Commerce

FL260 — Flight Level Two Six Zero

Commerce WooCommerce + Stripe On the wpAVIO stack

Sell. Charge.
Accept payments.

Run dues, donations, course payments, event tickets, parts catalogs, or a full swag shop on the wpAVIO™ stack. WooCommerce for the storefront. Stripe for the money. iThemes Security for the protection. Configured properly — not bolted on.

Scope a Commerce Site See Use Cases
CHARGE
Dues. Donations.
Courses. Tickets.
Parts. Swag.
Aviation commerce

Use cases

What aviation organizations actually sell.

Every aviation organization eventually has to collect money for something. Done right, it’s a few clicks for the visitor and zero administrative pain for you. Done wrong, it’s a PayPal link in an email and a Google sheet for receipts.

01
Chapter & member dues.
Annual or monthly recurring memberships, automated renewal, member-only content gates. EAA chapters, type clubs, flying clubs, alumni associations.
02
Course payments.
Ground school registration, simulator block-time prepayment, instructor packages, written-test prep. Pay-once, installment, or subscription.
03
Event tickets.
Fly-in registration, banquet seats, museum admission, hangar tour bookings. With capacity limits, time slots, and downloadable confirmations.
04
Parts & merchandise.
Aircraft parts catalogs, kit components, tools, books, gear. With proper inventory tracking, shipping rules, and tax handling.
05
Swag shops.
Hats, shirts, mugs, patches. Chapter merch, type-club apparel, foundation fundraising shops. With print-on-demand integration if you don’t want inventory.
06
Donations.
One-time and recurring donations for 501(c)(3) aviation foundations. With receipts, suggested amounts, dedicated campaign pages, and accounting export.

The commerce stack

Four pieces. One job each.

Commerce sits on top of the standard wpAVIO™ stack and adds four more components — each chosen to be the best at one thing instead of mediocre at many.

WooCommerce
The commerce engine. Products, cart, checkout, orders, customers, inventory. The de facto WordPress standard — used by roughly a quarter of online stores worldwide.
Stripe
Payment processing in your name, on your bank account. Cards, ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay. You hold the merchant account — we don’t sit between you and your money.
iThemes Security Pro
Already part of the standard stack — on commerce sites it earns its keep. Hardened admin, brute-force lockouts, file integrity monitoring, vulnerability scanning.
Commerce extensions
Subscriptions, memberships, bookings, donations, taxes — whichever official WooCommerce extensions your use cases need. Selected during Discovery; no kitchen-sink installs.

Security & PCI

Card numbers never touch your server. Stripe’s hosted checkout fields handle the cardholder data, which means your aviation organization stays out of PCI scope — the way every reasonable WordPress commerce site should. You collect orders. Stripe collects cards. Nobody collects liability they shouldn’t be holding.

Where commerce fits

Three ways commerce gets added.

Commerce isn’t a standalone product on the menu — it’s a capability that gets scoped into a build. Discovery determines which path fits your aviation organization.

PATH 01
Premium build tier.
Commerce-ready foundation is standard on Premium ($15,000) builds. WooCommerce installed, Stripe wired, one product type configured at launch. Add more after.
PATH 02
Standard tier upgrade.
Commerce can be scoped into a Standard ($11,500) build during Discovery, with a defined scope upgrade. Common for chapters and foundations that need basic dues collection.
PATH 03
Add to existing wpAVIO site.
If we built your site already, commerce can be added later as a defined engagement. Priced based on use cases — from a few thousand for a simple shop to substantially more for full inventory operations.

Standalone commerce sites for aviation businesses (e.g., a parts shop that’s the entire business) are scoped during Discovery as their own engagement — usually in the Premium build range or above.

Process

How commerce gets added properly.

STEP 01
Use case scoping.
During Discovery (or a focused engagement for existing sites), we map exactly what you’re selling: products, prices, customer journeys, tax situations, shipping rules.
STEP 02
Stripe & legal setup.
You set up your Stripe account (or we walk you through it). We configure the connection on the WordPress side. Tax registrations and 501(c)(3) receipts handled in writing.
STEP 03
Build & test.
WooCommerce configured on staging. Test orders, test payments, edge cases, refunds. Email receipts customized to your brand. Inventory rules, capacity caps, time slots.
STEP 04
Launch & train.
Commerce goes live. We train your team on order management, refunds, and reporting. Documentation covers every routine task so you’re not dependent on us for daily operations.

Fit

When commerce makes sense.

A good fit
  • You’re collecting money in some form already (PayPal links, manual invoices, paper checks)
  • You have at least one clear use case — dues, courses, tickets, donations, parts, or swag
  • You’re willing to set up a Stripe account in your organization’s name
  • You have someone who’ll handle orders week-to-week (or you’re hiring us through Care to do it)
  • You’re building a new site or adding commerce to one we already built
Not a fit
  • You want commerce bolted onto a site we didn’t build — that’s our partnership rule
  • You want to use a payment processor that isn’t Stripe (we’re opinionated here)
  • You want a $500 shop selling 200 products with custom integrations
  • You’re not sure what you’d actually sell — come do Discovery first
  • You expect commerce to be a one-time setup with no ongoing care

Get specific

Tell us what you’re selling.

Commerce scopes happen in Discovery — that’s how we make sure the right pieces get built without scope creep at launch. Dues, donations, course registrations, museum tickets, parts — the use case shapes the build.

Start With Discovery

Aviation organizations only · WooCommerce + Stripe · Built into a wpAVIO site