In a Nutshell
pros
- Develop ecommerce functionalities within Wordpress
- The basic plugin is completely free
- Huge support community
cons
- Dedicated ecommerce platforms are more powerful
Ideal For
WooCommerce is an ideal plugin for any ecommerce webmaster that is looking for a Wordpress plugin that can provide all the functionality they need to get started selling online. No special skills are needed for installation — it can simply be added from the main Wordpress plugin page. WooCommerce is also extremely versatile and can be used for selling physical merchandise, digital downloads, or used to publish affiliate links to products being sold on other websites.
Why Go With
If you’ve already built a website with Wordpress, then WooCommerce can give you all the functionality an ecommerce shop could ever need — without having to install a dedicated ecommerce tool!
WooCommerce is also one of the most trusted names in ecommerce with a large user community and even dedicated WooCommerce technical consultants available to call on for help.
WooCommerce Features
WooCommerce contains some great ecommerce features. Including:
Analytics
If you’re not already using Google Analytics to track everything from who’s sending traffic to your website to how long they’re spending on each page then you definitely should be. Better still, Woo Commerce natively integrates with Google Analytics so you can get granular information on which of your products are conversing and where your shoppers’ eyeballs are tracking.
As an ecommerce owner, it’s important to have total visibility over which channels are referring traffic – as these might be places you want to target more advertising. WooCommerce’s analytics function gives you those insights.
Blogging
Using WooCommerce doesn’t mean you have to give up the other functionalities that have made Wordpress one of the best loved tools in open source. As a WooCommerce user, you can integrate a blog with your online shop. This can be used to communicate news to your customers. Have a shipping delay that you need to warn your customers about before they place an order? You can simply create a blog post to warn consumers to expect possible delays when ordering from you.
Calendar
If you’re in the business of selling accommodation through a WooCommerce integrated Wordpress installation, then you can coordinate your bookings with the Bookings extension that can integrate your Google calendar. The native Google Calendar integration creates an appointment to correspond with all bookings placed through your website.
Maps
If your online store also has a bricks and mortar location, then you might want to show your customers exactly where you are located. Using the Store Locator extension (based on the Google Maps API), you can grab the embed code to display a real time map of your business location to those browsing your web page.
Social Media Integrations
Online selling goes hand in hand with social media, which is why WooCommerce offers native integrations with the most popular social media networks on the planet. The YITH plugin, for example, allows users to easily share discount codes on their social networks — which can quickly drive up sales.
Email Campaigns
Email marketing is a highly effective way to stay in touch with your customers – and find new ones. In addition, as an ecommerce store owner, you’ll want to be sending transnational emails to let users know that their orders have been placed, that their goods have been dispatched, and that any refunds made have been processed. WooCommerce has a number of email marketing integrations ranging from free favorites such as Mailchimp to more enterprise-grade tools such as Jilt. Using these programs, WooCommerce users can both send out transactional emails and deliver automated follow-up emails to gauge their level of satisfaction with the service provided.
Customization
WooCommerce can be extensively customized to give the best look and feel to match what you are selling online.
One way to achieve the exact functionality you require is to part with a verified WooCommerce Expert.
These consultants have been assessed by WooCommerce to have expertise over the platform and can take your project from initiation right through to completion.
Another option is to use Codeable, which is a platform that has thousands of freelancers ready to take on projects of any size. Using these outsourcing options, webmasters can go beyond the default configuration of the plugin.
Payment Processing
WooCommerce supports a number of industry-standard payment gateways including Sriple, Paypal, and Square. Additionally, there are less commonly used options such as Amazon Pay and PayFast in addition to WorldPay. The huge number of payment processing systems WooCommerce integrates with means that ecommerce owners can easily sell to customers located anywhere in the world.
SEO Tools
If you’re selling online, then you’ll want to pay close attention to how well your website appears in Google search results. Thankfully, WooCommerce integrates with a number of tools that can help you craft meta titles and meta descriptions for your products that will help drive quality inbound traffic and maximize your conversion rate.
One of these is All-in-one SEO Pack, one of the most popular SEO plugins for Wordpress. It works out of the box with WooCommerce to help you optimize your store for SEO.
Another option is to use Yoast SEO, another popular Wordpress SEO plugin which integrates with WooCommerce. Yoast alerts you to duplicate product listings, suggests internal links, and offers 1 year of free round the clock support to help you resolve issues and configure the plugin correctly.
Secure Hosting
Did you know that where you host your website can determine how well protected it is against cyberattack?
WooCommerce can run with a number of hosting providers, including some that are well known for their top security. Siteground, Bluehost, and LiquidWeb are all popular options — and many contain cybersecurity features designed to alert store-owners when their sites are under attack.
Customer Support Services
Users that run into trouble installing or using WooCommerce have great support options at their disposal.
Those that are not paying customers can browse the company’s extensive documentation and the FAQ page.
Those that have signed up for some of WooCommerce’s premium features, such as custom themes, can receive customer support through their team. They can be reached by email and tickets are generally responded to within an hour.
Bottom Line
If you’re an ecommerce operator, then WooCommerce is truly the plugin that can do it all. As it’s so widely used, there are also great support resources to tap into. Finally, WooCommerce has a huge integrations library and can integrate with analytics and SEO tools — not to mention a wide variety of payment gateways.
About the Company
WooCommerce is owned and developed by Automattic, the web development company behind Wordpress.com — and a major contributor to the Wordpress project. The company was founded by Mall Mullenweg and nowadays has over 900 employees. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
