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Finally, Multilingual WP E-Commerce

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It’s been over a year since we started,  and we’re excited to announce a first working version of WPML with WP E-Commerce.

The new versions of WP E-Commerce and WPML allow building fully multilingual e-commerce sites with WordPress, with easy and intuitive management.

Highlights:

  • Translatable products and categories
  • Robust display using any URL language structure
  • Consistent language throughout the purchase process
  • Inventory and shipment tracking in a single language

In short, this means that you can run a multilingual e-commerce site without the fuss of setting up products in each language. WPML now auto-synchronizes product properties in all languages. You need to create the products in the default language and then add translations. WPML will automatically synchronize product cost and other attributes, copying them from the default languages to all translations.

Downloads

To test this, you’ll need to use the current Beta version of WPML (login to your WPML.org account, click on Downloads and get the Beta Package).

Also, you’ll need our version of WP E-Commerce and WPEC Multilingual:

  • WPEC 3.8.6 Dev (once we’re done with testing, this will become the official WP E-Commerce release)
  • WPEC multilingual (the glue plugin that makes WPML and WP E-Commerce play nice together)

Install and enable all three plugins in your site.

How it Works

The glue plugin, WPEC multilingual, will create translations for the standard WPEC pages.

Then, as you translate products, it will help by copying product attributes from the default language to the translations (you still need to translate product names and description).

When customers make their purchases, shop owners will see the purchases in the default language, regardless of the language of the purchase. This functionality is intended (and took a lot of time to build), so that inventory tracking can work properly.

When purchases complete, customers get back to WPEC in the language in which they started.

Theme Changes

Many e-commerce themes include hard-coded elements. A comment example is a link to the catalog and checkout pages. You’ll need to turn these links multilingual. To do that, use WPML’s icl_link_to_element function. It will display these links with the correct label and pointing to the right URL (in the current language).

Look for any place where you point to a hard-coded URL and replace it with a call to icl_link_to_element.

Testing and Reporting Problems

Multilingual e-commerce is a huge topic, so it got a forum section of its own – Multilingual E-Commerce Support Forum.

Please report anything that you find there.

Bare in mind that it’s also difficult to debug, so help us out. When you report issues, provide:

  1. Link to a test site where we can see it happening
  2. Indicate exactly what’s wrong, what you expect and what you’re seeing instead
  3. Whenever possible, create a video that shows it in action (we love Jing)

Thanks for helping us test WPML and WPEC. With your help, we’ll get it perfected and ready for release soon. Now, it’s up to you!

33 Responses to “Finally, Multilingual WP E-Commerce”

  2. Nice! Really excited to see this all come together so beautifully! It’s going to be brilliant when it launches. You guys have done a great job with some of the heavy lifting and I think WPEC and WPML together will be an unstoppable combination of international, multi-lingual awesome-sauce!

  3. This is great news. We will definitely be using this combo on our network of educational sites.

    These quantum leaps from WPEC and MPML just keep blowing me away, this is truly a winning combo for anybody interested in making E Commerce Multilingual. Congratulations are in order. You all deserve a nice bottle of bubbles!!

  4. Is the Beta version of WPML free to download?

    I was using WPML with WP E-Commerce and was having a bunch of problems so I switched to qTranslate and am still having some minor issues.

    As I’m trying to find some solutions to said issues, I come across this page. AAACK!!!

    So do I need a premium version of WPML to have a multilingual e-commerce site?

    Thanks

    • You would need to use the current versions of WPML for this. We put a lot of work recently into compatibility with WPEC. There are still some minor issues and we’re working on them.

      Right now, there are plenty of live sites using the current version of WPML and WPEC. The remaining issues revolve around product variations.

      • Can you explain more about the issues with variations? I would love to use this, but variations are a big deal. Can’t wait until its complete.

        • The Variations issue is related to something in WPEC, which we didn’t manage to resolve with our glue logic. It requires a small change in WPEC.

    • The glue plugin, which connects WPML and WPEC is free and available from the WordPress plugins repository. WPML itself isn’t free.

  7. Amir,

    I recently purchased your product and it DOES NOT WORK with WP E-Commerce checkout as you advertise. When the customer’s name and info are requested is is ALWAYS displayed in english. You mention above “Consistent language throughout the purchase process”, yet that’s not true.

    The support forum is horribly unresponsive as well.

    BEWARE anybody considering this solution for multi language checkout with WP e-Commerce! It DOES NOT WORK as it is advertised and there is hardly any support. If fact, most posts in the forum are closed as solved but there was never a solution posted for others to benefit from.

    In addition to this, the variations mentioned above ARE NOT compatible in multiple languages. It too DOES NOT WORK.

    Overall, I like the product for managing content but the fact that the customer cannot remain in their language throughout checkin and that product variations do not work is a NO GO.

    g

    • There is a problem with the checkoutforms.. Go to /wp-content/plugins/wp-e-commerce/wpsc-includes/checkout.class.php and search for function “form_name()” and replace “$this->checkout_item->name” with __( $this->checkout_item->name, ‘wpsc’ ) and puff it works 🙂

    • It’s not going as well as we’d like it to be. There are issues in WPEC core that we didn’t manage to resolve. Have you considered an alternative? We’re getting great results from WooCommerce and MarketPress.

    • Sorry, but we’re having a pretty hard time with WPEC. Have you considered another e-commerce plugin? WPML runs fine with WooCommerce, JigoShop and MarketPress.

        • The problem is, that in order to get it working, we need some cooperation from the WPEC developers. They’re just not available for this – at all. With WooCommerce, JigoShop and MarketPress, we get full cooperation from the developers. When there’s an issue, we debug it together and fix whatever needs fixing.

          Without that cooperation, every tiny little problem turns into a brick wall.

          I appreciate your situation, but there’s little we can do in the current conditions. When I wrote that blog post, we seemed to have some support from WPEC team. That support had evaporated and we’re stuck without solutions.

          • I know perfectly the situation, this is why here: http://getshopped.org/payment-gateways/wpec-dev-update-3-8-9-ready-for-beta-testing/comment-page-1/#comment-12208

            I’m trying to convince them that is THEIR interest to make this work.
            I can understand from your forum that you’re very active and helpful developer, I can’t say the same of them.

            I’m both a WPEC and WPML “paying” customer and I will abandon WPEC forever if this is not resolved.

            My bought theme (splashing pixels Massimo) is now compatible also with WooCommerce, so I have the possibility to change.
            But I don’t know the variant-related functions of WooCommerce but I’ll test it soon.
            I need variations in the way you see up there … any suggestions ?

            • As far as we know, variations work great in WooCommerce. They also translate just fine. That’s been the main issue that we fixed in the current WooCommerce Multilingual release.

              Regardless of WooCommerce status, we’re still interested in seeing this work with WPEC. If they get back to you and put someone with commit rights on this, we’ll be more than happy to continue. We have the resources, and we just need their cooperation.

  11. The stock of translated products don’t decrease in a language when it decrease in other.

    Hello,
    Please don’t kill me if the answer is in the comment’s above, reading english is a bit tiring for me.
    I have the last versions : WP 3.4.2 WPEC 3.8.8.5 WPML 2.6.0 WPEC-ML 0.2
    I configured WPML with subdomains – is it the reason ?

    Thank you for all and for your job

    • It’s pretty difficult to give tech support over post comments. Can you start a thread in our support forum and show the support folks what is happening?

  12. Can you let us know what the status with this is?
    There’s features in WPEC that suit the project I’m working on perfectly but I need it multilingual.

    • We are working with the folks from WPEC on WPML compatibility. There is good progress, but it’s not all complete. We’ve sent them a final list of proposed changes, which should make everything work together. It’s not yet implemented on their side. If you can remind them that you are waiting for WPML compatibility, I’m sure that it will help.

  13. Any progress on this? I can’t seem to get product pages to display in multiple languages, they don’t load the products.

    • Sorry, but we’re not working on WPEC compatibility at the moment. The WPEC project seems to be moving a bit slower than other e-commerce projects for WP. We still want to have a solution for it, but our main focus is on other E Commerce WordPress plugins right now.

      • hello Amir,

        can you give us a little update on this topic? which WP e-commerce plugins you would recommend to use with WPML?

        thanks
        Rodolfo