SmugMug and Wordpress Integration

TravelSD

I'm working on a new WordPress site that is a combination blog and gallery (with eCommerce). Ideally, I'd like to use WP for most everything except for the SmugMug shopping cart experience. Meaning, I'll have custom gallery and lightboxes running on WP (which I have full control over), a shopping cart button that pulls up the SmugMug sizing/pricing options, and then at some point redirects to SmugMug for the checkout, payment, and fulfillment. I'd like this to be as visually seamless as possible for desktop and mobile.

I contacted SmugMug support, and they basically said I'm going about this backwards. Meaning, I should just do my blog on WP and link to that from the SM site. But I want more control over my site, different gallery views, etc. Plugins to "just" do SM checkout on Wordpress don't seem to exist or are very old and unsupported.

www.jkatzphoto.com seems to be a pretty seamless integration with SM, but I don't know what his back-end integration looks like and what if any is Wordpress.

Any ideas would be much appreciated!

Hikin' Mike

I use WordPress for everything except the e-Commerce. My SmugMug is a subdomain for my galleries. I know HTML/CSS so my two sites are 99.999% seamless.

The photos that I plan on selling get uploaded to SmugMug. The photos that I'm probably not going to sell get uploaded to my WP site.

Tom Foster

Just to add too, the site you linked (jkatzphotography) is all Smugmug, no Wordpress there that I see. I am using Wordpress for the root domain on mine with Smugmug on a 'gallery.' subdomain, same as Hikin' Mike seems to be!

BeautifulWorld

I am of the view too that if the aim is photography that using Smugmug as the entry point is the right way to go. I have tried to connect my Smugmug and Wordpress as seamleassly as possible but I too use smugmug as the gallery and ecommerce and WP as the blog end.

SergioCosta

I was just checking the Wordpress and Smugmug website integration that some folks use, and it looks pretty nice with the exception of something that I have noticed. Let’s say that If someone buys a photo and it goes to the cart, then the buyer decides to go back to the home page or to check a blog or somewhere else inside Wordpress where your pages are, the shopping cart won’t show up on this pages. The customer can get lost looking for the cart, and will only find it again if he/she gets inside smugmug site where the pictures for sale are.
Any solution for this one?

Sergio

Hikin' Mike

@SergioCosta said:
I was just checking the Wordpress and Smugmug website integration that some folks use, and it looks pretty nice with the exception of something that I have noticed. Let’s say that If someone buys a photo and it goes to the cart, then the buyer decides to go back to the home page or to check a blog or somewhere else inside Wordpress where your pages are, the shopping cart won’t show up on this pages. The customer can get lost looking for the cart, and will only find it again if he/she gets inside smugmug site where the pictures for sale are.

Any solution for this one?



Sergio

SmugMug and WordPress are going to be separate "websites". My solution is to mention that in my 'Purchase' section, in part:

When you make a purchase you will see “Items in Cart” as well as the number of images in yellow on the top right. Since I use a different section of my website for the e-Commerce, the cart is only visible while you’re on my gallery pages. Clicking on the Gallery will bring you back to the e-Commerce section.

SergioCosta

Thanks Mike, this is exactly what I was talking about. Like you said “the cart is ONLY visible while you’re on my gallery pages” ( where the photos are hosted) if the customer decides to check around the home page or the blog or something else inside WP, there will be no way to see the shopping cart in those pages. I wish it could have some integration to WP to show the shopping cart from your gallery when the customer leaves the gallery in Smugmug. That would make it easy for the customer just to click on the shopping cart that’s is on top of the page like any other website.

PhotoDavid78

Mike, I'm curious if there is a tutorial or code to copy to integrate a smugmug gallery into wordpress the same way you have on your site? thanks

Hikin' Mike

@PhotoDavid78 said:
Mike, I'm curious if there is a tutorial or code to copy to integrate a smugmug gallery into wordpress the same way you have on your site? thanks

No there is now way to make a tutorial as each WordPress site is different.