What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin which allows users to sell products or services through their site. It will add ecommerce functionality for free, so you can have a fully functioning online store. This plugin easily integrates with an existing WordPress site, so you can make an existing site into an online store.
Easy setup
WooCommerce is designed to make starting as easy as possible, installation is simple so you can get your ecommerce website up and running with WordPress. All you have to do is search for WooCommerce in the plugin section of a site, then activate it. You will then have to follow instructions to complete a few basic steps to get up and running. WooCommerce works well with most of WordPress’ themes, but you can also select the official theme, which is also free of charge.
Keeping you informed
It is important to be able to be informed about the products that you are selling. With WooCommerce, you can see a lot of information all from the store dashboard. From the dashboard you can view the site traffic, to see the type of users that visit your site. You can also see order status summary of customer orders. Another feature is built in reports, you can view gross and net sales, and other important statistics based on your ecommerce site. This data is then analysed by another feature, where you can track growth trends which will help you to plan store growth.
Shopping Cart Features
With WooCommerce you can tailor the checkout process, which helps to convert site visitors to customers. There is the option to have different payment gateways, such as having cash on delivery, bank transfer, PayPal or accepting checks. These will make an ecommerce website more user friendly, as users will be able to select their preferred payment method. Another feature is using Geo-Location to set automatic taxes, this means you can display the correct price on a product page depending on the geographical location of the visitor. You can also customise the checkout process, this includes choosing to sell to specific countries or worldwide, disabling or enabling guest checkout and forcing a secure checkout. Another way to tailor the checkout is by specifying the currency that you wish to use.
Control Over Products
WooCommerce also gives complete control over every product. It allows unlimited products, you can continue to add as many as you like, only constrained by hosting solutions. There is also the option to set product types, such as simple, grouped or downloadable products. Another option is product variations. Allowing customers to select them when ordering, such as sizes, colours and prices. Another important feature is inventory. You can take control of managing the inventory. You can look at stock levels and backorders, send email notifications when an item’s stock is low or sold out, and more options which help to simplify product management.
Easy Shipping
WooCommerce makes getting products to customers easy. There are multiple shipping options, such as the option to have international shipping, local delivery or pickup, give customers the lowest rate depending on their address or even have free shipping. You can also set up shipping calculations. You can hide the shipping rate until the user enters an address, offer a shipping calculator, or set up separate shipping and billing addresses.
Tax Management
In order to run a successful ecommerce store you have to deal with taxes. WooCommerce will simplify this by offering different features which will make things much easier, which are built into the plugin. There is the option to set custom tax rates, depending on user location. You can also define and control the tax rates that are assigned to shipping costs. This all goes towards making tax management easier for WooCommerce users.
Customer Management
It is easy to enable the option for customer accounts to be set up. This will help to retain customers, encouraging them to return to the site and make more purchases. This option makes it easy for customers to create their own account, especially when you have auto generated usernames from customer email addresses. There is also an IOS and Google Play app for WooCommerce. This allows you to check your orders, product catalog and details no matter where you are.
WooCommerce can help to meet any marketing needs as it has so many features. You can make your site into an ecommerce website, with this simple plugin. There is also the option to add even more functionality, with the option to add extensions. You can add ones which are paid or free, with so many to choose from as there are over 450 extensions in the WooCommerce extension store. From its easy setup to managing customers and taxes, you can easily set up a fully functioning ecommerce site with this plugin.