Anyone who’s even slightly knowledgeable about eCommerce sites has most likely heard about WooCommerce. This is one of the most popular WordPress-powered site-building platforms that hundreds of thousands of people have used to create their online shops.
WooCommerce is very beginner-friendly, and it’s the perfect platform for anyone trying to start their first eCommerce website. You have plenty of useful features that can help you learn the intricacies of building a proper site layout and adding all of the necessary tools that your customers might need.
However, despite the beginner-friendly features and easy-to-use design options, the platform isn’t strictly for small businesses that are just starting out. The flexibility that WooCommerce has in everything from the marketing strategies to the hosting services makes it an ideal option for just about any company that’s looking to create an online shop.
WooCommerce also has a large community that contributes to the platform in various ways. Some post examples of their page layouts so that new users can learn from examples, while others leave posts or comments on the blog that’s full of useful tips.
It’s a very creative environment thanks to the involvement of the WooCommerce staff and customers alike, and you can get as involved in this community as you want.
Sections
Helpful Features
We’ll go into the main features once we get to the pricing section of our article. The features that we outline in this section are meant to help newcomers to the business that want to start off on the right foot when creating their online shop.
Guides
One of the more unique aspects of creating a website through WooCommerce is the abundance of learning materials you can access. This seemingly simple addition to the WooCommerce service is one of the best tools for first-time site creators since it can help them start off on the right foot.
The guides on the site are available to anyone, and they can teach newcomers to eCommerce everything they need to know before getting started in the business. However, while anyone can learn from the tips that are given in these articles, you’ll obviously get the most out of them if you’re planning on making a site on WooCommerce since that’s what most of the guides are focused on.
You’ll be able to learn better ways to optimize your site once you subscribe to the service, or you can read up on how to actually get started before even considering whether or not you want to subscribe to WooCommerce.
Blogs
Blog articles have quite a few similarities to the guides that we just mentioned, the main difference being the content of the articles that are posted in the blog section.
While the Guides focus mostly on how to set up and design your site, including all of the aspects that you might need to learn before starting your own e-shop, the articles on the blog page focus more on what you should do once everything is up and running.
You’ll be able to find information on how to expand your business, good marketing tactics, recommended payment strategies that you might want to implement, and much more.
In essence, you’ll be able to get some tips and tricks on aspects of the eCommerce business that you might not be too sure of in the beginning.
Showcase
The showcase is exactly what it sounds like – a collection of sites built through WooCommerce that you can examine and use as inspiration.
You’ll get a bit of info on the site itself, as well as the creators and owners. There’s also info on how long the sites have been running, how many people have visited them since they were created, the average number of views per day, and other similar stats.
These showcases are an excellent way to get some inspiration for your own site by looking through several similar shops.
This is especially true for clothes or shoe shops since there are hundreds of colourful layouts that you can try out. If the indecision is preventing you from making a concrete choice on the layout, there’s no better cure than looking through similar shops and trying to find something that at least comes close to the vision of how your own site should turn out.
WooExperts
If none of the other features were enough to help you get a good idea of how your site should look like or be built, then you might be interested in the consultation services that WooCommerce offers.
WooExperts connects you to professionals in the eCommerce and site-building fields that can help you start and improve your site.
Unfortunately, the service isn’t free, and consultants will charge you anything between $50 and $300 an hour. The advice and services that you’re getting for your money are top-notch, but most small companies don’t have that sort of capital to be throwing around in the beginning.
However, if you do have a bit of money burning a hole in your pocket, then you can contact a business specialist, and they will create an extensive plan that you can follow to increase the revenue that your business is generating.
Additionally, you can also set budgets for your project. This allows you to tell the consultants exactly how much money you’re planning to spend on the site so that they can create a plan that doesn’t exceed that allotted amount of money.
Prices/Fees
Even though both WordPress and WooCommerce are free, open-source software, there are some costs that come with creating an online store.
Themes
You have access to hundreds of customizable themes, icons, and plenty of great add-ons that you can put on your site completely free of charge. Since there are so many different themes to pick from, you can easily customize your store page without paying a single cent.
However, certain themes are locked behind a paywall and can cost you somewhere between $20 and $100 a year.
So, if you want to give your page a bit of flare and have it stand out from the other WordPress sites, then the annual cost of the themes is pretty reasonable, even if you get some of the more expensive ones.
Hosting
WooCommerce gives you access to some of the most popular hosting options, like Bluehost or Pressable, and SiteGround even has specific pricing plans that are designed for WooCommerce sites.
There’s no one right plan that you should go for, and the biggest deciding factor is going to be the size of your store. WooCommerce knows this, which is why you’re given access to so many different plans to pick from.
According to the site, most small shops that are just starting out will only need to pay between $3 and $20 per month for an adequate hosting service. Stores that have found their footing and are steadily growing bigger might need to spend $70 or more on hosting per month.
And finally, large and established sites will need to go for the pricier hosting options in order to accommodate the traffic they get on a regular basis. These plans start at around $400 or $500 per month and go up from there.
If you’re unsure about which option you should get, you can always contact the hosting services directly and they’ll help you choose a plan that’s right for your business.
Shipping
WooCommerce Shipping is a built-in extension, completely free of charge, that allows you to print and add DHL and USPS labels directly from your dashboard to your packages.
However, if you need to use a more specific shipping option for domestic packages, then you also have access to extensions like Australia Post, Canada Post, Royal Mail, and many others. Aside from WooCommerce Shipping, all of the other extensions cost around $8 or $9 on average.
All of these different extensions give you several flat-rate shipping, free shipping, and local pickup options, so you can choose whichever one works for you the most.
Marketing
Search engine optimization extensions, like Google Listings & Ads or Affiliate For WooCommerce, can help track how well your site is performing on a regular basis and give you some pointers on what you can do to improve your ranking and discoverability.
Most of these tools are either free or cost somewhere around $20 a month, so they’re worth it when you consider the usefulness of the service that they’re providing.
As for the email extensions, they’re also very reasonably priced and you can even find dozens of free ones that you can add to your site. This tool can allow your customers to leave an email where you can reach them and send them info on special sales or new items, so it’s an invaluable addition to your site if you want to retain a loyal customer base.
You can also add different social media extensions to your site, like Facebook, Pinterest, Trustpilot, and so on. All of these can help you add links through the different sites that we just mentioned and get your name out there.
Additionally, you can also check out the Advertising extensions, the ad automation extensions, and the CRM extensions. All of the tools listed here can help you grow your business in different ways through tried and tested advertising methods and strategies.
Merchandising
Depending on the extension that you get, you’ll either need to pay $2 or $20 a month. The more expensive extensions, like B2B for WooCommerce, have a bit more to offer, so it’s ultimately up to you and what you need.
For example, the extension that we just mentioned gives you the option to offer customer-specific prices to each individual client and add offered price option with a quotation. These small quality-of-life features can streamline your customer’s purchases and your transaction speeds, allowing you to process more sales at one time.
However, while the cheaper extensions like Order Product Samples for WooCommerce might not have quite as many features, they’re still very helpful tools. This particular extension, for example, allows you to offer free or paid samples to clients, apply rules to specific categories of products, and so on.
The extensions are also divided into several different categories, depending on what you’re looking for. You have extensions that specialize in B2B transactions, extensions that specialize in product bundle creation and sale, extensions that focus on creating and distributing gift cards and vouchers, and so on.
There’s a lot of overlap between the features that are offered in these extensions, but that also means that you can find something that perfectly meets your requirements and that would be a perfect addition to your particular business.
Customer Services
Extensions that fall under this category will cost you between $2 and $10 a month. These are the customer communication tools that you use to ensure that everything is as it should be on the site and that the customers are getting the quality of service that they expected.
There are several automated support extensions that you can go for, like the Woo Bot for WooCommerce or the Facebook Messenger Chatbot for WooCommerce. Both of these extensions can answer common pre-determined questions that your customers might have about your products or your site.
Automated support extensions are a particularly great asset for larger companies since they get too many customers for their staff to handle each individual query. Preparing answers to common questions that you get and setting them to automatically be sent to your customers is a good way to free up your employees for other tasks. Plus, you’re still ensuring that your site visitors are looked after as much as possible.
For more thorough customer support, you can get one of the live chat extensions. These tools allow your customers to directly contact your PR team and have all of their concerns alleviated.
There are also post-purchase services that offer customer referral programs and package tracking options. You can also follow up with your customers by sending them an email confirming that their package has been shipped. Additionally, you can implement returns and warranty requests much more easily with the features that some of these extensions offer.
Finally, you also have extensions that allow you to create customer accounts and memberships for your site where your visitors can register. These memberships come with incentive programs that reward return customers.
Store Management
The store management extensions can help you do everything from bulk buying products to calculating tax exemptions. They cover everything in terms of the financials on the site, and they can help you out with all of the more difficult calculations to ensure that everything is as it should be.
The prices of these extensions vary between $2 and around $15 a month.
Security
It doesn’t matter if you’re a small site or a large one, you’ll need a reliable security system that can protect both your site data and all of the information that your customers have entrusted you with.
You have a choice of several data security options that play well with WooCommerce sites, but the three most prominent ones would probably be Jetpack, Securi, and SiteLock.
The plans generally gravitate between $20 and $50 a month, and the more expensive plans are generally much more appealing since they provide several site backup options.
Free
You’ll find that WooCommerce has free extensions in every single category that you look through. While the paid services usually come with a few more perks, the free extensions that the platform offers shouldn’t be underestimated and can still provide some incredibly useful tools for any eCommerce site.
Additionally, if you don’t want to scroll through all of the separate categories looking for the free ones, WooCommerce has simply put them all together in their own classification on the site. Now you can easily scroll through all of the cost-free tools at your disposal and check to see which ones might be useful for your site.
Integration With Payment Gateways
Your customers will want a payment gateway that’s simple to use, and you’ll want a gateway that’s easy to implement on your site and that can allow you to easily keep track of any purchase.
WooCommerce Payments is the best option since it’s custom-built specifically for WooCommerce sites, so the integration is seamless. It allows you to process both online and in-person payments through credit cards, debit cards, as well as Google Pay and Apply Pay.
It’s available in 30 different countries, supports more than 135 currencies, and there are no setup charges or monthly fees. You’ll need to pay 2.9% + $0.30 for each transaction made with US-issued cards, and 3.9% + $0.30 for transactions made through non-US cards.
Additionally, you don’t even need a terminal to be able to make in-person transactions. The WooCommerce app will allow you to scan the cards and receive the payment through your iPhone camera.
If you don’t want to use WooCommerce Payments, you can always choose to add PayPal as a payment option. There’s no monthly payment, and you’ll need to pay 2.9% + $0.30 per sale to Paypal.
If that doesn’t work for you either, then you can pick from a list of dozens of other payment gateways, like Stripe, Square, Amazon Pay, and so on.
All of the other payment gateways will take the customers to their respective sites so that they can complete the payments there, but that’s just an extra step so it shouldn’t be much of an issue.
Additional Payment Extensions
WooCommerce allows you to implement several useful extensions along with your payment options.
You can add several subscription and recurring payment services, like Stripe or PayPal Payments, to your site. These will allow the customers to pay more expensive items off in increments rather than all at once.
There are also in-person payment options that you can add to your site if you have a physical store. These extensions will automatically integrate your physical store purchases and your online purchases so that you can more easily calculate the gross income from both sources.
Another useful category of extensions are the fraud prevention tools. WooCommerce Anti-Fraud, Eye4Fraud, and any of the other extensions in this category will prevent any potential fraudulent financial transactions. These tools are especially significant if you sell third-party items that you don’t have full control over.
The fraud-prevention tools allow you to limit payments through certain gateways, pick the orders that are screened, automatically block and cancel potentially fraudulent orders, and so on.
Finally, you also have slightly more niche extension categories, like pre-orders and crypto payments.
The extensions in the pre-orders section will allow your customers to purchase items that are still not in stock. Depending on your listing strategy and how you sell products, these extensions will either be useless for you, or they can be really integral tools.
As for the crypto payment extensions, the function is in the name. If you want to allow your customers to make transactions on your site via crypto currencies, then these extensions can help you make that a possibility.
Company Background
WooCommerce was built on WordPress, although it didn’t start as an eCommerce platform. The company was started in 2007 by Mark Forrester, Magnus Jepson, and Adii Pienaaras and went as WooThemes. The site provided customers with site themes until 2017 when the focus switched to site building.
The once three-man team now encompasses 330+ team members in over 32 countries.
User Reviews
Merchant Maverick gives WooCommerce 4 out of 5 stars, with the pricing and the add-ons receiving excellent scores.
TechRadar also gives the platform 4 out of 5 stars, the only downside being the fact that it’s tethered to WordPress.
Tom’s Guide gives WooCommerce a better score of 4.5 stars out of 5 and mentions the great design flexibility and the beginner-friendly setup.
User Reviews
Review Summary
Recent Reviews
There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write one.