could do that and store cc # somewhere but I didn't specify how. Now, my question may have been worded in a weird way, I don't know. I didn't specify how I'd want to cc # storage to be done. Guy responds almost berating me that storing naked cc # in db would be insecure and break PCI compliance. No ****! But I never asked for that specifically. I was only wondering if they handled manual payment processing... in any way. Shopp has an addon that does exactly this... securely encrypts and stores cc # securely and in a 100% PCI compliant way. Thank you Shopp! There's more...

5-This and the next one are Canada specific but all other carts I tried had solutions for these. Cart66 does not handle shipping through Canada Post. Hmmm... Shopp has an addon...

6- Guy writes that Cart66 supports Canadian tax... but only at the provincial level! Woot? And the Federal GST? Do you think the federal government will overlook it if I don't collect the GST? Didn't think so. So basically, no, Cart66 does NOT support Canadian tax. If it can create personalized tax rates and calculations, I don't know as I didn't play with Cart66 long enough (and only the Lite version) and the support guy didn't say. But of course, Shopp does...

So yeah, I really like Shopp so far

Other huge plusses:

1- Awesome documentation... and I don't use the word awesome lightly. It is complete, clear, comprehensive and searchable.
2- Great support forums
3- From what I have read in there so far, the Shopp devs seem very responsive to user requests and release updates often.
4- Very easy to use and setup at first. All carts have their own way to do things but I think Shopp handles categories, products and variations/options the right way.

I realize I probably explained things you already know but I'll probably blog about my experience reserching Wordpress Ecommerce solutions and this was my practice run

Cheers!

[markb1439]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

As for the caching, I think it might be very easy:

1) Add the appropriate pages to the list of pages not to cache (cart, checkout, etc.).
2) Add the no cache include to each of Shopp's widgets:

Code: Select all

define('QUICK_CACHE_ALLOWED', false);

So, for any page with a Shopp widget, caching will be disabled.

HTH.

[webfocusdesign]

Thanks for that! Much appreciated. If I ever get Quick Cache to work I'll use it for sure:

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