EP Ecommerce

EP Ecommerce is the base plugin in a five-plugin family for selling information products from your PageMotor site. Memberships, digital downloads, license keys, bundles, and subscriptions. Payment providers (Stripe, PayPal) and checkout styling ship as separate extension plugins that hook into the same core.

Published by ElmsPark Studio.

The ecommerce family

EP Ecommerce is built as a base plus four extensions. Install only the ones you need:

Plugin	Role	Required?
EP Ecommerce	Base. Product CRUD, orders, memberships, license keys, download tokens.	Yes
EP Ecommerce Products	Styled checkout UI.	Yes, for visible checkout
EP Ecommerce Stripe	Stripe payment provider.	Only if using Stripe
EP Ecommerce PayPal	PayPal payment provider.	Only if using PayPal
EP Ecommerce Subscriptions	Recurring billing.	Only if selling subscriptions

Each extension is documented separately. This page covers the base.

What EP Ecommerce does

Five product types

Type	What it is
Membership	Grants ongoing access to gated content.
Download	Time-limited secure URL to a file (PDF, ZIP, MP3).
License	Generates a unique license key the customer can use to activate software.
Bundle	Combines multiple products into one purchase.
Subscription	Recurring billing. Requires EP Ecommerce Subscriptions.

Orders

Every purchase creates an order row. Orders track status (Pending / Paid / Failed / Refunded), customer details, and which product(s) were purchased.

Memberships

Membership products grant access for a fixed period or forever. Access checks are plugin-level so any plugin (like EP Membership) can ask “does this email have active access to membership level X”.

The plugin’s own gate, [ep-membership-content], is an exact match on the level. A buyer of a product whose level is course-a passes the course-a gate and no other. There is no ranking between levels here; ranking is EP Membership’s job, and only its gates use it. That makes one-off products (a single course, a single download bundle with ongoing access) simple: give each product its own level slug and wrap each product’s content in its own gate.

Two things happen around a level since 0.1.40:

• Every active grant is also a permission key on the buyer’s PageMotor account, named EP_Ecommerce.grant.<level>, one per product, flat, no ranking. Revoking or expiring the membership removes the key. No gate consumes these keys yet, so nothing changes on a site today; they exist so a page-level exact-match gate can be built without a schema change.
• Saving a product warns when its membership level is not one that EP Membership defines. The save still succeeds, because that level is perfectly valid for the exact-match gate above. The warning tells you that EP Membership’s ladder will ignore it.

Memberships past their expiry date are marked expired once a day, from an admin page load. Access already lapsed on the date regardless; this keeps the stored status honest and lets extensions hear about it.

Buyer accounts (0.1.37)

A membership or subscription is gated on being signed in, so a buyer without a PageMotor account could pay, receive a valid grant, and then be told to log in to an account that never existed. Since 0.1.37 the plugin creates the account itself.

When a membership is granted to an email address that has no account:

1. A PageMotor user is created for it, of the type set in Buyer Account Type (default learner, which is what EP Membership’s own registration form creates, so buyers appear in its member list).
2. The buyer is emailed a single-use link to the Set Password page. The link lives for 7 days.
3. Setting a password signs them in and sends them to the After Setup address, or to the login page if that is blank.

The Set Password page is created for you the first time it is needed, at the path in Set Password Page (default set-password), carrying the [ep-set-password] shortcode. If a page at that path already exists it is left alone.

An email that already owns an account is a no-op: renewals, webhook retries and repeat purchases never create a second account or resend the welcome email. With EP Membership active, the new account is marked email-verified, because the address has already proved itself by paying and by receiving the link.

Downloads and licence keys are unchanged. They are delivered by email and need no login, so no account is created for them.

The switch is Settings → Membership → Buyer Accounts: create automatically (the default) or do not create.

License keys

Three generation formats:

• UUID — f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479.
• Segmented — ABCD-EFGH-IJKL-MNOP.
• Alphanumeric — A3F9X7Q2K8L1V6N4.

Licenses can have expiry dates, activation limits, and be validated via a simple API for software to phone home and check.

Secure downloads

For Download products, the customer gets a time-limited tokenised URL in their confirmation email. Tokens expire after a configurable window and honour a maximum download count, so a leaked URL can’t be mass-abused.

Shortcodes

Shortcode	Purpose
[ep-checkout product=my-product]	Checkout form for a specific product.
[ep-membership-content level=premium]...content...[/ep-membership-content]	Gate content to members of a given level. Non-members see nothing (or a custom message).
[ep-download product=my-download]	Download button, checks the current user’s purchase history and redirects to a valid secure URL.
[ep-set-password]	The form a new buyer lands on from their welcome email (0.1.37). Placed for you on the Set Password page; only needed by hand if you move that page.

Requirements

• PageMotor 0.8.2b or later
• EP Suite base class
• EP Ecommerce Products for the checkout UI.
• At least one payment extension: EP Ecommerce Stripe or EP Ecommerce PayPal (or both).

Installation

1. ep-ecommerce.zip comes with an EP Suite licence — ElmsPark supplies it directly (see EP Suite plugins); after install it updates through your site’s Updates screen.
2. Upload and activate EP Ecommerce first.
3. Upload and activate EP Ecommerce Products.
4. Upload and activate your payment provider(s): EP Ecommerce Stripe and/or EP Ecommerce PayPal.
5. If selling subscriptions, also install EP Ecommerce Subscriptions.
6. Database tables are created automatically on first load.

Setting up your first product

1. Open Plugin Settings → EP Ecommerce → Products.
2. Click Add Product.
3. Pick a product type (membership, download, license, bundle, subscription).
4. Fill in name, description, price, status.
5. Type-specific fields appear:
   • Membership: access level, duration.
   • Download: file URL, max downloads, link expiry.
   • License: format, expiry, activation limit.
6. Save.
7. Add [ep-checkout product=my-product-slug] to a page.

The payment buttons render inside the .ep-ecommerce-payment-slot div in the checkout. Whichever payment extensions are active fill the slot with their buttons.

Managing products over the API and MCP (0.1.38)

Products can be listed, created, updated and deleted through PageMotor’s API and through an MCP connection, using the same validation as the admin screen. All four actions require admin access.

Action	What it does
list-product	Every product, with its type-specific fields.
create-product	Create one. Same required fields and type rules as the admin form.
update-product	Change any fields on an existing product.
delete-product	Remove one.

A slug you supply by hand is normalised the same way the admin screen normalises a typed name, so My Slug is stored as my-slug. Create and update return the same level warning described under Memberships when a membership level is not one EP Membership defines.

Database tables

• {prefix}ep_ecommerce_products — product catalogue.
• {prefix}ep_ecommerce_orders — every purchase.
• {prefix}ep_ecommerce_memberships — active membership records.
• {prefix}ep_ecommerce_licenses — license keys with validation records.
• {prefix}ep_ecommerce_downloads — download tokens.
• {prefix}ep_ecommerce_account_tokens holds the single-use set-password links for new buyer accounts (0.1.37).

Extension API

Plugins extend EP Ecommerce by subclassing EP_Ecommerce_Extension and registering themselves. Available hooks:

Hook	Purpose
checkout_head($product)	Inject scripts or config before the checkout form.
render_checkout($product)	Provide custom checkout HTML.
process_payment($product, $data)	Handle the actual payment.
after_fulfillment($product, $order_id, $data)	Post-purchase actions.
product_types()	Register a custom product type.
render_product_admin($product)	Admin fields for custom types.
check_access($email, $level)	Override membership access checks.
on_membership_granted(...)	React to membership grants.
on_membership_revoked($user_email, $product_id, $order_id, $level, $reason)	React to a grant going away (0.1.40). Fires once per revocation, with $reason of revoked, expired, or whatever the caller passed (a refund passes refund).
filter_license_validation($license, $response)	Modify license API responses.
settings_fields()	Add settings to the EP Ecommerce settings page.

Same pattern as EP_Email_Extension. See the Stripe and PayPal extensions for reference implementations.

Troubleshooting

“Checkout renders but no payment buttons appear”

You need at least one payment extension installed and configured. Install EP Ecommerce Stripe or EP Ecommerce PayPal, paste API keys on their settings page, and the buttons render.

“Orders appear as Paid but no membership / download was granted”

Check the payment extension’s webhook is configured correctly and reaching your site. Stripe / PayPal push async notifications; without webhooks, orders show as paid from the frontend flow but fulfilment doesn’t fire.

“Download URLs expire too quickly”

Configure per-product download token lifetime and max download count in the product’s admin. Default is usually 24 hours and 3 downloads, which is deliberately conservative.

“A buyer paid for a membership but is told to log in”

Before 0.1.37 no account was created for a buyer, so this was every first-time buyer’s experience. Update, then check Settings → Membership → Buyer Accounts is set to create automatically. For a buyer who paid before the update, create their account from EP Membership’s Members panel or ask them to register with the same email address they paid with; the grant is keyed on that address and attaches on login.

“The welcome email’s set-password link gives a 404”

The Set Password page is created on first use since 0.1.39. On a site that installed 0.1.37 or 0.1.38 and never opened the settings, create a page at the path in Set Password Page carrying [ep-set-password], or update and let the next purchase create it.

“License keys I generate aren’t validating”

Validation requires the software to call your site’s license API with the key. If the software isn’t coded to check, keys are cosmetic. This is about what the customer-facing software expects.

“I want to sell a custom product type that isn’t one of the five”

Build a small EP Suite plugin that extends EP_Ecommerce_Extension and implements product_types() and render_product_admin(). Ask on the support forum for the current reference signatures.

Changelog

0.1.47

• The new-account email after a card or PayPal payment now uses EP Email’s sending method. When a first-time buyer’s payment was confirmed by Stripe or PayPal in the background, the “Set your password” email was sent through your server’s built-in mail instead, so on many sites it arrived late, landed in spam or never arrived. It now goes out through EP Email, using the sending method you set there (Mailgun, Brevo, SMTP and so on), and shows in EP Email’s delivery log.
• This release also includes 0.1.46 (below), not previously released.

0.1.46

• Security fix: saving a buyer’s account in PageMotor’s Manage Users can no longer make them an administrator. Buyer accounts are created with the type set in Buyer Account Type, which defaults to learner. PageMotor 0.11 no longer lists that type, so the Edit User screen’s type menu fell back to Administrator for buyers, and clicking Save User on one would have made them an administrator. On PageMotor 0.11, buyers set to learner are now stored as PageMotor’s own User type, which cannot use the admin.
• Existing buyer accounts are switched over automatically the next time an administrator opens any admin page. On sites that also run EP Membership 0.6.9 or later, EP Membership switches them over instead and keeps them in its member list.
• If you chose a different Buyer Account Type, it is used exactly as before. Nothing changes on PageMotor 0.10.

0.1.45

• Settings language menu. The language menu in this plugin’s settings now lists only the languages it is actually translated into, plus English, so you can no longer pick a language that changes nothing.
• Danish. Adds a Danish translation.

0.1.44

• A refund that fails no longer leaves your customer locked out. When a full refund takes back what an order granted (membership, download links, licence keys) and the payment provider later reports that the refund failed or was cancelled, the money has stayed with you, so the order is now marked completed again and the customer gets back exactly what the refund took: the same membership, download links with their original expiry dates, and the same licence keys. EP Ecommerce Stripe 0.1.26 or later does this for Stripe refunds.
• Each refunded order now keeps a record of what its refund took back, and of any refund that failed, with the date.
• An order refunded before this update has no such record. If its refund fails, the order is marked completed again, but its membership, download links and licence keys are left as they are, because it can no longer be told what the refund took and what was withdrawn for another reason. Check that customer’s access by hand.

0.1.43

• Licence keys now record who bought them. Every key was being saved against the wrong email address, so a key could not be traced back to its buyer. New keys are saved against the buyer’s address.

• A payment that has already gone through can no longer be reopened by a later “failed” message from the payment provider. Previously such a message could put a completed order back into a state where it was fulfilled again, issuing extra licence keys and download links for one payment.

• M-Pesa and Paystack payments whose confirmation never arrives are now picked up automatically, every five minutes, when EP Cron is installed and its heartbeat is set up. A buyer who paid while the notification to your site went missing now gets what they bought instead of seeing their order expire. System Status shows whether this is scheduled.

• A payment that arrives after its order was closed as abandoned now completes the order, instead of taking the money and delivering nothing.

• The product editor now offers the currencies M-Pesa and Paystack take (Kenyan shilling, Nigerian naira, Ghanaian cedi, South African rand) alongside the usual ones, so those products can be created in the admin. Editing a product always shows its own currency, even an unusual one, and a new product starts on your store’s currency instead of US dollars. The store’s default currency setting offers the same list.

• Saving a product in the admin no longer erases its settings. Opening a product to change, say, its name and pressing Save used to reset its settings: a download lost its file, so buyers’ links stopped working; a membership fell back to the standard level; a subscription lost its Stripe price. The editor now opens with the product’s real settings and keeps them.

• Products created by other plugins (print-on-demand, event tickets, class passes, invoice payments) can be edited safely. The editor shows their type instead of a blank, says their settings are managed by the plugin that made them, and leaves those settings alone when you save. The type filter lists them too.

• Donation receipts now show the amount given. Someone who gave £50 to a pay-what-you-like cause used to get a thank-you email for the minimum (say £1), and any affiliate was credited with £1. Both now use the amount actually paid.

• The message for a donation outside the allowed range now shows your store’s currency instead of always a dollar sign.

• Orders paid with a discount code now show the discounted amount on the receipt and in affiliate commission, not the full price.

• The Downloads and License Keys settings now take effect. “Default Download Link Expiry”, “Default Max Downloads Per Purchase” and “License Key Format” were saved but never used: every download link got 5 downloads and 30 days, and every licence key was a long UUID.

  • Download products and bundles now follow your defaults unless the product sets its own values.
  • New licence keys, including those in bundles, use the format you choose. Keys already issued keep their format.

• In the product editor, a download’s Max Downloads and Link Expiry boxes can now be left blank to use the store defaults, which are shown in grey. 0 downloads means unlimited, and the editor no longer turns an unlimited product back into 5 downloads when you save it.

• Download products you saved before this update keep the 5 downloads and 30 days the editor stored for them. To have one follow the store defaults, open it, clear both boxes and save.

• The setup guide, README and migration notes now list all four Stripe webhook events (payment_intent.succeeded, payment_intent.payment_failed, charge.refunded, checkout.session.completed) and the PayPal refund event (PAYMENT.CAPTURE.REFUNDED). If you set up your webhooks from the old lists, add the missing events in Stripe and PayPal.

0.1.42

• Corrects the PageMotor 0.11.3 preparation shipped in 0.1.41. That release grouped this plugin’s API and MCP actions into families, but in a shape PageMotor 0.11.3 does not accept. On 0.11.3 the plugin would have registered none of its actions, and nothing on screen would have said so.
• This version uses the shape 0.11.3 expects, and keeps the earlier shape for sites still on an older PageMotor. One build serves both, so there is no order you have to update things in.
• Safe to install now. Nothing you can see changes.

0.1.41

• Prepares the plugin for PageMotor 0.11.3, which requires every plugin to group its API and MCP actions into named families. On that release an action declaring no family is refused silently, so without this update the plugin’s actions would stop being offered with nothing on screen to say why.
• Families exist so that an AI working on your site sees the related actions together instead of stopping at the first one it tries.
• Safe to install on your current PageMotor. No behaviour changed.

0.1.40

7 September 2026. Every active grant becomes a flat EP_Ecommerce.grant.<level> permission key on the buyer’s account. Saving a product warns when its membership level is not one EP Membership defines. Extensions hear about revocations through on_membership_revoked(), and expired memberships are now marked expired daily rather than only lapsing.

0.1.39

2 September 2026. The Set Password page is created on first use, so the welcome email never points at a missing page. Buyer emails are lowercased at the boundary. A buyer who registered before purchasing and never verified gets the verified flag on purchase.

0.1.38

1 September 2026. Products can be managed over the API and MCP, through the same validation as the admin screen. Hand-typed slugs are normalised.

0.1.37

1 September 2026. Buyer accounts: a membership or subscription purchase creates a PageMotor account for the buyer and emails a single-use set-password link. Settings under Membership control it.

Feedback and corrections

For a quick question about this plugin, EP Support inside your admin is the fastest option. The chat widget sits on every EP plugin settings page and knows which one you’re on, with starter questions and links preloaded for that exact screen.

For anything bigger — a bug report, a feature request, or a “how do I…” that needs a real reply — open a ticket at help.elmspark.com. A real person, helped by AI, writes the reply. Usually within a few hours. Tickets don’t disappear into the void.