Sell Media version 2.1 is now available for download. This update is the culmination of 154 commits from four developers over the course of three months, along with feedback from our passionate community of photographers, artists and entrepreneurs.

Sell Media is our free e-commerce plugin that enables you to sell photos, prints and downloads directly from your personal WordPress.org-powered website. No middlemen. No percentage taken out. This is your simple and functional e-commerce platform, where you keep 100% of all sales.

Here’s what’s new in Sell Media 2.1:

A Refined Buying Experience

We redesigned the cart popup and added what we call “Quick View” to product thumbnails.  Now, when a visitor lands on your your store or gallery page, they can click the new “Quick View” feature to launch a mobile-responsive popup and easily add items to their cart. They can also navigate your store effortlessly by clicking the left and right arrows.

Mobile-First Checkout

We optimized the Checkout page so that customers can make a purchase as seamlessly on a mobile device as they can on a desktop computer. We increased the size of image thumbnails and buttons, and got rid of borders and tables, which makes “skinning” the page with your own CSS very easy.

Thumbnail Gallery Layouts

Choose from Masonry, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 column layouts. You can even select to have thumbnails  cropped square, or shown without cropping in their native proportion.

Automatic Updates

Automatic updates for all premium extensions are now built into the core Sell Media plugin. Simply visit Sell Media -> Settings -> Updates, and add your license email and key (available here for active subscribers).

Network (Multisite) Support

Sell Media now supports WordPress running in “Network” mode. This means that you can use Sell Media to power an entire fleet of websites running on a single WordPress installation. (Learn more about creating a WordPress Network.)

90% of our users likely won’t need WordPress running in Network mode. It can be technically challenging to the point where we’d only recommend it for WordPress/server experts. But for those who are interested in Network mode, this is an exciting new capability for Sell Media.

Free Downloads

You can now set an item price to $0, which will enable free downloads for that specific item. This was a frequent request from store owners who wanted to drive traffic by offering occasional free photo downloads.

Simplified Plugin Setup

Previously, when you activated Sell Media for the first time, you had a little bit of work to do before you could start selling. Now, we take care of the entire setup for you so you can get your store up and running in under 60 seconds. We create mandatory Pages with Shortcodes for your Checkout, Search, Lightbox, Thanks, Dashboard and Login pages. We also save certain default settings. The only thing left for you to do is to add your PayPal email address on the Settings page.

Redesigned Gallery Navigation

Gallery navigation has been simplified to only icons. This small tweak to eliminate any semblance of clutter dramatically enhances the overall look and feel of galleries.

Search Improvements

You can now search media titles, captions, and keywords for both single products and product galleries. There is a known issue, however, with attachments previously uploaded to Posts or Pages. Users can change the post parent on the attachment page if needed.

A Re-engineered Shopping Cart System

We re-engineered the underlying code for the shopping cart to improve security and add backwards compatibility for older versions of Internet Explorer. In the process, we were able to shave off nearly 2,000 lines of code.

Improved Theme Integration

Vendor prefixes added to the CSS classes and IDs help minimize theme styling conflicts. You will also notice additional styling improvements to some of our most popular WordPress themes (the default Twenty Ten – Twenty Sixteen themes).

Other Changes

Some codebase changes you won’t see, but will certainly benefit from:

• Use of core term meta.
• PHP Session writing to custom database table for a more reliable cart system.
• Various hooks and filters added throughout the plugin for easier customization.
• All reported issues fixed.

What’s Next? Here’s the Roadmap

Everyday, we see more and more people discovering the power, flexibility, and independence that this platform provides. The more people who use Sell Media, the better it gets. Your feedback is critical and a huge part of Sell Media’s continued evolution.

We’ve posted a public roadmap at Trello for Sell Media. Log into Trello to vote for your favorite idea. Don’t see your idea listed? Email us at [email protected].

Get Sell Media 2.1

So, are you ready to give Sell Media 2.1 a try? Head on over to the office Sell Media plugin page to download it for free!