When you want to build an eCommerce store, you will have many different options to choose from. One of the best options is WooCommerce.

WooCommerce powers more than 25% of eCommerce stores in the top 1 million sites worldwide compared to other eCommerce platforms. These numbers continue to grow because it is flexible and beginner-friendly.

This post will share what WooCommerce is, how it began, and how it became so popular. You’ll also learn how to get started using WooCommerce, its benefits, and some of the plugins we recommend.

What is WooCommerce?

The WooCommerce plugin helps you to build an online store using WordPress. It takes the basic WordPress operating system and transforms it into a fully functioning eCommerce store.

WooCommerce makes it easy and affordable to sell any product and service on your website. It allows you to sell digital and physical products, take secure payments, manage inventory, and sort all your taxes automatically.

Most importantly, WooCommerce integrates seamlessly with WordPress since the same company, Automattic, owns wordpress.com.

Let’s look at the origins of WooCommerce.

Brief history of WooCommerce

The WooCommerce plugin started its life with a company called WooThemes. WooThemes was a premium WordPress theme company founded by Mark Forrester, Magnus Jepson, and Adii Pienaar.

Later on, two developers, James Koster and Mike Jolley were brought to the team to work on WooCommerce. They were working on an eCommerce software known as Jigoshop.

The first version of WooCommerce was launched in 2011 and became extremely popular. It achieved 1 million downloads within two years. In 2014 WooCommerce, hit 4 million downloads.

Automattic was impressed by the growth of this product and acquired it from WooThemes in 2015. Since they acquired this plugin, Automattic has become the leading developer of WooCommerce.

In the same year that Automattic purchased WooCommerce, the plugin surged to over 7 million downloads. It has powered more than 22% of the top 1m websites running on WooCommerce and 28% of all eCommerce stores online.

Why is WooCommerce so popular?

The main reason why WooCommerce is widely used is due to its ties to WordPress.

WooCommerce also has thousands of paid and free themes and thousands of plugins that let you extend to your store.

Here are some of the other reasons why WooCommerce is a popular way to build an online store:

• Both WooCommerce and WordPress are free
• WooCommerce is open-source, meaning that any developer can audit, modify, or extend the code
• WooCommerce is beginner-friendly, and you don’t need to become an expert developer to create a store.
• WooCommerce is flexible, as you can add all kinds of functionality using plugins. This does not need any coding skills
• WooCommerce is responsive and works well on all devices
• WooCommerce is secure

You can now see that WooCommerce is your best option to build a secure, flexible online store in WordPress. It is also worth mentioning that you can accomplish a lot with WooCommerce entirely for free. All you need to purchase is a domain name and hosting.

What can you sell with WooCommerce?

WooCommerce allows you to sell anything online.

It is widely used to sell physical products like beard oils, jewellery, clothes, coffee, and so much more.

You can also use WooCommerce to sell digital products, make bookings, appointments, reservations, and provide services.

For example, if you have a beach hotel, you can use WooCommerce to let people reserve rooms and pay the booking fee.

Therefore, if you want to sell anything online and accept payments, WooCommerce is your best bet.

WooCommerce features

1. Robust product with a solid development team

If you’re going to invest time and money in creating something online you need to make sure that your main tool won’t leave you stranded anywhere along the way.

WooCommerce has been around for over a decade. The fact that Automattic bought it means that its integration with WordPress will always be assured.

WooCommerce is not going away any time soon.

With so many years of development under its belt, the reliability of WooCommerce is undoubtedly one of its main features.

WooCommerce is very well documented. Besides the official references you’ll find many other resources to learn about it.

If you get stuck at any point and you can’t find answers, you can easily find and hire WooCommerce specialists. Which may come in handy if you need something specific!

This brings us to the second feature.

2. Flexible and open source

WooCommerce is not a limited tool with which you can only create one type of store.

It’s a very flexible product that can be tailored to the needs of almost any business.

• Want to sell physical products?
• Charge for booking hours on a calendar?
• Do dropshipping?
• Distribute digital products for download?
• Charge a monthly fee for accessing protected content?

All this can be achieved with WooCommerce.

WooCommerce is open source so it will always be possible to develop extra solutions if you need something specific.

You’ll be able to work without fear of being limited and having to make a costly migration in the future. 

3. Ever growing library of extensions

WooCommerce has a huge library of extensions – almost 1,000 at the time of writing!

In addition to the flexibility offered by its built-in settings or those that you can develop on your own, there is an intermediate solution.

Extensions will power up your WooCommerce store.

Some of them are free, while the paid options usually cost less than $100/year. That’s a lot more affordable than hiring a developer!

4. Integrations

With almost 4 million installations, everyone wants to be friends with WooCommerce.

And that benefits you.

Running an online store is much more than your website and your online catalog.

You need many more tools that work in perfect sync with each other to manage your business efficiently: Email marketing software, CRM, social networks or analytics among many others.

Being able to connect those with WooCommerce either natively, through extensions or using Zapier, will help your business run much more smoothly.

5. Free and modular

Some of WooCommerce’s more advanced features are only unlocked through the use of paid extensions.

Thanks to this modular approach your store can gradually grow as you and your business grows without the need to make a large initial investment.

But until you face a specific need you can create a 100% functional online store with WooCommerce for free.

Even if you don’t pay a dime you can enjoy dozens of mini-features such as:

• Secure payments via Stripe or PayPal.
• Automatic sales tax calculation via Jetpack.
• Label printing from WooCommerce Dashboard.
• Powerful product management.
• WooCommerce blocks for the WordPress editor.
• One-page checkouts.
• Variable products.
• Link to external or affiliate products.
• Shipping calculation costs.

All for free.

Getting Started With WooCommerce

As mentioned earlier, WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress. Therefore, you first need to install and set up WordPress.

There is a complete guide on how to build a WooCommerce website with Elementor and the Astra theme, but here’s a run-down of the steps you’ll need to follow:

1. Hosting and Domain Name

You’ll need to invest in good WordPress hosting that will power your store and make it accessible to the world. The domain name is the permanent store’s address on the internet, for instance, www.example.com.

We’ve collected some of the best WooCommerce hosting providers and fastest managed WordPress hosting to help you make informed choices.

2. Install WordPress

After selecting the best WooCommerce hosting provider, you’ll need to install the WordPress software.

Most hosting providers like Bluehost make it easy to install WordPress. Some will even install the software for you.

You can install the software from the WordPress repository:

3. Install WooCommerce

Since WooCommerce is a free plugin, it is very easy to install it. Navigate to Plugins > Add New, then search for “WooCommerce“.

Click ‘Install Now‘ and ‘Activate‘ to enable WooCommerce on your site.

Let the wizard be your guide to configure all the basics like the preferred payments.

4. Install a WooCommerce Compatible WordPress Theme (Astra)

The next step is choosing the best WooCommerce theme. We highly recommend that you use the Astra theme that is fast, highly customizable, and lightweight. This theme is used on over 1,000,000+ websites and has over 4700 five-star ratings on WordPress.org.

This theme provides a performance-optimized code that ensures fast loading times.

You can check the pricing for the Astra pro theme. You can also purchase the Astra Growth Bundle bundle to get unlimited access to SkillJet for free.

5. How to add and manage products

An eCommerce store is nothing without products. So the next step is to add them.

Products are so important in WooCommerce that they have their own tab within the WordPress admin panel.

Adding a product is relatively easy as you simply have to fill in the different fields on the page.

Depending on your product type there will be different fields you will have to fill in.

If you want to learn more about products, read how to add and manage products in WooCommerce.

6. How to import and export products

If you are migrating from another eCommerce platform or have a digital product catalog, you don’t need to add products one by one.

This is an optional step but it will save you many hours of work if you need it.

WooCommerce has a tool to import .CSV files and thus automate much of the work of adding products.

It’s not complex to use.

Read our step-by-step guide about importing and exporting products with WooCommerce and find out for yourself!

7. How to set up payment gateways in WooCommerce

Properly adding and managing your products is essential, but getting paid for them is even more important!

WooCommerce has many payment gateways. Some are not included by default but you have to enable them through extensions.

You’ll find some of them in WordPress > WooCommerce > Settings > Payments.

We have an in-depth guide that explains the best WooCommerce payment gateways.

We recommend that you read it before getting started.

8. How to manage your checkout page

The WooCommerce checkout page is where the stakes become very high.

It’s the place where you can close the sale or your potential customer may leave without buying. Probably forever if you don’t have a good strategy to reduce abandoned carts.

The overall website design of your WooCommerce store is important, but here it takes on special relevance.

The default option is not the most attractive or the one that offers the highest conversion.That is why it is important to learn how to customize this WooCommerce checkout page in order to increase the profits of your online store.

WooCommerce website examples

Creating a WordPress eCommerce website is easy. 

To inspire you to create your own, here are 3 sites that are using WooCommerce and Astra to create and manage their online store.

The Mumma Secret

The Mumma Secret is an online store founded by Shrijika Parikh that sells homemade food for babies.

Above the centered menu you’ll find a small section that, in addition to social networks on the left, shows a link to your profile and your cart.

This cart button doesn’t drive you to a new page that might distract you but opens it as a small side screen (off canvas).

This is ideal because at any given time you can take a look at what you already have in your cart and keep shopping.

The Mumma Secret also includes a “New arrivals” page because, who doesn’t like new things?

These products are gathered like that thanks to a tag. Something you can spot in the URL.

Another section you’ll find on the home page is the best sellers section.

If something sells very well, promote it more!

The store has the typical sidebar where you can quickly filter products by category as well as a sorting tool on top of the displayed products.

Shrijika has also added in the menu direct links to some categories such product types to make it easier to access them from anywhere on the web.

Wine Warrior

Wine Warrior is an online store that sells nothing but wine!

It takes advantage of the top section to explain its free shipping policy and to invite you to subscribe to its newsletter to get an initial discount.

In addition to the profile or the cart (off canvas as well), Wine Warrior also includes a search button.

This makes more sense in stores where you are selling third party known products that people already know they want. It also serves as quick access to certain categories.

Since Wine Warrior products can belong to so many different categories, the store uses the Astra mega menu to be able to display them all clearly.

Their checkout is very well done.

In addition to the typical elements it includes reinforcements about why to buy from them, reviews from former customers or customer support information.

These elements increase the chances of closing the sale.

Banno’s bees and honey

Banno’s bees and honey is an Australian online store that sells natural products made from honey, bee-related apparel and tools.

The main page is not so much focused on displaying products but on showing how the project works and the benefits of honey.

It’s a kind of pre-sales page that puts you in the mood to start shopping.

The online store is very simple.

Instead of the classic side filter, Bannos displays the search engine and the different filters at the top of the products.

This makes it possible to have the same search experience on any type of device or screen, thus improving the user experience.

On the product pages you’ll see that it uses several images, product variations if needed and a section of related products.

What can WooCommerce do?

The main aim of the WooCommerce plugin is to create an online shop. Here are some of the online revenue streams you can build using WooCommerce.

1. Create an online store for your physical products

WooCommerce allows you to sell any product online to both local and international markets. You will need to set the shipping zones so that shipping costs are calculated automatically at the checkout stage.

Each country has different tax rates. Setting this up yourself to conform to all the legal requirements could be very difficult. You can use the plugin to handle these complexities automatically.

Setting up online payment methods was a complicated task in the past. WooCommerce allows you to quickly add multiple payment gateways such as Stripe or direct integration with PayPal.

WooCommerce eases the process of accepting payments by credit cards for both you as a vendor and your customers.

If you integrate a payment method, you don’t need to maintain any financial data of customers. This is because the function is outsourced to the payment gateway.

Recommended resources:

• Creating an online store with WooCommerce
• The cheapest way to launch an eCommerce website

2. Selling of digital products

WooCommerce allows you to sell digital products or downloads as it has a built-in option to grant access to downloadable products.

If you want to sell digital products, you can upload the product as “Virtual” such that no shipping costs are calculated.

The next step is to set the product or service as “Downloadable” and upload the appropriate files. You are now ready to start selling digital products!

3. Set up a service-based store

Companies that provide services can set up shop using WooCommerce. To set up a service-based store requires the use of particular extensions like appointment and booking extensions.

Setting up a service-based online store can help your business in many ways:

• It makes it easier for customers to book services at their leisure
• It reduces costs associated with making payments

There are many free and premium plugins that allow you to enable bookings and appointments online.

4. Set up a Membership Site

If you sell information such as digital courses, membership courses, or eLearning materials, you can use WooCommerce membership plugins.

We highly recommend building a user-base to increase revenue and add more value to loyal customers.

5. Set up a subscription-based store

The subscription-based setup is a preferred method of doing business. Subscriptions benefit users because the price per month is usually lower than buying a lifetime licence.

Keeping your customers for as long as possible is more profitable over the long term than a one-off purchase. To achieve this, you need a subscription box where potential subscribers can register once you sort out the supply and shipping logistics. This can be easily achieved with WooCommerce subscription plugins.

WooCommerce shortcodes

Shortcodes are small piece of code placed on a page, post or even in a widget that perform certain actions on your WordPress site. Shortcodes are designed for WordPress plugins.

A typical syntax of a shortcode is including some text within square parentheses, as follows,

[shortcode]

For instance, once you’ve installed and activated our WP Portfolio plugin, you can include it anywhere on your WordPress website by adding the following shortcode,

[wp_portfolio]

Similarly, WooCommerce has several shortcodes used to display its key pages. You’ll notice that every page in WooCommerce contain a shortcode.

For instance, the [woocommerce_cart] shortcode loads up the cart page, [woocommerce_checkout] loads the checkout page, and so on.

By including a shortcode, you can easily customize and create your eCommerce site.

Check out our Ultimate Guide on WooCommerce Shortcodes to explore the various possibilities using WooCommerce shortcodes.

Conclusion

At this point, you should be able to answer the ‘what is WooCommerce’ question.

In summary, WooCommerce is your best bet if you want to build a flexible and reliable eCommerce store. It is powered by the open-source WordPress software, which powers many leading websites.

WooCommerce is fast, powerful and most features are free. You can optionally extend its power with premium or third-party plugins.

We recommend using the Astra theme and the CartFlows plugin to supercharge your store. Astra helps you create a more beautiful store and conversion-optimized checkout pages. CartFlows helps you drive sales and minimize losses through checkout optimizations and other techniques.

All combine to deliver the ultimate eCommerce solution. Much of it is free. Those premium options are just that, options but each of them adds easy returns on investment.