Let’s talk about one of the very popular solutions and give an overview of what is WooCommerce and why is it good for creating an eCommerce website.
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WOOCOMMERCE:
WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. Today, this e-commerce solution powers 28% of all online stores the plugin was officially released on September 27, 2011, and became extremely popular for its simplicity and customization. It was first developed by WordPress theme developer WooThemes. Over 3.8 million websites are currently using WooCommerce across the world.
WooCommerce will setup a basic online store and offer a range of products and services like physical and digital products. It further manages essential ecommerce features including inventory, sales tax, shipping, etc.
First, you will have to find a hosted website and install WordPress on it. Although both WordPress and WooCommerce are free, there is a charge for web hosting— and the price highly depends on the web host you select.
WOOCOMMERCE PROS:
Limitless customization:
As an open-source platform, WooCommerce is highly customizable and it can be tailored according to your preferences and business needs. You do not even need to have in-depth web development experience. It offers several themes as it is an e-commerce platform based on WordPress.
Free and Open Source:
WooCommerce is a free, open-source WordPress plugin. It is great for startups or anyone having limited resources. As WooCommerce is open source, any user, designer or programmer can modify its code. WooCommerce store can be installed within a very short time.
Themes:
An attractive theme will engage and inspire your audience to learn more about your products and business. WooCommerce offers unlimited design options. As WordPress themes work with WooCommerce stores, so there’s a huge selection to choose from. You can select the theme that works best for your company.
SEO:
As WooCommerce is only compatible with WordPress and WordPress is well-known for its SEO capabilities. You can easily find hundreds of plugins and it lets you edit body content and add metadata.
WooCommerce has several features that can be useful for SEO.
Pricing:
WooCommerce itself is free. But it comes with extra costs, including hosting, a domain name, and security. The price of setting up a WooCommerce store will still depend on your needs and wishes.
Analytics power:
Woocommerce has built-in analytics that will help you get valuable information about your eCommerce shop without putting any extra work into it. You’ll have the capacity to track even the tiniest interactions with your items. With the help of a WooCommerce development company, you can easily integrate other third party analytics solutions with your website to get more insights.
WOOCOMMERCE CONS:
Here are a few of the disadvantages you’ll find with WooCommerce.
Customer service:
Another disadvantage of WooCommerce is that there is no direct WooCommerce support team. Instead, you can submit tickets or try to find the solution to your problem via forums or online guides which is a little bit more complicated.
Learning curve:
Most people choose WordPress for its customizability and flexibility. Since it’s an open-source platform, beginners don’t require coding skills but for editing and customization, you need powerful technical skills.
WooCommerce Alternatives:
Creating an eCommerce website seems too much for you, there are a few options BigCommerce, Shopify, PrestaShop, and plenty of other alternatives too.
CONCLUSION:
With WooCommerce you will get all the standard requirements for a fraction of the cost of most other eCommerce platforms. It’s ideal for small and medium sized businesses as you can use WooCommerce without learning to code. It is effortless to use it as a beginner. However, if you want to take the next step, you can hire WooCommerce Development Services.
