YAK Shopping Cart WordPress Plugin Review
by Tyrone on March 26, 2009 - 17 comments
Amongst the other e-commerce plugins I have reviewed such eShop and WP e-Commerce, YAK Shopping Cart has come to my attention and the author Jason R Briggs describes the plugin as follows:
YAK is an open source, shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It associates products with weblog entries, so the post ID also becomes the product code. It supports both pages and posts as products, handles different types of product through categories, and provides customisable purchase options (cheque or deposit, basic credit card form, standard PayPal integration, PayPal Payments Pro, and Authorize.net).
Therefore I was interested in testing to see how it would compare to the other plugins I’ve tried. So let’s get straight into the pros and cons of this plugin.
THE PROS
Includes Sales Reports And Graphs
YAK Shopping Cart comes with a Sales Report option under the Tools menu. In comparison to other plugins it is definitely a positive with more reporting available to see sales progress. The reports in this plugin are:
- Best sellers for the year
- Best sellers for the month
- A simple graph to see the sales for the month
A Good Range Of Payment Options Available
YAK Shopping Cart has many payment options readily available and it’s built into the plugin. Unlike other e-commerce plugins which are limited or require you to purchase additional payment gateways, YAK covers a majority of them. This plugin offers:
- Manual Credit Card Processing
- Credit on Accounts Receivable
- Authorize.net
- Paypal and Paypal Pro
- Google Checkout
As long as you have an account with the above payment merchants, it’s not too hard to link your shopping cart to them. Though, I’ve noticed they are still lacking payment options such as cash, cheque / money order and cash on delivery. Also YAK does offer a secure SSL connection for all of the above payments.
THE CONS
Documentation And Help Is Hard To Find
I found the plugin quite easy to install but found it very hard to navigate through YAK’s administration panel. It is partly due to a lack of documentation on how to use this plugin. Without documentation most people would struggle to use YAK and would not find it to be user friendly. Additionally I was very surprised to find I had to pay for a handbook to get the documentation, giving the impression the plugin was designed solely to make money not from usage but documentation. I would have rather paid for a plugin with documentation than be given a plugin that you have to waste time figuring how to use it yourself.
Lack Of Functionality For Products
After setting up a product in a post and linking it to YAK I’ve found it to be really basic and lacking a lot of functionality. There are no fields to insert product images. It was not easy to find the fields for obvious product attributes such as weight and quantity. I felt lost when trying to add products.
Not User Friendly And Lack Of Design On The Front End
As I have mentioned already without documentation a user has to spend time working out how this plugin works. What makes it worst is that each section in YAK’s administration is not self explanatory. At first after installing the plugin I went to find a menu called YAK, but after realising there was nothing there I found it had been added to the Tools menu. It added 3 new links: Orders, Products and Sales Reports. I think the developers at YAK thought I could work out how to use this, but they were wrong. It made more frustrated!
To mention, there is a YAK link under Settings which does allow you to change the options for Basic, Products, Download, Payment, Special, Advanced, Shipping, Promotions. It did alleviate some of my frustration when I found this, but I still couldn’t see much on the front end. As you can see, a very poorly designed plugin and lack of user friendliness on both the front end and administration.
Conclusion
I decided to let this plugin go as I had spent over 3 hours just understanding how the plugin could fit into a WordPress blog. Overall there is a lack of user-friendliness and without the user manual it is very difficult to work out yourself. For users who want something simple and a shopping cart that works straight away, YAK is definitely not your solution. I would go back to using WP e-Commerce or eShop any day.
My rating for this plugin is 1 out of 5 stars.
Tyrone Shum
e-Commerce Plugin Reviewer
My name is 
At the risk of being a cynic, how is this better than the dozen other wordpress shopping carts?
I am setting up YAK for use on a client site and I entirely disagree with your review.
The whole point of it, is that you don’t need to change the way you’re currently using your website/blog.
It’s as easy as creating a new post, putting some information or images into your post in exactly the same way you normally would, then using a yak shortcode to place an Add to Cart button.
It’s that simplicity that makes it so powerful!
I tried most of the other free e commerce plugins for WordPress and YAK was the only one that would do the things I needed to do. Once you get the hang of it it’s not that difficult.
I also want to point out how much help the plugin designer and the community can help if you run into problems.
http://groups.google.com/group/yak-discuss
I am new to web design and have figured out how to make it work exactly the way I wanted/needed it to.
I’ll post a link to the site I created with it when done.
I am testing plugins for WordPress and Zencart.
I found YAK to be a nice shopping cart. Nice idea.
I do have to agree with Trone that documentation needs improvement. I did get frustrated to set it up.
I am a software architect and believe me passing out our ideas to other individuals is not easy without handy documentation and examples.
@Tyrone you are doing a grate job, like this blog
YAK is quite difficult to use
it took me 2 hours to add one product.
when i used the short codes [yak_price] and [yak_buy]
i got ($0) and (product out of stock) as the output.
now the plugin is in my recycle bin
Hi Tony,
Thanks for your comment. I agree YAK is not that easy to use. That’s why I gave it the review I did. Hopefully since then they’ve improved on it with the newer versions.
Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!
I just wanted to add an oppinion here. As a newcomer when I decided to use a shopping cart on my blog for additional income, toher than the basic Adsense, Affiliate link type blog, I have a membership to PLR/MRR materials and thought why not offer it on my blog.So I looked at the many plugins and found that most took up too much space on the blog and some actually turned it into a store site. I wanted something that I could put into a post and would be viewed as content for search engines whenever a product was added.YAK fit the bill perfectly for me.I did purchase the handbook and had numerous questions in the beginning,that Jason was very quick to respond to and used basic terms that I would understand.Not High Developer Tech.talk.Any way after getting everything understood I wanted to make it easier for others to install the FIRST time out.So I made some installation videos with approval and they are available at
http://shoppingcartforwordpress.com
Not spamming here just offering alternatives that relate to the subject strictly.
Cragar
http://ebaysebooks.com
Hi Craig,
Thanks for your valued input. I have heard that Jason from YAK has also made lots of changes to his software so that it’s easier to use. Hopefully with the handbook it does help users out there though.
You’ve got me wrong. I don’t think the review is snide. Just a little short on research.
In regard to “lack of help”, perhaps it’s my misunderstanding of your heading “Documentation And Help Is Hard To Find”. Maybe you were talking about help in terms of docs within the plugin itself, rather than help in terms of support.
I would still argue the point that basic instructions are available from the main project page. I feel there’s enough there to get a user going. But I will look at adding a little more detail on creating products — like you say one person saying something on their blog, is probably the tip of a less vocal iceberg.
Thanks for all your comments.
Jason: I do understand that you feel as this review is snide, but my intentions were to give an honest opinion, which is what most bloggers do. I have already tried paid and open source e-Commerce plugins and with most open source plugins they provide documentation for free. Therefore I wouldn’t have to spend my time looking through the forum and sending emails to yourself. Wouldn’t that make sense to have a solution with easy instructions to support the install and usage of a product? Most people don’t have time to wait for responses.
Also, I did not critise for a “lack of help”, nor did I talk about no support from you in my review. I am sure that you offer good support as you have commented on my blog promptly.
My opinion here should be taken as constructive criticism to improve the quality of the plugin and to make necessary adjustments to support users. I am probably not the first one who has tried this plugin and said the same thing, the only difference is, I gave my opinion on my blog.
Market Theme: Thanks. I will be reviewing your plugin shortly as well and you’ll see a post here shortly.
Just wanted to mention that we have been using the YAK plugin, and have found it is perfect for our simple needs. The software is flexible and fits seamlessly into the blog model. I actually think it is really quite clever how it works.
We have been using it exclusively on our website http://www.52teas.com, if you would like to see it in action. We’re starting to get a lot of orders through our site, and YAK has held up beautifully.
When we have had questions or concerns, the developer has been more than helpful and extremely responsive on his website. I have to agree that it seems quite unfair and unfounded for you to say that there is a lack of support.
Speaking from my experience as someone with NO coding experience (I’m a tea blender), I found that once I read through the information on the developer’s website and asked a few questions, I had NO problem getting YAK up and running, and have even been able to go back in and make some minor tweaks of my own here and there (with help from the developer and his forum).
Hi Frank,
Thank you for your comment. I have checked out 52teas.com and it’s a nice site. Though from what you say “someone with no coding experience”, why would you still need to tweak a plugin and touch the code if it was working perfectly and has held up beautifully? No doubt Jason does have good support, though for anyone who is needing to get a shop into WordPress with minimal hassle I understand there are other plugins with simpler installations and usage.
Frank, did you test other open source shopping carts or e-Commerce plugins before using YAK and made the comparisons?
Thanks.
Another option you might want to consider is the Market theme.
Market is a premium theme for WP with its own built-in shopping cart system. It also comes with a backend product administration plugin for easy product management. It then connects with Paypal for payment processing.
It’s one of the quickest and easiest ways to setup an online store around. Upload the theme to your WP themes folder, upload the Product Manager tool to your plugins folder, and activate both. Then all that’s left is to create a “Products” category, and set the category ID in the functions file.
That’s it. Just a couple of minutes and you’re ready to start entering products.
The feature list isn’t as robust as WP-ecommerce, however the setup is a breeze, and there’s no time spent figuring out how to integrate it into a theme.
Try out the free online demo on our site.
http://www.markettheme.com/
A question for you: did you happen to scroll down the YAK project page (here: http://www.briggs.net.nz/log/projects/yak-for-wordpress/)?
I’m not trying to be snide, but your review mentions a lack of documentation, and there is basic installation documentation on the main project page.
A lot of open source projects make money by selling documentation. It’s pretty much a standard practice. Some users want to pay, some would rather figure it out themselves. That’s flexibility for you. But you don’t have to waste time figuring it out for yourself, because you can buy the handbook — so I find it rather trite for you to suggest that it’s somehow okay to pay for a plugin with documentation, yet it’s not okay to get a free plugin and then pay for the docs.
Yes, YAK is basic. That was one of the initial goals — along with tight integration within WordPress. So no, there isn’t a way to insert product images from YAK. Instead, you insert them in your post — your post is your product. That’s the foundation of YAK: post as product.
YAK originally had its own menu option, but before the new design of WP, I felt it took too much menu real estate and figured users would prefer if it was included within the standard WP menu structure — settings went into WP->Settings. Orders and Products and then Reports went into the Manage menu (which has now become Tools). I haven’t had any complaints or suggestions to change it, so far.
On the “lack of help†front, there is a forum on my site. A responsible reviewer might’ve taken a look there first — and found that, as with many open source projects, the forum is reasonably active, with support requests, and discussions on how to do things, and so on.
YAK might be lacking in user-friendliness (something I’m trying to address over time, but as a single-developer project, it’s slow going), but an accusation of lack of support is, quite frankly, groundless.
In the distant past, I was one of the editors of a (printed) technical journal in the US. Generally if we were reviewing a product, we’d contact the company in advance for review copies (giving them the opportunity to provide additional information if they wanted). In this case, and for any future reviews you decide to write, I believe you’d be better served contacting the developer (or developers) and give them that same opportunity. It is perhaps a better form of journalism not to rubbish a project or product without actually doing a little research in advance…