As is always the case, all good things must come with some competition. The Market Theme’s number one would be the already well established WP E-Commerce Plugin by Instinct. For those of you thinking, “Why would I spend money on the Market theme when the E-Commerce plugin is free?”, I have the answers for you. This quick comparison will line up the Market Theme with the E-Commerce plugin and explain why Market is the better choice for those seriously considering using Wordpress to power their online marketplace.

	Market Theme	WP E-Commerce
Works with Wordpress 2.X+
Product Search by default		Module Purchase
Paypal payment integration included
Authorize.net payment integration included	Coming Soon	Module Purchase
Grid Based Product Layout		Module Purchase
Multiple Product Images for One Item		Module Purchase
Facebook Integration
Sell Digital and Physical Products
Easily customizable with template edits and css
Ajax Shopping Cart
Fully fuctional theme
Downloadable Product Logs
Purchase History
Related Products on Item Page

WP E-commerce has a back-end and front-end solution, what about the Market Theme?

True, the WP E-commerce plugin has a nice admin page that lets you add products and uploaded images, set descriptions, prices, etc. But, that is exactly the same as what the Market theme does, only difference being Market utilizes custom fields to get most of them done. There are no special screens - just the usual “write post” page you would use if you were writing a regular blog post. That’s because I did not set out to reinvent the wheel - I just wanted to utilize what Wordpress already could do and take it a bit beyond.

The Market Theme does not keep track of all my products with logs and such. What good does that do me?

WP E-Commerce may have product logs, but so does Paypal. With the Market theme, each product is a post, which is plenty of logging in itself. Whatever payment processor you use (Paypal by default, can by Google Checkout and Authorize.net in the future) will keep logs of all your purchases, so there is no need for a second source doing the same thing.

Why Market is better from my slanted perspective.

Market is better because it is. As a theme, you can break apart the code as much as you want as long as you leave the required Wordpress code and custom field code in tact. Change the design as much or as little as you want. You do not need to be a developer to use it. Businesses can purchase the same old standard license - you do not need the more expensive package just because you are a business. Additional upgrades, add-ons, and everything else are always free. There are no special modules here. You have access to a download center that is constantly expanding, and forums that will list “how to’s” that have been asked and answered by different customers. Plus, Market is also WPMU compatible. Now give that a try. (Don’t just take my word for it. See what the others have had to say.)