Using Wordpress to make an e-commerce website

WooCommerce is an ecommerce plugin for the world's most popular open-source CMS WordPress. WooCommerce is part of Automattic, the company behind WordPress. Meanwhile, WooCommerce has become the most used webshop software worldwide. 

WooCommerce was launched in 2011 by the South African company WooThemes. There were already several e-commerce plugins for WordPress available at the time, but the quality was still poor. WooThemes has completed this launch with WooCommerce. WooThemes has since been taken over by Automattic, the company behind WordPress. WooThemes as a brand name has been replaced by WooCommerce.

Characteristics

o    WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. You always use WooCommerce in combination with open source CMS Wordpress.

o    WooCommerce is open source, so completely free to use.

o    Worldwide active community that contributes to the development of WooCommerce and WooCommerce extensions and WooCommerce themes.

Prices

WooCommerce is open-source and free to download. WooCommerce offers paid themes and extensions. Third parties also offer free and paid themes and extensions.

Experience

Benefits

o    User friendliness ; are you used to working with WordPress? Then it is certainly not complex to work with WooCommerce.

o    Design ; there are a lot of professional WordPress themes available for WooCommerce.

o    Large community; there are many WooCommerce extensions (functionalities) and WooCommerce themes (design) available.

o    Integrations ; because of the large community, many integrations are available (free and paid) with third products. Think of payment providers, accounting, etc.

Cons

o    Hosting ; in theory, a simple shared-hosting package is enough. In practice, however, WooCommerce turns out to be a heavy burden on your website.

o    Maintenance ; WooCommerce requires maintenance. The plugin and extensions need to be updated. In the past I have experienced conflicts with the WordPress theme after a WooCommerce update. The combination of WordPress, WooCommerce, WordPress theme, WordPress plugin and WooCommerce extensions means that attention is required for updates and technical maintenance.

o    Complex integrations ; for WooCommerce more and more integrations are becoming available with third products. Do you need a professional webshop and links with accounting, fullfillment, ERP software? Then I advise you to first research for example Lightspeed (formerly the Dutch SEOshop).

o    Customization ; The e-commerce functionalities of WooCommerce are difficult to adjust. So with a lot of customization, I advise to first take a good look at how easy or difficult that can be with WooCommerce.

Characteristics

o    WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. You always use WooCommerce in combination with open-source CMS WordPress .

o    WooCommerce is open source, so completely free to use

o    Worldwide active community that contributes to the development of WooCommerce and WooCommerce extensions and WooCommerce themes

Prices

WooCommerce is open-source and free to download. WooCommerce offers paid themes and extensions. Third parties also offer free and paid themes and extensions.

Experience

Benefits

o    User friendliness ; are you used to working with WordPress? Then it is certainly not complex to work with WooCommerce.

o    Design ; there are a lot of professional WordPress themes available for WooCommerce.

o    Large community; there are many WooCommerce extensions (functionalities) and WooCommerce themes (design) available.

o    Integrations ; because of the large community, many integrations are available (free and paid) with third products. Think of payment providers, accounting, etc.

Cons

o    Hosting ; in theory, a simple shared-hosting package is enough. In practice, however, WooCommerce turns out to be a heavy burden on your website.

o    Maintenance ; WooCommerce requires maintenance. The plugin and extensions need to be updated. In the past I have experienced conflicts with the WordPress theme after a WooCommerce update. The combination of WordPress, WooCommerce, WordPress theme, WordPress plugin and WooCommerce extensions means that attention is required for updates and technical maintenance.

o    Complex integrations ; for WooCommerce more and more integrations are becoming available with third products. Do you need a professional webshop and links with accounting, fullfillment, ERP software? Then I advise you to first research for example Lightspeed (formerly the Dutch SEOshop).

o    Customization ; The e-commerce functionalities of WooCommerce are difficult to adjust. So with a lot of customization, I advise to first take a good look at how easy or difficult that can be with WooCommerce.

I know these tips helped you out. I hope you get to your end goals. Check this page for additional info on how to build a website through Wordpress.

E-commerce website


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