Wondering whether WordPress for eCommerce will work for you or not? Here is a complete explanation of what to expect when using WordPress for eCommerce website building.
WordPress emerged as one of the best website building tools to create feature-packed and SEO friendly websites. Be it a simple website to represent your business or a complex directory website to make money online. WordPress works for everything.
It is a CMS basically intended for the bloggers to make blogging easier. However, with the updates and all the features available with WordPress, it’s safe to say that it is one of the easiest forms of website building and maintenance.
For eCommerce, WordPress has so much to offer. There are eCommerce plugins as well as beautiful feature-rich online store themes to get you started quickly.
But the question is: Is it the right choice for you? Read on to find out.
- WordPress and eCommerce
- Why WordPress for eCommerce
- When to not use WordPress for eCommerce
- Building eCommerce website with WordPress
WordPress And eCommerce
WordPress can be used for eCommerce or any other niche of your choice. Especially for eCommerce, there are multiple plugins to enable eCommerce on your website.
There are different plugins but the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress is WooCommerce. It is a complete package that allows you to create an online store will all the required features.
The WooCommerce plugin makes eCommerce website building easier with the dashboard options. You can easily create and add product categories, and products, tax and shipping rules, etc. You can create product variations, booking, and even sells downloadable products.
There are many addon plugins built around WooCommerce to help you add advanced eCommerce features into your WordPress based eCommerce website.
However, if you are looking for an option to create a website just for the downloadable products, you can use a plugin like easy digital downloads. This plugin specially designed for WordPress website selling digital products like music, video, image or pdf files, ebooks in other formats, etc.
Why WordPress for eCommerce
WordPress is a user-friendly CMS. The setup and installation process is quite simple.
Especially for the beginners, who want to create or maintain their website without professional intervention. WordPress lets you create and manage websites without actually touching a line of code.
There are back end options and WordPress themes to make website building with WordPress a breeze. Websites created using WordPress are therefore manageable.
One of the best advantages of using WordPress is that it is SEO friendly. And there are enough options for your WordPress websites to make them more SEO friendly. You can use a plugin like Yoast SEO to optimize your content added through WordPress editor.
When to use WordPress for your eCommerce websites?
WooCommerce makes it really easy to create an eCommerce website with WordPress. We recommend using WordPress with WooCommerce when:
You already have a WordPress Website
If you already have a WordPress business website ready and running. Especially when it’s been there for a while with enough traffic and you think its a good idea to monetize the traffic with.
This means that if you want to integrate eCommerce into an already existing website, you can easily do so using WooCommerce on your WordPress website.
So it is very useful for you when you already have a website and want to start using the traffic for eCommerce purposes. With WooCommerce, and a WordPress theme that supports WooCommerce, adding the eCommerce is as easy as installing a plugin.
You want a small manageable shop at affordable price
If you want to create a small simple eCommerce website on your own, you can use WordPress with WooCommerce and built it yourself.
Since the CMS is easy to use, and with the availability of the WordPress eCommerce themes, creating such a website is really simple and easy.
Moreover, when you find an affordable host and a WordPress eCommerce theme, you can create a website at a much lower cost since WordPress doesn’t come with monthly subscription fees like other eCommerce platforms as Shopify do.
WordPress is ideal for creating small eCommerce websites along with the blog. For creating small eCommerce stores. For creating bigger websites, with thousands of products, you can use platforms like Shopify.
When to not use WordPress for eCommerce?
Sure WordPress is one of the best platforms for creating websites, including eCommerce websites. It is an opensource CMS, and therefore with the help of right programming and code tweaking, you can create any kind of website.
Website building with WooCommerce and WordPress is simple. All you need is a theme like our eCommerce theme and the free WooCommerce plugin. This WooCommerce theme comes with the sample data and all you are reuqired to do after installing it is configured using the intuitive options.
Create product categories, set the shipping and tax rules, etc. and start adding products using a simple inbuilt form. So anyone, without even a bit of technical knowledge, can administrate the website and add products to the site.
On the other hand, there are plugins like Shopify that is specialized for creating eCommerce websites. All you need to do is to register and start creating your website with the available options. Here, you don’t even need to look for hosting to get started. Only register, pay and go.
However, this service comes with a fixed monthly subscription fee based on the type of package you choose. It helps you establish fully functional and manageable online stores very easily.
How to create an eCommerce website with WordPress?
Creating an eCommerce website with WordPress is really easy. Typically it consists of the following steps:
1. Acquiring the domain name and the host
WordPress is free to download and use. But to host a website built with WordPress, you will need to sign up for the domain name as well as hosting.
You can rely on an affordable and secure hosting company like BlueHost for your website hosting requirements.
2. Browse for a great WordPress eCommerce theme
There are so many beautiful and feature packed eCommerce theme. For a simpler eCommerce website, you can rely on a theme like eCommerce shop, or you can rely on multipurpose eCommerce themes like Flatsome.
Once you find a suitable theme for your website, you can easily install and get started. However, there the before purchasing a theme, make sure that it has all the features and flexibility to help you build a website just like you want it.
3. Installation Process
Here, you need to sign into your hosting account and install and setup WordPress. This is typically very easy, you just need to follow the steps based on the type of host you choose.
Once WordPress is ready and running, the next step is to install the WordPress theme. It takes just a few minutes to install the theme and your eCommerce website is almost done.
4. Customization
The next step obviously focuses on changing the theme options and customizing it to create a website of your choice.
Most of the premium WordPress theme comes with easy and very intuitive options to create and manage your WordPress based website. This step requires you to customize by adding relevant images, changing colors/fonts, personalizing by adding the
5. WooCommerce setup
The WooCommerce plugin for WordPress is a complete package of all the eCommerce features you need. But to start using it, you will need to add the products, different values, and set some rules according to your requirements.
However, the easy options and forms at the backend make this really simple. Moreover, you have the WooCommerce documentation to help you with the settings.
6. Start adding the products
With the WooCommerce setup ready to go, you can now start adding the products to your WordPress basedeCommerce website. One of the most important steps is to create product categories.
Create all the important categories you need in your website and start adding products under them. You can sell both, the downloadable as well as shippable products through WooCommerce.
7. Setting up the payment gateways
To be able to accept payments online, you will need payment gateways. WooCommerce supports a wide range of payment gateways for payment processing on your WordPress website.
You can choose the payment gateway of your choice, which is generally available as an additional plugin, configure it and start accepting payments for the sold goods.
8. Promotions and Maintenance
To make sure that you get the desired traffic, and that you can retain it, you will need to promote your website and keep your visitors interested in proper maintenance.
There are a number of ways to promote a website, and you can choose one based on your niche, after knowing your target audience. For instance, your eCommerce website sells organic products, so the target audience will be health-conscious people preferring organic foods. On the other hand, if you are selling medicines through your eCommerce websites, you can promote on the health-related platforms.
Further reading: