How to Turn Your WordPress Site into a Digital Photo Store and Sell Photos Securely

25 March 2010

Do you want to turn your wordpress site into a digital photo store so that anyone can purchase photo?Do you want to sell photo securely with an automatic system? In this video tutorial I am going to show you the easy steps to do it.

First, install the nextgen gallery plugin and WP eStore plugin on your wordpress site.

Now download the WP eStore Template File , unzip it and upload it to the ‘view’ folder of the NextGen gallery plugin directory.

After that you need to look at some basic settings of WP eStore plugin. The default settings are fine but you may want to customize some settings. I am showing you some basic settings to get you started with this.

Once you customize the WP eStore settings, you can go through the following four steps,

1. Adding a New Gallery

Simply create a new gallery and upload images(which you want to show the visitors as thumbnail, not the actual images) to that gallery. Once you are done, upload the actual images (which you want to deliver to your customers after they purchase) of those thumbnail (e.g. nature1.jpg, nature2.jpg) to any directory of you website ( I have not shown this in the video tutorial though).

2. Add Products to WP eStore

After you upload images to the gallery, add those images as products to WP eStore. Note that while adding images as products, you will have to specify the URL of the actual image in the “Digital Product URL” section( not the thumbnail image URL) even though I put the thumbnail image URL in “Digital Product URL” section as an example in this video tutorial. This way you can prevent people from stealing your actual photos. Suppose, your actual image is 800 x 600 pixels and its thumbnail version is 200 x 150 pixels. when anyone visits your photo product page, they might be able to steal the “thumbnail image” but not the actual one as only WP eStore plugin knows the specific URL of that actual image.

3. Creating a “Add to Cart” Button

In this step you need to create a “Add to Cart” button for the specific images.

4. Showing the Content of the Gallery on a Product Page

The last step is to show the content ( e.g. images) of the created gallery on a product page where your visitor will be able to purchase from. Once anyone purchases any image from your “Product” page seeing its thumbnail version, WP eStore plugin will send an email containing the encrypted download link of the actual image to that customer after the payment processing is done.

Once you are done with setting up all of them, you will be able to sell photos from your site.

The two plugins can be found here:

NextGen Gallery

WP eStore

8 Comments »

WordPress Shop Demo Using NextGen Gallery and WP Shopping Cart | WordPress eCommerce said:

[...] the post on How to Turn Your WordPress Site into a Digital Photo Store and Sell Photos Securely for more [...]

# 25 March 2010 at 6:07 am

WP eStore Quick Setup and Usage Video Tutorial | Tips and Tricks eCommerce Site said:

[...] How to Sell Photos from WordPress site using NextGen Gallery plugin [...]

# 25 March 2010 at 6:47 am

Fank said:

Thank you soo much, this was exactly what I was looking for!

-Frank

# 7 June 2010 at 12:06 pm

Spencer Lavery said:

Hi,

Is there currently any way to offer prints in multiple sizes using this solution?

With best wishes,
Spencer.

# 14 June 2010 at 7:34 am

admin (author) said:

If you want to sell print out copy of your image (i.e as a physical product) and only with WP eStore (without nextgen gallery), you can do but you need to use variation control for that. You will find the following post helpful for using variation control with WP eStore-

http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-to-use-variation-control-in-wordpress-estore-plugin-345

Cheers

# 14 June 2010 at 7:47 am

Ethan said:

Hi, I’m trying to set up an photo store with nextgen gallery. Can I do it without using nextgen gallery?

Thanks

# 14 June 2010 at 8:53 am

admin (author) said:

Yes indeed. WP eStore is a completely independent shopping cart plugin so you can sell any photo as a digital or non-digital product. The reason why WP eStore has been integrated with nextgen gallery is to satisfy those people who like to use nextgen gallery plugin. The following post will explain how you can sell digital or non-digital products online with WP eStore plugin-

http://www.wordpress-ecommerce.com/how-to-sell-digital-or-non-digital-products-online-with-wordpress-estore-plugin-497

# 14 June 2010 at 9:02 am

Adrian Spencer said:

Hi,

Is it possible to bulk add photos? I want to use the plug in to sell photos on a large scale and I don’t want to have to add 400 products every time I publish a wedding album.

Thanks,

Adrian

# 12 August 2010 at 8:42 am