In my current mood, I do not recommend the eStore plugin but if you must, pay your money and do this. I had to rebuild my store. Now I know how, it should take half-an-hour. It took my over 9 hours with back and forth to the vendors. Here’s some tips to help you understand what is involved.
So calm down, read carefully, and work carefully. 30 minutes should be ample especially with some preparation long before you get into trouble. So I will write as if you are building the eStore from the very beginning.
#1 License and commercial details
• Keep two pieces of paper – the email with the download link and the Paypal transaction.
• Keep the email address you used and the Paypal transaction number – they work as your permanent license. You need them to communicate with eStore.
• I have stored them in various places like my email, on the CD where a backup of the plugin is stored, in my diary in case I am away from my desk when it crashes – which it will it seems.
#2 Help and forum
Now sign up to the forum and change your password. Again you don’t want to do this when your shop is collapsing and you are under pressure.
#3 Supercache – not
Then download the plugin and use it. Don’t use Supercache even if your hosting service says to. And even though eStore says things like “if you are using Supercache”. They mean “please never use Supercache”.
If you are in Europe, don’t use Supercache. It stops people changing their details in your cart and shows the details to other customers. Without stopping to worry too much about it, it seems that this breaches Privacy laws horribly.
And don’t delete Supercache if you find you have it running with eStore because it eStore will break you WordPress dashboard.
You must deactivate, if not delete eStore, take down Supercache, and rebuild eStore. Horrible, huh?
#4 Rebuild eStore
Rebuilding eStore is much easier than eStore makes out. This is what you need to know.
Your WordPress site has two parts: the code is loaded up in one part which you can see using FTP. The content of your posts is loaded into a MySQL database which is accessed through phpmyAdmin.
When you back up your WordPress site, only the MySQL database is getting backed up. If you want to restore your database, you still need a skeleton WordPress site to house it. You can always rebuild a Worpress site from scratch and put back in them, and modications and plugins. So remember to back up any themes that you have bought, any child theme you have written, and to list the plugins you use and any licenses that you have like for your spam catcher. This is not stuff to leave till tomorrow. Always do it immediately.
So let’s assume you do have your MySQL backed up, and you do have the modifications to your WordPress theme backed up and notes of what is where on your website.
To rebuild eStore, you also need a good copy of their code. If you bought it recently, you have one. If it is a few months old, get the commercial details together and to their forum to hunt, and I mean hunt, for a link for automatic updates. Use the commercial details to get updated copies of the plugin.
Save the up-to-date plugins somewhere on your C drive (remembering to backup them up on CD later). Now what you are going to do is wipe out the offending plugins and write back the code for the plugins.
Use FTP or Filezilla to look at the WordPress PHP for your website and track to wp-content/plugins. Delege the wp-cart-for-digital-products and any offending caches. You can do that because only the code hangs in those foldders. The details of your shop have been stored in your MySQL database (which is backed up anyway, right?).
Now you can transfer the new plugin from your hard drive to the folder where the old eStore hung out. And all should be good.
The key is to be clear where everything lives and that the details of your shop are in MySQL and the code for the plugin is in what you see in FTP (your theme is also there). The only shop assets you can see in FTP are under wp-content/uploads. If you are selling digital goods, that’s where they are. All the tetchy little details of the shop and who bought what are in the MySQL database with your posts, comments, users etc.
I hope this helps. Rebuilding eStore should take about half-an-hour. It took me 9 hours. It needn’t.