Using of specialized themes for online stores and some plugins, we can build eCommerce sites with ease.
What is an ECommerce website?
Ecommerce stands for “electronic commerce.” Ecommerce websites are built to connect shoppers to products or services for trading online. They provide everything we need for online shopping.
WordPress with ECommerce themes and Plugins
WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) created by a group of developers and volunteers. Around 41% of websites are created with WordPress.
WordPress becomes very helpful for creating eCommerce websites. As there are so many already-built custom themes that are suitable for an online store. Besides WordPress themes, a lot of plugins can give your website full online store functionality, like the WooCommerce plugin, or custom-made plugins.
One of the important reasons to use WordPress is that it is a versatile platform. It allows you to have complete control over what your website does and how it looks.
WooCommerce Plugin With WordPress
WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It lets users turn a WordPress website into a fully functioning eCommerce store. It is fully compatible with the functions on the WordPress site. It means user can have a WordPress eCommerce site with products, a shopping cart, and checkout options.
Currently, WooCommerce powers more than 70 million eCommerce websites.
By default, WooCommerce will automatically create Shop, Cart, Checkout, and My Account pages via the Setup Wizard. User usually need these pages for an online store, so WooCommerce will create them for you.
Even though WooCommerce is free to use, the user has to pay to utilize any of the 300+ WooCommerce extensions that add features like product variable swatches and the ability to offer subscriptions, etc.
Websites Using WooCommerce
As mentioned, WooCommerce powers more than 70 million eCommerce websites, some of them are top brands, like:
- WPML
- Elegant Themes
- Yoast SEO
- ThemeForest
- Bootstrap Themes
- And many more…
Source: BuiltWith
Installing and Activating WooCommerce
Just like other plugins, one can directly install and activate the WooCommerce plugin via wp-admin panel.
Steps:
1: Log into the WordPress admin area.
2: Select Plugins from the left side of the menu.
3: Press Add New and type WooCommerce in the search bar.
4: Find WooCommerce from the search results and click on Install Now.
5: Once the installation is complete, click the Activate button.
Setting Up WooCommerce
A WooCommerce welcome pop-up will appear, asking you to run the Setup Wizard. Press “Yes Please” button to move forward.
Follow the WooCommerce tutorial to set it up
1: Set up the Store Details, including your country, address, and zip code.
2: Move on to the Industry in which your WooCommerce store operates. Make sure to check all the apply
3: In Product Types select the type of products that will be listed. And again, make sure to check any that apply.
4: Include more Business Details such as, how many products you will display and if you are selling anywhere else.
5: Next step, choose a Theme. These can be from Paid themes or Free themes. Themes can be changed later.
6: The next step will redirect you to your WooCommerce dashboard. Here you will see Finish setup, Stats overview, Inbox, and more.
7: In the Finish setup area, you can click and complete the following: Add my products, Personalize my store, Set up shipping, Set up tax, and Set up Payments.
8: Select Add my products to add your first product. It will give you the option to Add manually, Import larger CSV files, or Migrate your store from another location. Then follow the steps in the next section.
For more information in setup, check out the video on setting up of WooCommerce:
Product Categories, Attributes and Types
It is important to understand what different product categories, attributes, and types are:
- Product category. This helps group your products. For example, if you sell apparel, top wear, bottom wear, and nightwear could be your product categories. They enable the shopper to locate products from the same category quickly. You can create as many categories as you want and edit them anytime.
- Attributes: This filters the products by size, color, fabric, and by what the customers like, to help them choose their desired products easily. You can either assign attributes independently to each product or set up a global attribute for the entire website.
- Product Types. WooCommerce saves the customer’s time by having predefined product types:
- Simple – a stand-alone product that is shipped without any other additional options. For example, one physical book.
- Grouped – you can group related items such as a dozen shot glasses.
- Virtual – these are products that require no shipping as they are not physical entities, like services.
- Downloadable – digital products that you can download. For example, songs, images, videos, eBooks, etc.
- External – products that are advertised on your website, but are sold elsewhere.
- Variable – these products have variable qualities like sizes, colors, etc. For example, shoes and clothes.
Adding Products To The Site
We can add WooCommerce products to our site, just like adding blog posts.
Follow the steps to add Products
1: Get started by clicking on Products, which is located under WooCommerce. From there, click on Add New.
2: Type in your product’s name and add a detailed description including relevant information about your product.
3: Scroll down to the Product data section and choose the product type. Then, set additional information – price, stock and inventory, shipping, linked products, etc. Check the Virtual box if your products are non-physical goods and don’t need shipping, and check Downloadable for products such as eBooks or files.
4: Next, give your product a price and include a short description to be displayed below the product’s name.
5: On the right side, add the Product categories.
6: Product tags give you the option to label your products, making it easier for customers to find them
7: The Product image acts as a featured image. Product image are allows you to upload or assign an image to your product.
8: Product Gallery is where you can add more images to your product
9: Once products are added, you can preview the final changes, and the press Publish.
Final Preview Of The Product:
Conclusion
Yes, WordPress can be used for creating eCommerce Websites. There are tons of plugins that can help you create a beautiful & fully functional online store. Users can create beautiful online stores, where they can implement any kind of payment and delivery method.
