WooCommerce: A Guide to This Growing eCommerce Platform

At WooCommerce, the main goal is to empower SMBs to build the perfect online store to enhance the customer experience and increase profits. It’s one of the fastest-growing eCommerce platforms today, and it’s definitely giving Shopify a run for its money.

In addition to services like web design and SEO, SGD can help you to customise and optimise your online store, and we do this through easy-to-use platforms like WooCommerce.

Before you just take our word for it that WooCommerce is one of the most reliable resources for building an online store, it’s important to do your research. You can start right here with this guide to the WooCommerce platform.

A Brief Company History

The company originally started out in 2008 as WooThemes, but about a decade after the founding, they decided to focus solely on their best-selling service and the growing industry of eCommerce.

WooCommerce made the big leap from broad commercial themes to solely focusing on eCommerce in 2017, and this move might have been the smartest decision they ever made. Now, it’s the fastest-growing eCommerce platform on the internet with over 7 million downloads.

They’re now owned by Automattic, which is the company responsible for WordPress, Jetpack, Tumblr, and more. A small company that started out as just 3 guys now has over 150 team members in more than 30 countries.

How It Works: The Basics

Here’s what the official mission statement reads: “WooCommerce is committed to democratizing commerce and putting you in control of your own livelihood. Our core platform is free and open-source, empowering anyone to sell anything, anywhere.”

From this, it’s pretty clear that WooCommerce strongly feels that online store owners shouldn’t be at the mercy of the platform they use. They’ve made this possible by creating a WordPress plug-in that’s easy to use and completely free at the baseline with optional paid add-ons.

There are a few things that need to happen before you can start using Woo, like get your hosting services straightened out and develop your WordPress site. Once those tasks have been done, the next step is to install the WooCommerce plug-in to handle the eCommerce functionality of the site.

The Main Selling Points

Some people are turned off by the fact that WooCommerce isn’t a full-on site builder like Shopify. Instead, it only works to build the eCommerce aspects of the site. But we don’t necessarily see this as a flaw, it’s actually a selling point.

Versatility & Control

The fact that this is plug-in is solely used for figuring out how to sell your goods or services means that you have complete control over the other features and functions of your company website. And according to the mission statement, that’s what WooCommerce is all about.

Free & Affordable Plug-Ins

Users also love the “free” part, because seriously, who wouldn’t? But keep in mind that the free baseline plug-in will only get you so far, and most of the more advanced tools and add-ons will cost you. As your online store expands, you’ll probably have to pay for some of the WooCommerce features.

100+ Payment Options

When it comes to paying, consumers love to have options. WooCommerce gives that to them. In the base plug-in, the payment methods include credit cards, bank transfers, and PayPal. But you’ve also got the option for about 100 more payment integrations, like Stripe and Amazon Pay.

On top of that, store owners have complete control over how taxes are calculated. There are a few different configuration settings so that taxes can be collected based on billing address, shipping address, or store location.

Why We Use WooCommerce at SGD

WooCommerce has certainly wooed us here at Seriously Good Design, and we’ve already covered a few reasons why. But there’s way more to it than just affordability and easy payment methods.

For us, the main thing we love about WooCommerce is the insane number of functions and features they offer. In addition to the free to download baseline plug-in, there are more than 400 extensions to choose from. It’s any web developer’s dream.

Here are a few examples of the plugins offered at WooCommerce:

• Shipment tracking
• Bulk/wholesale discounts
• Store credit coupons
• Appointment bookings
• Gift certificates

Even though a lot of these aren’t free, it’s still great to have so many options for expanding your online store. With these tools, it’s really easy to grow your store and maintain your site, at least the eCommerce aspects of it.

If you’re still not sure whether or not this platform is right for you, reach out and we can help you decide. Not only that, but the experts at SGD can help you to build your WooCommerce site from start to finish.