WP Multistore Builder [review]
POS:
Auto updates, its a plugin not a theme, sell products from several sourcesNEG:
No tutorials, or support link built into the pluginToday I’m reviewing a WordPress plugin called WP MultiStore Builder WP Multistore Builder is not a new concept by any means. I have probably seen a dozen or more store builders for WordPress. People create software like this because they have a lot of appeal. Being able to sell any physical product on popular sites […]
Today I’m reviewing a WordPress plugin called WP MultiStore Builder
WP Multistore Builder is not a new concept by any means. I have probably seen a dozen or more store builders for WordPress. People create software like this because they have a lot of appeal. Being able to sell any physical product on popular sites like Amazon (for example) as an affiliate offers a unique opportunity to get into the eCommerce business without needing to buy, stock, or ship the actual products yourself. A visitor comes to your site, views the details of a product (which are auto pulled from the sales platform you are using) and if they click the buy button instead of going to a checkout they are directed to the sales platform you are using via an affiliate link, earning you a commission if they complete the purchase. Also since they are now cookied to you if they anything else shortly after you will generally get a commission for those sales as well. As I said, quite appealing given these sales platforms generally have tens of thousands of products that can accommodate any kind of niche affiliate store you want to build.
Even though I tested several different software systems like this WP Multistore Builder does stand out in several ways.
First of all is the Multi part of its name. You see most of the affiliate store builder software I have tested focused on one of two platforms, Amazon or AliExpress. A few allowed you to sell products from both, but in general they where limited to either one or both of these. WP Multistore Builder allows you to sell products as an affiliate for several different platforms. The options are: Amazon, Ebay, WalMart, Envato (very cool if you want a store to sell digital products), AliExpress and Shopify. Best of all you actually create ‘mini stores’ in your site and sell on any of all of these platforms from the same website. Of course though you will need to signup to be an affiliate for each platform you want to sell with so it might be best to chose one or two that suits your niche best.
Also in the interest of being totally transparent I should point out that not all of these platforms have very good affiliate programs. BestBuy for example sucks paying a 0% commission on the most popular types of products people buy from them and only 1% on everything else.
WalMart on the other hand pays 4% for most things which is not bad for physical products. Evato (the parent company of sites like CodeCanyon, ThemeForest etc) pays a 30% commission (though it is limited to only the first purchase and it must be a new customer).
Besides the multi store part there are other things that make WP Multistore Builder stand out:
For example it is a WordPress plugin where as many of the other systems I have seen where WordPress themes. Why is a plugin better? Because it is more flexible. It does not completely overtake your site and it also means you can use it with the theme of your choice to have control over things such as design, layout and feel. Now this also means that if your theme totally sucks your store is going to look like garbage however with all of the free (and paid) resources available for themes there is no excuse to have a theme that sucks.
Perhaps the most impressive difference between WP Multistore Builder is the fact that it auto-updates.
You see most of these affiliate store builders work the same. You enter your affiliate API details. You enter in the keywords for the product types you want to populate your store with, press a button and boom you have a store. The software will pull the product, its description, and its price from the sales platform your using and automatically create all the pages and posts that you need. Nice and easy and thats all great. But unfortunately that’s where most of these systems stop. Your site never gets updated if the price changes, if the product goes out of stock, if the description is updated or gets new images. After a while you end up with an outdated store that lists old products that might not even be for sale anymore or has the wrong prices. Not to cool.
However WP Multistore Builder has an auto-update feature that keeps all of this up to date without you needing to do a thing.
This feature uses a built in WordPress function called WP_CRON to do this twice a day. What this means is that you don’t have to do any complicated set up to make it work, its totally automatic. It does mean that someone has to visit your site at least one (and preferably twice) a day as WP_CRON can only fire if someone actually visits your site. But really when you think about it that should not be a problem because if no one is coming to your site, who cares if its updated anyway.
So what do I think of this new plugin? Well as I said from the start, its nothing new. I have seen software like this before. However that being said this does indeed have features and functionality as well as flexibility that for sure makes it stand out among the products of this type I have seen. Beyond that I do want to make something clear as well. While the ability to sell any of tens if not hundreds of thousands of products that you do not have to buy, stock, or ship is quite appealing you need to understand that your unlikely to get rich from a single site. The people who make good money with this kind of marketing have several sites that are very niche specific. They make a little money from each site that ads up to a decent amount.
If you already have a affiliate store builder then you will have to ask yourself two very personal questions: Do I really need another one? Will I take action on this if I buy this one? If the answer to both of these questions are yes OR if you do not have an affiliate store builder already and would like to get into niche affiliate store marketing then WP Multistore Builder is going to be a good choice and a worth while investment.
BONUS: The product vendors have generously provided me with a nice bonus package that anyone who picks up WP Multistore Builder though my link will get as a special gift:
Click here to get WP Multistore Builder and instant access to all of the bonuses listed above (right in the members area)
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
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Can these sites be sold, on Flippa, do I have to buy an oto, to sell them?
Wondering how much resources these sites eat in terms of hosting?
Any idea of how many pages a store can have?
Great review and I know you don’t normally review the up-sells, so, I hoping maybe one of the vendors will jump in.
Ill ask the vendor to pop in and answer these questions.
Hi Mary,
Yes, you would need to by the Resellers License to be able to sell the plugin or flip a site that it is on. That is the 4th OTO.
The plugin doesn’t eat that much server resources since it’s using shortcodes. The database will just grow depending on how many products you want to import into your store.
You can make as many pages as you like with this plugin as there are products to potentially promote on the different networks.
Hope this gives you some clarity. Thanks!
In case the vendor/developer is watching this, on the sales page, the button on the sales page “GET MULTISTORE BUILDER NOW” has a target of # so it simply takes me to the top of the page rather than taking me to the buy button section.
I just clicked it, it looks fine to me (also other people are for sure buying it)