enVirashop - eCommerce Wordpress Theme

BEWARE NO HELP ! WORST PURCHASE EVER !!! Theme has a lot of issues. I’m going to contact PayPal or my Credit Card to get my $$$ ‘(

Overall this is a pretty sweet-looking Wordpress template from the 2009-era. It does the big things extremely well like adding products and uploading logos and images. I give it props for the design and minimalist style, which is why I hestitate to write anything critical, but…

Envirashop must have been great in 2009, but in 2012, it’s starting to show some age. First it relies on some external links, which are bound to change over the years. The internet isn’t written in stone after all! Two of the plugin links have moved as mentioned numerous times by others, but honestly they’re pretty easy to find with a little Googling. I found them in less than 5 minutes. Why weren’t they bundled?

Luckily, the first, and best, buying option, PayPal, is still there after 3 years. The other option, Google Checkout, has transformed saiyan style into Google Wallet. This EnviraShop cart option works though, but it confused me a little since I’m a noob to both WordPress and e-commerce. (Not the design’s fault…just the times…they are a-changin.)

The gray-on-gray color scheme is on the cusp of being too washed out. To make it work, all EnviraShop sites need extra bold, vibrantly-colored product images. I understand and appreciate the minimalism, but grayness does become a problem with some of the buttons, like “More Info,” whose grayness gives the impression of unavailability. “Can I click it or not?” It looks great when hovering over though.

The main banners are cool because of the range of color options. Of course, as fate has it, the one color I really wanted, bright orange, wasn’t there. (I wanted to match the sweet shopping cart!) So I had to make my own orange banner in Photoshop, using the supplied PSD file, and cranking up the saturation.

While Photoshopping, I realized that all the banners have such low contrast. By that I mean they are f’ing dull! As if a color vampire sucked out all the saturation. For my custom orange banner, I resorted to putting an emboss filter effect in Fireworks. EnviraShop contains no option to add more color banners. I admit, such a feature would not be difficult to program. In the end, I copied my orange banner over the pre-existing red banner jpeg.

Even after I finished crafting my own banner, the banner started to annoy me. I’m not sure why it’s there. So you can type a message on it. It’s big and it’s in the way and it takes up about 20% of the page. I really think it needs to go.

Envirashop has a pretty good interface for customizing though. It’s dead simple to upload a logo and a favicon. Adding products is a breeze. It does the big things really well. The scrolls are really nice. The cart has a upbeat bounce in its step too.

I kick myself for not reading the other comments more carefully. First post clearly says “digital downloads not supported.” I want to sell digital downloads, which needs an auto-response email system, and hosting, etc. I wanted to switch the EnviraShop cart system over to an e-junkie cart system. After a few weeks of setting up my site, I finally am giving up.

I’m at my wit’s end trying to figure out how to do what I want. I feel like the cart programming is in a hundred pieces…header.php, some js files, some jquery files, some gifs, etc. I guess that’s the nature of the beast. I now realize WordPress templates can be extremely tough to customize.

Practically a dealbreaker in itself is the way the “About” tab is front and center, while the product categories are hidden under a drop down menu. I want people to buy my shit, not read my hobbies! This feature is a legacy of it’s blogging roots and is very bad for business.

In the end, I am abandoning this template because of the digital download issue. I took a risk, thinking I could alter the cart MacGyver style, but alas, I’m just a Richard Dean Anderson. I’m sure Envirashop is pretty good for physical goods though. On the other hand, many companies, like PayPal, Google, and e-junkie offer cut and paste html cart systems, making pre-programmed carts such as this one obsolete. Ah, evolution. It’ll be interesting to see how companies cater more to the cart system over the next few years.

I now wonder whether these themes should have a shelf life. Three years is pretty long in Internet years…and this template is starting to show a little gray. ZING !

Pros: Easy to upload photos, logos Easy to add products Some customizable colors Good animations Good system of product pages and categories

Cons: Washed out gray-on-gray color scheme DOES NOT WORK FOR DIGITAL DOWNLOADS No option for Google Ads Requires external plugins (not included) Three years old $30 price. Recommend $15.