Schedule a Call

Why we will never integrate WooCommerce with ListingPro?

First, let’s clarify some points to not misunderstand the real intention of this topic. WooCommerce is primarily a shopping cart plugin. It’s still the most used open-sourced eCommerce plug-in to build an eCommerce website to sell physical or digital goods. Don’t get us wrong, we love WooCommerce and we have a lot of respect for their entire WooCommerce team.

Yes, you may argue that you have to have freedom and flexibility while customizing your project. But the full integration of ListingPro with WooCommerce will cause more problems in the long run than it will solve plus checkout is a very critical part of our product so we developed our own checkout system.

Not just another WordPress Theme

ListingPro is an End-to-End Directory Solution for WordPress users and it was built with a vision that walks a far different path from today’s market in WordPress Segment. One of the BIG reasons why ListingPro was an instant hit with 6000+ units sold worldwide, just because of our simple core value proposition.

No Paid Plugins Needed. Everything Inside

We know that WooCommerce is an awesome tool either for small and big projects. But that doesn’t mean that it’s always the best choice to integrate it with everything plus have you ever counted how many dollars have you spend in the last few years?

We create our solutions for the global audience, and a big chunk of our target audience comes from countries where the main currency isn’t the dollar or euros. For this reason, it’s hurtful when you search for a perfect solution but right after you discover that you’d need to spend more than $500 dollars to actually activate the entire features shown in the demo.

We’re here to develop real business solutions, working with a well-known platform. But to give a complete solution, we have to add our essence, our value and mission and most of the plug-ins don’t fit with our goal.

A big hole in your pocket

Furthermore, do you guys remember the renewal discount of 50% that used to have? Unfortunately, the renewal of the extensions purchased for WooCommerce is now being deducted with its full price. You can read more about this here.

So, what was our thought about this decision? We started by creating our pricing plan as a built-in feature that handles the checkout payment gateways needed to perform subscriptions. Also, we’ve created an advertisement campaign system within the directory to increase listings views during the search results.

Integrating with WooCommerce means multiple checkout processes to manage and multiple payment gateways (one with a built-in system another with WooCommerce). It would be a total mess for the directory admin.

Many others popular themes on Themeforest use WooCommerce and see what it takes to build a directory. With most of those themes, customers would have to pay $69 – $89 for the theme and then spend on plugins for which the annual fee could reach $1000 to $1500 annually.

Here are the examples of commonly used paid WooCommerce plugins needed for most popular directories themes.

 

This WooCommerce Plugin is used to create an auto-recurring paid-plan option in a directory which is available in ListingPro out-of-the-box which saves you $200 right off the bat.
  • WooCommerce Subscriptions ($199.00) – Billed Annually Per Site
  • WooCommerce Booking ($249.00) – Billed Annually Per Site
  • WooCommerce Social Login ($79.00)
  • Product Vendors ($79)

We Built ListingPro from ground-up to address your most under-served needs, and maximize your Return on Investment.
Sam Rizzi, Product Manager of ListingPro

That’s why we built from the ground up everything that our customers needed to perform their Directory with efficiency, scalability, and easy to configure to fulfill their needs. Also, we have more freedom to increment and give more flexibility to our customers without any extra fee or unexpected surprises that would increase the price and be leaving a huge percent of users that can’t afford it to buy our Solution for their business just because of an unexpected third-party extension that would cost more than the current price offered.

Support Nightmare

Between WooCommerce and WP Job Manager, you will end up with 10-20 plugins built with different vendors, and when you want to get support everyone will try to point fingers.

Pain-Killer not Vitamines

We build painkillers for our customers to drive them to be successful with our Solutions. We strive to be the Tesla of Directory Solution or even Apple, so please don’t expect us to say YES to everything.

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying “no” to 1,000 things.

– Steve Jobs

In Conclusion

As we said earlier we built our own checkout system and integrating WooCommerce will conflict and it doesn’t make sense to manage two different checkout processes with different payment gateways on the same website. But for those who want to use ListingPro and for whatever reason can’t go without integrating with WooCommerce then you can request for customization service by filling out the following form as some of our customers have done in the past successfully.

Lastly, we are always working on enhancing the capability of ListingPro so no major 3rd party plugin is used and hopefully in the near future we are able to close such gaps.

After reading the explanation above if you still have an opinion or suggestion, please leave it in the comment below

About the author

Peter N.

50 comments

  • Just wanted to buy this theme, after reading the justification of why you didn’t integrate woo-commerce in your theme, its a little justify however still there countries that don’t support the main checkout systems in the listings pro theme, have you ever thought of a credible solution to them? Most users go for woocommerce because its integration enables one to use local payments thus providing local solutions to local communities

  • A quick question regarding monetization – Is it possible to take a commission off bookings customers make? So if a company lists a service that is available for booking, we want to be able to take a commision off their price.
    Is this possible?
    Thanks,
    Lola

  • Impressive directory listing platform, but I have few questions and would appreciate your feedback. In addition to a directory listing I am looking to integrate a discussion / community forum, preferably if it has a single sign in feature. If that’s possible, what’s a recommended plugin. Also if I need custom made features & design would it be possible on your platform ? Would be useful if a call with your representative can be scheduled. Thanks!

  • Now ListingPro supports 8 payment gateways and more might come later.

    There is hardly any country left that doesn’t fall under these 8 different payment gateways. Three major payment gateways are built-in and are free.

    The following Payment Gateways are supported as of now:

    FREE (BUILT-IN)

    Stripe: 40 countries are supported by Stripe. For the full list of countries go here

    PayPal Express: 202 countries are supported by PayPal. For the full list of countries go here

    2Checkout: 234 countries are supported by 2Checkout. For the full list of countries go here

    *Direct/Wire Transfer: This is a manual payment processing option that can be used for any country. It’s also called Bank Account Clearing System (BACS) that requires no payment to be made online. It helps to provide bank wire details to the customer. Once the funds are received the admin will manually approve the transaction.

    ***PREMIUM (AVAILABLE SEPARATELY)***
    [New] PayFast for South Africa
    [New] RazorPay for India only
    [New] PayStack for Africa (Nigeria and Ghana only)
    [New] PayU for India
    [New] eWay for Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau

    If the payment gateway you are looking for is not available above please learn about our Developer-Friendly Payment Hook.

    Check this FAQ https://docs.listingprowp.com/faq/what-are-the-supported-payment-gateways/

    All premium payment gateways are available here https://listingprowp.com/plugins/

  • So, if I need to create a food directory that takes commissions on each food product sold I need to basically find a different directory? Wow, this looked so promising. Great job excluding a huge amount of the potential market you could be tapping into.

  • for India region, always use paytm, google pay and any UPI payment gateway they are always very comfortable in using this gateways….

  • The theme is great so far, but instead of menu (Food and beverage) is it possible to have vendors display their products instead?

  • I live in Turkey, i would like to buy your theme but paypal and stripe don’t work in our country. Which payment gateway can I use?

    • 2checkout supports Turkey.

      Now ListingPro supports 8 payment gateways and more might come later.

      There is hardly any country left that doesn’t fall under these 8 different payment gateways. Three major payment gateways are built-in and are free.

      The following Payment Gateways are supported as of now:

      FREE (BUILT-IN)

      Stripe: 40 countries are supported by Stripe. For the full list of countries go here

      PayPal Express: 202 countries are supported by PayPal. For the full list of countries go here

      2Checkout: 234 countries are supported by 2Checkout. For the full list of countries go here

      *Direct/Wire Transfer: This is a manual payment processing option that can be used for any country. It’s also called Bank Account Clearing System (BACS) that requires no payment to be made online. It helps to provide bank wire details to the customer. Once the funds are received the admin will manually approve the transaction.

      ***PREMIUM (AVAILABLE SEPARATELY)***
      [New] PayFast for South Africa
      [New] RazorPay for India only
      [New] PayStack for Africa (Nigeria and Ghana only)
      [New] PayU for India
      [New] eWay for Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau

      If the payment gateway you are looking for is not available above please learn about our Developer-Friendly Payment Hook.

      Check this FAQ https://docs.listingprowp.com/faq/what-are-the-supported-payment-gateways/

      All premium payment gateways are available here https://listingprowp.com/plugins/

  • What i do not understood is actually how you are not really a lot more well-favored than you may be right now. You are so intelligent. You recognize therefore considerably on the subject of this matter, produced me in my opinion believe it from so many various angles. Its like men and women are not involved until it is one thing to do with Girl gaga! Your own stuffs excellent. At all times maintain it up!

  • I loved as much as you’ll receive carried out right here. The sketch is tasteful, your authored material stylish. nonetheless, you command get bought an impatience over that you wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come more formerly again since exactly the same nearly very often inside case you shield this increase.

  • As a follow-up to other people interested in using ListingPro, skip PayPal and go straight to Stripe. It is so much cleaner to setup and manage. PayPal made you login to several different interfaces to manage the different solutions, while Stripe has it all built into 1 simple dashboard. So refreshing to use. I do look forward to using the listingpro solution, but in order to have guest credit card use and recurring billing, it will cost you a bit more to get those developed. All in all, the cost to setup a new online business this way compared to a brick and mortar is still wayyyy less expensive and well worth it in my opinion.

  • when i can expect classified theme ? feb 2019 i planning to start but after i gone through the articles i felt listing pro classified theme will suitable for me

  • Hi, we’re building a directory for manufactures, and ListingPro looks perfect.
    There is only one issue, each of our customer would like a place on their directory page to list products, not for e-comm, just to put pictures and descriptions, specs, and features.
    Are there any way to do this?
    Thanks.

  • Hello, we are from Russia. And we want integration with FreeKasse or Robokassa, or another gateways. What u think about?

    • 2checkout supports Russia as per their website see https://www.2checkout.com/global-payments/

      Now ListingPro supports 8 payment gateways and more might come later.

      There is hardly any country left that doesn’t fall under these 8 different payment gateways. Three major payment gateways are built-in and are free.

      The following Payment Gateways are supported as of now:

      FREE (BUILT-IN)

      Stripe: 40 countries are supported by Stripe. For the full list of countries go here

      PayPal Express: 202 countries are supported by PayPal. For the full list of countries go here

      2Checkout: 234 countries are supported by 2Checkout. For the full list of countries go here

      *Direct/Wire Transfer: This is a manual payment processing option that can be used for any country. It’s also called Bank Account Clearing System (BACS) that requires no payment to be made online. It helps to provide bank wire details to the customer. Once the funds are received the admin will manually approve the transaction.

      ***PREMIUM (AVAILABLE SEPARATELY)***
      [New] PayFast for South Africa
      [New] RazorPay for India only
      [New] PayStack for Africa (Nigeria and Ghana only)
      [New] PayU for India
      [New] eWay for Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau

      If the payment gateway you are looking for is not available above please learn about our Developer-Friendly Payment Hook.

      Check this FAQ https://docs.listingprowp.com/faq/what-are-the-supported-payment-gateways/

      All premium payment gateways are available here https://listingprowp.com/plugins/

  • Can ListingPro, WooCommerce and BuddyPress run on the same site? I have 3 functionalities : Directory Listing of Services / Shops, Products on Sale, Community Features. I do not plan to use WooCommerce for Services / Shops. It is only for Products. Can this work?

  • Unfortunately, we do not use PayPal in our country 🙁 PayPal went to pay taxes on everything we have in our possession 🙁 Can I do the Secure Credit (Visa) Integration or I will integrate the transfer system ..

    • Now ListingPro supports 8 payment gateways and more might come later.

      There is hardly any country left that doesn’t fall under these 8 different payment gateways. Three major payment gateways are built-in and are free.

      The following Payment Gateways are supported as of now:

      FREE (BUILT-IN)

      Stripe: 40 countries are supported by Stripe. For the full list of countries go here

      PayPal Express: 202 countries are supported by PayPal. For the full list of countries go here

      2Checkout: 234 countries are supported by 2Checkout. For the full list of countries go here

      *Direct/Wire Transfer: This is a manual payment processing option that can be used for any country. It’s also called Bank Account Clearing System (BACS) that requires no payment to be made online. It helps to provide bank wire details to the customer. Once the funds are received the admin will manually approve the transaction.

      ***PREMIUM (AVAILABLE SEPARATELY)***
      [New] PayFast for South Africa
      [New] RazorPay for India only
      [New] PayStack for Africa (Nigeria and Ghana only)
      [New] PayU for India
      [New] eWay for Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau

      If the payment gateway you are looking for is not available above please learn about our Developer-Friendly Payment Hook.

      Check this FAQ https://docs.listingprowp.com/faq/what-are-the-supported-payment-gateways/

      All premium payment gateways are available here https://listingprowp.com/plugins/

  • Hi, I want to purchase this theme to use for a business listing site in South Africa. So I want to use the iPay and Payfast payment gateways. Would a customization request make this possible? Is there an additional cost? Thx

    • [New] PayFast for South Africa
      https://listingprowp.com/downloads/payfast/

      Now ListingPro supports 8 payment gateways and more might come later.

      There is hardly any country left that doesn’t fall under these 8 different payment gateways. Three major payment gateways are built-in and are free.

      The following Payment Gateways are supported as of now:

      FREE (BUILT-IN)

      Stripe: 40 countries are supported by Stripe. For the full list of countries go here

      PayPal Express: 202 countries are supported by PayPal. For the full list of countries go here

      2Checkout: 234 countries are supported by 2Checkout. For the full list of countries go here

      *Direct/Wire Transfer: This is a manual payment processing option that can be used for any country. It’s also called Bank Account Clearing System (BACS) that requires no payment to be made online. It helps to provide bank wire details to the customer. Once the funds are received the admin will manually approve the transaction.

      ***PREMIUM (AVAILABLE SEPARATELY)***
      [New] PayFast for South Africa
      [New] RazorPay for India only
      [New] PayStack for Africa (Nigeria and Ghana only)
      [New] PayU for India
      [New] eWay for Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau

      If the payment gateway you are looking for is not available above please learn about our Developer-Friendly Payment Hook.

      Check this FAQ https://docs.listingprowp.com/faq/what-are-the-supported-payment-gateways/

      All premium payment gateways are available here https://listingprowp.com/plugins/

  • The only problem I have with the ListingPro theme is that; it does not support any of Nigeria’s payment gateway. My website is still onnhold and pending to be launched. We need PayStack or VoguePay. Please…

    • Hi Olaleye
      I understand your needs,
      but you can also request a customization to include the payment gateway right away.
      We’ll include in near future more options, but at the moment we take internationalization seriously
      That’s the main reason for why ListingPro has added Paypal, Stripe, 2Checkout payments to be working worldwide without any issue.

    • [New] PayStack for Africa (Nigeria and Ghana only) is available
      https://listingprowp.com/downloads/paystack/

      Now ListingPro supports 8 payment gateways and more might come later.

      There is hardly any country left that doesn’t fall under these 8 different payment gateways. Three major payment gateways are built-in and are free.

      The following Payment Gateways are supported as of now:

      FREE (BUILT-IN)

      Stripe: 40 countries are supported by Stripe. For the full list of countries go here

      PayPal Express: 202 countries are supported by PayPal. For the full list of countries go here

      2Checkout: 234 countries are supported by 2Checkout. For the full list of countries go here

      *Direct/Wire Transfer: This is a manual payment processing option that can be used for any country. It’s also called Bank Account Clearing System (BACS) that requires no payment to be made online. It helps to provide bank wire details to the customer. Once the funds are received the admin will manually approve the transaction.

      ***PREMIUM (AVAILABLE SEPARATELY)***
      [New] PayFast for South Africa
      [New] RazorPay for India only
      [New] PayStack for Africa (Nigeria and Ghana only)
      [New] PayU for India
      [New] eWay for Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau

      If the payment gateway you are looking for is not available above please learn about our Developer-Friendly Payment Hook.

      Check this FAQ https://docs.listingprowp.com/faq/what-are-the-supported-payment-gateways/

      All premium payment gateways are available here https://listingprowp.com/plugins/

  • Hi Cridio,

    respect for your decision.

    Are you considering a custom solution for Deals/Coupons? If yes, any ETA?

    Thank you

    • Hi Luca Mura
      Thanks for your support!
      Yes, there’s a planning to include it in upcoming updates
      I don’t have yet the exact ETA to inform you,
      but you’ll be notified.
      Success!

  • Totally agree. Just please ensure you have vendor booking subscription and commission capabilities as previously described to ensure customers can sell products and time services in listing pro. This is a big whole right now for me preventing any live site. Thanks.

    • Hi Neil Batchelor
      There are new updates to come
      We’re planning to build our own booking system
      You can check when it will be on roadmap by going to the Feature Bucket page
      You’ll also be notified by email if you have subscribed and voted on this feature
      so, stay tuned!
      Success!

  • Great article and you guys are absolutely right that a WooCommerce solution can turn out to be way too expensive. This is exactly what makes you guys stand out from the other listing site solutions.

    What I, and I guess many potential Dutch/Belgian customers with me, are missing is an integration with Mollie.com payments. This is a payment provider that requires no monthly costs, so it is the best solution out here for small startup projects. Most people here still pay with iDeal and MisterCash.

    Is this a feature that’s scheduled for the near future? That would make it a no-brainer to buy for the Dutch market.

    • Hi, Website.Academy, as you can see… there’s always a great motive to follow a different path.
      About the Dutch/Belgian Mollie payment, check if someone has already added it to Features Bucket
      or you can get in contact with our customization team for a faster integration.
      I wish you all the success!

    • Thanks for your support. We are considering a payment gateway for European market for future, so hopefully we will find the best solution that can be used by majority of users.

    • I actually do not agree with the reasoning stated here.
      As you see above you are only addressing a subset of people who might be interested in your product. You have created a side business by referring everybody to your customization team, which is ok but you need to be honest about it.
      What you should have done if you really were concerns about how much people will be spending on their project was to offer them the option to disable the built-in payment module, so people can install WooCommerce or similar gateways. This way people had a choice.
      Also this is not a fair argument that people end up paying more for their project by choosing woocommerce, etc., it is not up to you to decide for them how much they should invest in their project. The cost of woocommerce and other plugins is actually nothing in a serious directory project.
      But as you mentioned you want to be the Apple of the directory, meaning like Apple, a closed ecosystem that only benefits certain people and not everybody.

      • I agree with this too. Alot of people will gladly pay more for your theme if it has WooCommerce because it increases the value of Listing Pro. With WooCommerce I can be accepting payments from virtually anybody anywhere in a matter of minutes by using all of their extensions. And I’ll gladly pay for it. Just be honest, you make good money charging for the customizations but people will not take you seriously & think you must be an amateur dev team when you say WooCommerce would create problems. The reverse is true. WooCommerce is convenient & well worth what they charge. You do understand they were just purchased by Automattic (The creators of WordPress) right?

        • Furthermore, I am actually going with GeoDirectory for my project rather than ListingPro even though I have owned ListingPro for 2 years now. You have more options than GeoDirectory even with their add-ons, but I can overcome these limitations in minutes by using the WooCommerce extensions since GeoDirectory supports WooCommerce. Then I can also create more monetization options for GD for ads, banners, events, jobs, classifieds etc. all because of WooCommerce. If GeoDirectory ever wanted to put you out of business it would be pretty easy. Just create a theme like LP & add in the only few features LP has which GD lacks & Listimia is already well on their way to doing. So good luck staying afloat bumping up against Automattic & trying to convince the WP community you know more about this than the actual owners of WordPress. It makes no sense.

By Peter N.