Have you ever thought about creating a professional online store? If the answer is yes, I'm guessing you're now looking for a suitable platform to build your online store. Well, have you ever heard of WordPress for building online stores?
There are many systems that allow you to create an online store from scratch. Among these systems is the WordPress e-commerce platform, which is the most suitable option for many people to start an online store.
Since there are other platforms for creating online stores that are almost as efficient as WordPress, you may have some doubts! Why choose WordPress specifically?
This article was written specifically for you. We will inform you of all the features WordPress offers when creating an online store. After reading this topic, you will be aware of all the reasons why WordPress is an excellent choice for many people, and perhaps for you as well.
Why is WordPress the ideal solution for starting your online store?
WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS), which allows you to build and fully control all types of websites. In addition to blogs and regular websites, you can also create an online store to sell products easily and simply.
The advantages of creating an online store on WordPress include ease of use, flexibility, scalability, and many more. This is why many users prefer WordPress over other online store creation platforms like Shopify and OpenCart.
Here are all the advantages that have made users prefer creating online stores on WordPress:
1. WordPress is free and open-source.
WordPress allows all users to create an online store for free. It is also an open-source system; this means that the original owner of WordPress provides the core code for the program for free.
This, of course, allows users to modify it to suit their needs. This feature is useful for fixing bugs, discovering vulnerabilities, and introducing new features to your online store.
2. Ease of Use
Without the need for programming experience or hiring a team of programmers, WordPress enables you to create an e-commerce website with ease. If you're familiar with some WordPress basics, you'll have no difficulty building your store. If you're a beginner, these basics are easy to learn and get used to.
3. Search Engine Friendly
Don't forget that your store is nothing more than a website in the online world. To reach the largest number of customers, your store must appear on the first pages of search results.
This is where WordPress comes in to facilitate this step. Your WordPress-based online store will enjoy many features and technical capabilities that significantly contribute to its ranking in search results.
4. Freedom to Customize
WordPress gives you absolute freedom to customize your online store. You control the design of your store pages, sidebars, product display methods, marketing methods, payment system and method, new store additions, and many other variables that you can control according to your requirements.
5. Thousands of Themes and Plugins
WordPress allows you to create a professional-looking online store without any prior programming or design experience. This is because it offers nearly 8,000 templates, some of which are paid and some are free.
If you're a programmer and want a custom template, WordPress provides dedicated template design tools known as WordPress Page Builder Plugins, such as Elementor and Visual Composer.
As for plugins, in addition to the plugin responsible for building the online store—which we'll also explain its features—you'll find many other plugins or tools that add great features to your store, including payment tools, communication tools, marketing tools, and more.
6. Ability to Add Store-Related Content
E-store content is a free service provided by the store owner to customers, such as creating a blog to publish articles related to the store's products. WordPress offers this easily, simply, and at no additional cost.
Here are three types of content you can add to your online store:
A series of videos explaining the features of your products, how to use them, and everything related to them.
A blog for writing articles related to the store's field, reviewing products and how to benefit from them.
Chat and customer communication services, which can be easily added to your WordPress store.
7. Low operational costs
Compared to other e-commerce platforms, WordPress is inexpensive and doesn't require large sums like other platforms.
All you need is good web hosting and a domain name, which many hosts offer for free when you subscribe to one of their packages.
What are the main steps for creating an online store on WordPress?
We didn't dedicate this topic to how to create an online store on WordPress. Rather, we dedicated it to answering the reader's question (Why is WordPress the ideal solution for many people to start an online store?) and to open the floor to discuss the plugin responsible for building your store.
Now, we will briefly discuss the steps for creating an online store on WordPress, which are:
1. Having a website on WordPress: If you have previously created a website on WordPress, you can skip this step and start from the next one. However, if you don't have a website on WordPress, you must create it first.
2. Installing the WooCommerce plugin: After having a website on WordPress, we come to the important step, which is installing the plugin responsible for transforming the site into a fully-fledged online store. You can access this plugin through the Admin Panel on your WordPress site.
3. Starting to create the pages and menus for the online store: You can use the WooCommerce Wizard to learn the steps for setting up the store and preparing it to start selling products.
What is WooCommerce and what are its features?
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin designed in 2011 to enable WordPress websites to support large and small online stores.
This software has become widely used by a large number of online store owners due to its ease of installation and ease of use. Like WordPress, WooCommerce is free and open-source.
According to Statista, WooCommerce is used to build online stores by over 36% of all online e-commerce sites.
The numbers below show the popularity of WooCommerce among users:
Active installations: +4 million downloads.
Rating: 4.5 (based on over 3,000 reviews).
Available languages: 54.
Price: Free.
Here's a brief overview of WooCommerce's most prominent features that have made it so popular among users:
1. Free Plugin
WooCommerce is a 100% free plugin, and it's open source—like WordPress—so once you pay for your website, you won't have to pay any additional fees.
2. Quick Activation
After you have a WordPress website, simply go to the Plugins section, search for the WooCommerce plugin, download and activate it, and begin configuring your online store.
3. WooCommerce is Easy to Use
You don't need any prior experience when configuring your homepage, sidebars, and site structure. If you encounter any difficulties configuring these settings, you can use the New Store Owners Guide, which explains how to use it. You'll find this guide directly after downloading WooCommerce.
Note: Although WooCommerce is easy to use, there are easier options for building an online store, such as using the Shopify platform.
4. Offer flexible and secure payments
Unlike most e-commerce platforms that struggle with payment methods, WooCommerce offers a wide range of flexible and secure payment methods, such as credit cards, checks, bank transfers, cash on delivery, and a number of other e-payment platforms, such as:
PayPal
Stripe
Amazon Pay
Google Pay
Apple Pay
5. With WooCommerce, you can sell anything
WooCommerce enables you to create a fully integrated online store and sell anything you can to customers, whether you want to sell physical or digital products.
A physical product is a real-life physical product that can be shipped and delivered to customers, such as various devices, tools, furniture, and much more.
A digital product is anything that is traded digitally online, such as e-books, educational courses, online services, etc.
6. Get Support
WooCommerce's technical support forums help you answer questions, troubleshoot errors, and fix issues with your WooCommerce store. It's worth noting that WooCommerce lacks direct support, which is one of the few drawbacks you'll find with WooCommerce.
7. Expand Your Business
WordPress developers are keen to make it a comprehensive and global platform. Therefore, WooCommerce was introduced as a multilingual and multicurrency platform. WooCommerce works in over 54 languages and supports various types of currencies, making your online store more accessible to customers from all over the world.
8. Extensions to Develop Your Online Store
WordPress developers are dedicated to creating extensions for WooCommerce that help develop and enhance your online store. There are dozens of free and paid extensions available.
Here are examples of free extensions:
a) WooCommerce Blocks: This extension allows you to add more categories and components to your store with the click of a button, such as "Best Selling Products" or "Newest Products," among other components.
b) WooCommerce Tax Plugin: This tool saves you the hassle of adjusting product prices and adding taxes if your store is located in a country that imposes tax fees. This plugin automatically calculates the tax amount and adds it to your purchase invoice.
c) Facebook for WooCommerce Plugin: It allows you to connect your online store to your Facebook or Instagram business page, easily exporting your products to the page. It also allows you to add a buy button to the product directly on Instagram or Facebook.
Tip: You can access WooCommerce plugins in two ways: the first is through the official WooCommerce website after activating WooCommerce, and the second is through the WordPress dashboard under the Plugins section.
9. Compatible with all shipping companies
Perhaps one of the most important features of WooCommerce is that most global shipping companies support the delivery of WordPress store products, allowing customers to track their purchases directly until they are delivered.
10. Responsive
The WooCommerce plugin is responsive compared to other platforms, and it doesn't cause any speed issues, regardless of the number of products in the store.
Comparison between WordPress and Shopify
To better answer our question (Why is WordPress the ideal solution for many to start an online store?), in this section, we will present a simple comparison between the two most popular platforms for building online stores: WordPress and Shopify, taking into account three aspects of comparison.
The question here is, why compare WordPress with Shopify specifically? Shopify is one of the most widely used platforms after WordPress for creating online stores and one of WordPress's most prominent competitors. According to Statista, Shopify accounts for approximately 10% of online stores worldwide.
Unlike WordPress, Shopify offers a comprehensive system in one platform for creating and managing online stores without the need for any additional tools. This is done for a monthly subscription fee.
Here are the key comparisons between WordPress and Shopify:
1. Cost: With Shopify, you'll need to pay a monthly subscription fee for the comprehensive solution you get for building, managing, and hosting your store, in addition to professional support from the platform's administrators.
With WordPress, on the surface, you get everything completely free except for the website hosting, which you'll subscribe to independently to host your store.
However, there are other costs that may arise if you want to develop your store, such as subscribing to a paid add-on, or obtaining additional paid features in the WooCommerce plugin, called extensions.
In any case, the winner in this part of the comparison is WordPress, but only on the surface, as we explained above.
2. Ease of Use: Working with WordPress and WooCommerce isn't difficult, and you can discover and learn it yourself. If you encounter any difficulties, there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube.
As for Shopify, creating an online store is extremely easy and simple, and this is something Shopify pays particular attention to. Given Shopify's dedicated customer service, the winner in this part of the comparison is clearly Shopify.
3. Flexibility and Scalability: Since Shopify is a self-hosted, closed-source platform, store owners will find it difficult to modify it to accommodate increasing sales volume and number. They will have no choice but to upgrade their subscription plan, which means increased costs, which is one of Shopify's downsides.
We've mentioned repeatedly that WordPress is open source, and this also applies to WooCommerce. Since you are fully responsible for your online store and its modifications, this means there are limitless options for modifying and developing it. This is in addition to the thousands of free and paid plugins you can download to enhance your online store's performance.
This clearly demonstrates WordPress' superiority over Shopify in terms of flexibility and store scalability.
Conclusion
Using the WordPress platform with the WooCommerce plugin is an excellent and ideal choice for many who want to start an online store with minimal costs and the highest level of flexibility. However, this doesn't necessarily mean it's the perfect choice for everyone.
In this article, we've shared everything you need to know about WordPress as a platform for building online stores, its features, and the key aspects in which it outperforms its biggest competitor, Shopify.
We hope you found this article helpful, and we look forward to your participation in the comments, or if you have any questions or inquiries.