You will find dozens of ecommerce plugins designed for WordPress: WPecommerce, Cart 66, Jigoshop, MarketPress, Shopp, WP shop, and more. In this case, the few examples of ecommerce plugins that I just mentioned offer the right feature set for setting up ecommerce stores on the WordPress platform.
Nevertheless, WooCommerce as an ecommerce plugin stands out clearly, and you will see soon in our WooCommerce tutorial. WooThemes (bought by Automattic in 2015, the creator of WordPress) launched it in 2011, and today, WooCommerce setup is quick and efficient. It is the most powerful, the most flexible and complete ecommerce plugin for WordPress. You can do almost anything with WooCommerce, as I will demonstrate below during the course of this WooCommerce tutorial.
Remember that creating a WooCommerce store is different than creating an ecommerce store from a platform specifically dedicated to ecommerce (Magento, Shopify, Prestashop, etc.). WooCommerce is especially recommended if you wish to:
- Have complete control over your store. With proprietary platforms, you are often limited by the platform restrictions. For example, you cannot always set SEO parameters (meta tag description, URL, etc.). Then, more generally, you have limited options for modifying the platform code (example: the addition of tags in the header). With WooCommerce, you can edit, customize, and manage everything.
- Being able to have an ecommerce store that is not only a store, but also a website that hosts a blog, various pages, and so on. By using WordPress, you get the best blog editor in the world.
- Don’t pay commissions on your sales or a monthly subscription (like in Shopify) as is the case for all proprietary platforms.
- Be able to start small and build your ecommerce store as your business grows. WooCommerce makes it possible to create very simple stores, but can also answer all the complex needs, current, and future. For example, in the case of payment management, you can start with simple to manage tools, such as PayPal, Amazon Payments or Google Wallet, before implementing SSL for better store performance.
Note: You can also read a series of comparative articles between:
More than 3.5 million websites use WooCommerce currently. We really like the WooCommerce setup because of the sheer flexibility that it offers. Cloudways offers the WooCommerce Starter Bundle. It offers all of the main plugins that you need to get started, including:
- Stripe Gateway
- Shipping & Tax
- Google Analytics Integration
- Kadence Email Designer
- Checkout Field Editor
- Cart Abandonment Recovery
- PayPal Checkout Gateway
- Coupon Shortcodes
This is the best way to launch your WooCommerce store. Our WooCommerce Starter Bundle gives you everything you need to launch your store and start selling. Powered by Cloudways’ fast hosting, you can save time on your store launch by getting everything integrated right off the bat.
