This guide is designed to give you an insight into WooCommerce and how it can help you run an online store.
WooCommerce is a plugin designed for WordPress, and once installed the required features and functions of an online store are readily available for you to use and set up for your own website.
WooCommerce is the preferred e-commerce plugin for Nevill Media since there are around 100 extensions that you can buy to enhance and expand upon the functionality and features within the standard Woo Commerce store.
Having said this there are many other great e-commerce plugins available that Universal Web Design has used for client projects including; The Cart Press and Open Cart.
The beauty of WooCommerce is that it’s very easy to use, the plugin operates quickly with a quality code structure and you don’t feel restricted by what you can do with your store. If you want other websites to be able to sell your products for a commission, if you want to import products into your website from another or if you want to accept alternative payment options and reward methods you can do it all by adding an extension.
Each WooCommerce extension tends to cost around $49.00. Fortunately it’s unlikely that you will need more than one or two if you need them at all. The standard Woo Commerce plugin is packed full of core functionalities that often cover all of your needs, this is also a totally free plugin for all to use. It’s only at the point that you want to either expand upon the customer options and shopping experience or add automated processes that you will need to turn to any of the WooCommerce extensions.
Woo Commerce is highly reputable and with over 1.7 million downloads to date, there is no doubt that it’s a big player in the e-commerce market.
Key Points
Security
Woo Commerce has a great responsibility to ensure that millions of websites online stores are protected and unaffected by lapses in it’s code or vulnerable to code hackers and bugs. This is why Woo Commerce has its platform audited by Sucuri.
Reports
The Woo Commerce dashboard provides you with an overview on how your Woo Commerce store is performing. For further analysis you can drill down into monthly, per product and individual product sales performance.
Tax & Shipping
The WooCommerce platform enables you to select and use a selection of shipping classes and rules. The same applies to taxes by being able to set tax classes and rules.
Store Management
WooCommerce makes it easy for you to sell traditional physical products, variable products with different sizes and requirements as well as digital products and downloads. The WooCommerce system even allows you to assign store managers to organise and edit your store for you.
Marketing & Promotion
Sales and offers can be rather complex. You might want to offer 10% off to a segment of your members, you may wish to set multiple discount levels or usage limits. Whilst creating an offer can be a complex process, creating one that works with your WooCommerce system is a doddle.
Search Engine Friendly
The WooCommerce team work hard to ensure that their platform and extension code is search engine friendly.
One Page Checkout
Most e-commerce systems require multiple steps to be completed before someone can checkout with their purchase. Not only is this process conflictive with the customer’s interests but lengthy checkout processes will reduce conversion rates. The WooCommerce system is customer focused and allows customers to check out all from one page.
Social
Increase sales by signing up to Share your cart. This free and easy to set up system enables you to offer customers a discount in return for them sharing their order. We all know that referrals are the best form of new business. Incentivize customers to share their purchases with hundreds of friends through this awesome tool. Best of all it works with WooCommerce.
Ratings
Reduce the risk of uncertainty for customers by making it easy to read past customer reviews. The WooCommerce review system makes it easy for customers to review and rate your products. WooCommerce also offer an extension that allows you to reward customers with discounts if they submit a review.
Customer Accounts
Allow customers to access their order information and amend customer details through the WooCommerce account panel. Users that create an account on your website are more likely to return and this tool will help your customers access the information they need.
Product Filtering
There is nothing more annoying than having to scroll through an abundance of products. There comes a point that customers will leave if the customer experience that your website offers is not slick and fast. Make it easy for customers to source products that fulfill their requirements and budget by using the product filtering system.