Using WooCommerce to Power Your Online Store
At a point in time where online shopping has all but overtaken the retail industry there is no shortage of prepackaged applications to run an online store. From providers like Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix, shop owners can often become overwhelmed with the number of pre-packaged solutions to run the online portion of their business. I want to start by saying this is not going to be a comparison of all of the different online eCommerce applications, but rather why I choose to use WooCommerce when building an online store.
It Is Free
Need I say much more? It still amazes me that such a powerful tool is free to be used by anyone. That being said, there are plugins and other additional features that are not free that you may want to use with WooCommerce, but the base plugin and many additional, complimentary plugins are free. While there are other free online eCommerce solutions, I have not found one as of yet that is quite as powerful and versatile out-of-the-box as WooCommerce.
For any start-up business that, like many others, can be limited by budget a free online shopping solution can be invaluable. Depending on the size of your company, and product for that matter, a custom eCommerce solution can easily cost upwards of $84,0001, which is a far cry from affordable for most start-up businesses. While the ROI is there and can be well documented it is still a daunting task to try to come up with that kind of capital to get a business started.
Feature Rich Environment
WooCommerce is extremely feature rich right “out of the box”. From a range of product types to shipping and store management it would be hard to find a better solution than WooCommerce. Whether you are selling a physical or virtual (downloadable) product WooCommerce has an option for you. Breaking down every single option that WooCommerce offers would take too long, so lets just go over a few of the main features.
Products
As previously mentioned, WooCommerce offers several different product types right out of the box – Simple, Grouped, External, Variable, Virtual, and Downloadable (the latter two can be combined with any of the first four). Lets go over what each of these are and how they are used.
Simple
A simple product is a product that does not vary in price, dimensions, or features. An example of a simple product would be a single-size necklace like the Fringe Benefits necklace from a recent site I worked on for Lucas Robert Designs. This product does not vary in dimensions, price, or features.
Grouped
Grouped products are a collection of products that can be purchased individually, but are grouped together by the store owner to try and sell similar or complimentary items. A great example of this would be if you own an online pet boutique and sell feeding stations and accessories you would want to group the bowls with the feeding stations.
External
This is for something that you want to list on your website, but is sold in a different store, such as a book or electronic device from Amazon.com.
Variable
I have probably used variable products more than any other type due to the ability to add a virtually infinite amount of features. Variable products could range from clothing items of different sizes and colors to pieces of jewelry that come in multiple lengths.
Virtual & Downloadable
I am going to group these two together because they can be paired with each other and combined with the previous options. A great example of a virtual product would be an online membership or subscription to your website. Perhaps it is something like a subscription to a monthly blog or similar to Amazon Prime where you offer extra perks for being a subscriber. Downloadable products are things like product catalogs, e-books, and music.
Payment Options
WooCommerce supports virtually every major online payment option out there, from the big names like PayPal, Square, and Stripe to others like amazonpay and Elavon. Choosing the right payment method is vital in running an online store and will directly effect the quality of the user’s experience. I have not used every payment method listed by WooCommerce, but do know that there are a plethora of integration levels. Some of the payment methods allow you to accept customer payments directly on your website while others require that customers be redirected to their (the payment company) website to process the payment.
It is my personal feeling that the less off-site redirection the more likely you will succeed in retaining customers. A customer does not want to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to place an order, rather they want to have an experience as similar to Amazon’s one-click payment method as possible. As a business owner you will want to ensure that your customers have the best possible experience when checking out as well as a payment gateway that does not overburden your business with extra fees.
Product Inventory Management
You are probably wondering how you are going to keep track of all the orders you will be receiving through your online store. WooCommerce does offer a paid plugin (via third-party) to connect your online store to an online QuickBooks account called Unify, but this can be extremely pricey. WooCommerce also allows you to manually enter your product inventory, which will be the route of most business owners, especially if they are not using QuickBooks, which in my opinion can be a total rip off (that will be a post for another day).
I do want to take the time to mention that I am developing two applications to solve this problem – one is a customizable one-time-payment Business Solutions application (BETA) that can be used on the desktop or as an App on your mobile device; the second is an affordable plugin to connect WooCommerce to QuickBooks (desktop or online). Keep following me on Facebook and Instagram as well as on here to find out when these products will be released.
Order Management
WooCommerce gives you the ability to view and manually manage your orders from changing their status (i.e. – processing, pending, cancelled, etc.) to sending custom notifications to customers and suppliers. Out of the box, WooCommerce is set up to send both the shop manager and customer several different notifications upon order placement, status change, and completion. WooCommerce also allows you to customize the messages, add multiple recipients and determine what notifications you want sent and to whom.
Reporting
WooCommerce provides rich reporting features ranging from order placement, gross and net revenues, coupons, shipping and much more. This type of information can be invaluable in running a successful business where every dollar counts. You can also view this data in custom time frames as well as pre-set year, month and week timeframes.
Simple Theme Integration
Whether you want to save money by using a free WordPress theme or hire a web developer to design and develop a custom theme for your business WooCommerce will integrate seamlessly with nearly any theme. The WooCommerce developers have done an amazing job at making WooCommerce integration as simple and pain free as possible, including making it mobile responsive. The importance of a mobile responsive site is something to be saved for a different post, but it does not go unsaid that a mobile responsive website is paramount in remaining competitive in a mobile centric world.
If you choose to use a pre-developed WordPress theme make sure that it has been developed to be compatible with WooCommerce. WordPress’ 2017 theme is 100% compatible as it is geared more towards business sites than the traditional blog site. WooCommerce also offers their own theme – Storefront – for online stores and you can find many more free and paid themes on the WooCommerce website.