What Is WooCommerce For WordPress
WooCommerce is a very interesting free feature/plugin on wordpress, it enables your wordpress website to transform into e-commerce store. It is a very simple and trouble-free way to start your own online store and sell your items while filling the needs of your customers. Just with the few clicks, you can turn your wordpress site into fully working-commerce store. This is called woo-commerce which is totally amazing, isn’t it?
We will discuss what is WooCommerce for WordPress, how to use WooCommerce, why and why not use WooCommerce plugins.
What Is WooCommerce For
The basic purpose behind getting WooCommerce to promote and sell your services or products online. WooCommerce makes this process very accessible and affordable. Sell your physical or digital products, manage the shipping process around the world, secure payment procedure and sort out the tax automatically. You have total control over your store’s data, you can decide what to show to public and what not to. You can also install it on smart phones and to further promote your business.
So far, it is the most appreciated and best designed ecommerce plugin/extension for wordpress. There are numerous successful online stores which are running via WooCommerce.
Before going further, let’s find out why it is the best choice for starting an online business
Why Should I Get WooCommerce
WooCommerce was started in 2011 and it has been developing since then. Currently, the amazing team behind WooCommerce is working to make it better and more beneficial for its users.
This feature of WordPress is open sourced and free. Anyone can use it and start their business from scratch through WooCommerce. It is completely free, although it has a premium version that may have additional features if needed.
It is very powerful tool that you can use to grow your business and you do not need to have a complex technical knowledge to operate it. You can simple install it and start a professional business with your wordpress website.
How To Get Started
Following is the guideline to develop your own online store via woo-commerce:
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- Installation: After making an account on wordpress, go to the options in wordpress dashboard and you will find the plugin options. In those options, there is an option named WooCommerce. Click on it to install and activate it.
- Setup: After the installation is complete, the automatic setup wizard will guide you in the configuring steps to build your online store and run it. The e-commerce choices are never ending so the setup wizard does the work for you and highlights the important options to make it easier for you.
- Theme integration: You can set up the wordpress theme in your WooCommerce store. The theme would make your store distinguished and also make it clear what is the theme of your business.
All of these features are free of cost.
Why Should I Use WooCommerce
There are many reasons why you would want to use WooCommerce and here are just a few:
- Anyone can start their own business without investing any money since it is free
- Almost everyone with little knowledge of computers can use it
- You can install any theme from the wordpress site or from outer sources. These themes allow you to customize your online store.
- More extensions are available to WooCommerce to make the store more robust.
- Many sites are currently using WooCommerce and have proven its effectiveness
- WooCommerce is regularly updated to meet the latest requirements of the users.
- You can get free assistance from a large community of wordpress regarding WooCommerce
Why Should I Not To Use WooCommerce
There are some minor drawbacks of using WooCommerce:
- Each store needs an extension and the extensions or plugins can be purchased and usually renewed annually
- There are several settings you need to set up in order to secure your data, make the sell according to your preference and managing orders, customers, taxes, shipping and inventory. This is very time taking and long process
- There is limited number of free themes and some of them are not even well-coded. For better themes like StudioPress, the user will need to purchase these. There are advantages to purchasing themes that will allow greater flexibility and options.
- Sometimes after a software update, there could be a number of testing, execution and troubleshooting issues which can be major endeavors and can cause downtime for the server.
- The support system of wordpress is not well-maintained and not all developers you may find are of high quality.
WooCommerce extensions
WooCommerce has more than a hundred extensions which are updated regularly to provide you more amazing features. It increases your business growth and takes the sales to next level. These extensions are highly beneficial that enables the site owner to adjust the functionality of their stores. The online stores on WooCommerce are always in need of these extensions to work in more efficiently and to improve the communication or dealing with customers. These extensions include:
- Automate woo: This plugin sends follow up email to provide coupons for theme renewal
- Follow up emails: This helps in sending automated response/ email to the customers
- Genesis connect: It connects the woo commerce to the genesis theme framework.
- Learn-dash woo commerce integration: It connects your store with learn dash training plugin.
- Web savvy woo commerce bridge: It connects the woo commerce with simple press forum. This is a custom plugin which you can set with your preferences.
- Google analytics integration: This feature connects your store with google analytics directly and gives you advanced reports to increase the sell.
These are just few of the extensions. There are many other features which are offered to the owners reasonably priced to convert a simple store into a well maintained and highly productive online business.
Conclusion
There is no other ecommerce platform that is so well-structured or ideal to use. WooCommerce is the best option that determines the requirement of the user and work to meet the needs of people.
If you are confused about the use of WooCommerce, then don’t be. The more you search online, the more opinions you will find. That’s why it is better to start it on your own and see for yourself. There is no harm in trying, especially some free wordpress themes, but if you are serious, check out StudioPress Ecommerce Themes.
Please leave any questions or comments below and thank you for reading.
Jim