Why Create an Online Store with WooCommerce

WordPress is one of the most used content managers, in this you can have access to a variety of plugins for the creation of almost all types of websites, such as blogs, corporate websites and online stores.

Regarding creation of online stores, in case this is what you are looking for, WooCommerce is the perfect plugin. It is integrated into WordPress as a host content management system and its current market share is 30.10%, at least in Spain.

The most used alternative and main competitor is PrestaShop. But, WooCommerce has started to gain more ground. Basically because it has an approach based on ease. You make your store sell, and make it easy for both the administrator and the user.

Most important features of WooCommerce

There are many aspects that have made WooCommerce stand out from the rest, but among the most important characteristics the following can be mentioned:

1. The process of creating an online store with WooCommerce is very simple.
2. It is the most popular plugin among all those available for WordPress.
3. It has a variety of additional plugins that allow you to improve the functionalities of the shopping cart.
4. It is completely free and also open source, this means that no license will be necessary for its use.
5. It is possible to create scalable online stores, from ones that offer few products, to larger ones with more than 100K products and the hosting will never lose performance.
6. It will not be necessary for you to handle technicalities or be an expert in programming, its use is simple.
7. With its installation you do not put at risk any other function that you have on your website.
8. Almost all payment methods or payment gateways are compatible with this plugin.
9. The user community is very diverse, this means that in the event of problems or even doubts, you will have all kinds of information available, such as tutorials where you will learn how to repair errors or make better use of all its functions.

Can all types of sales be made with WooCommerce?

Yes, almost all types of sales that you can find on the web can be made through an online store created simply using WooCommerce.

1. Physical products with warehouse.
2. Dropshipping, like AliExpress.
3. Downloadable digital products.
4. Physical products without warehouse.
5. Services such as courses, memberships, among others.
6. Tickets or Subscriptions.
7. Affiliate Services.
8. Overselling, such as products from eBay, Amazon, Rakuten and more.

Steps to complete and launch an online store with WooCommerce

If you are thinking about starting an online store using WooCommerce from WordPress, it is important that you carry out a detailed planning process, this way the process will be successful.

The steps you must follow to launch your online store are the following:

1. Start by hiring a domain for said store and hosting to host it as well as its parallel services.
2. After this, install **WordPress and of course the plugins that are essential.
3. Don’t forget to close the site to indexing robots while you are carrying out the process of creating and customizing the store.
4. Choose a theme that suits your needs and proceed to install it, make sure it is compatible with the plugin you will use, that is, WooCommerce.
5. Perform the installation of the SSL Certificate, this is of utmost importance in any web project you carry out.
6. Now proceed to WooCommerce installation, apply the settings and install the plugins you need to increase the functionality, for example, payment gateways.
7. Customize the store, add data, image, location and any other details.
8. Create the pages and legal texts, such as the cookie policy, for example.
9. Now it is the turn to create the page that will be in charge of managing returns.
10. Then you must proceed to create the store pages, the checkout, the cart and more.
11. Add the domain to Google Analytics, this will help you have control from the launch of the store.
12. Then you must create suppliers, shipping and payment methods and of course the products.
13. Create and customize notification emails.
14. Make the other configurations and customizations of your online store.
15. Don’t forget to make a purchase to test the platform and check that everything works perfectly.

Once you complete these steps, you will only have to take care of the management of the products in the online store, because it will already be in operation.

What requirements are necessary to run WooCommerce?

If you want WooCommerce to work accurately, you need to make sure you have the following requirements:

• Have the most stable version of WordPress and WooCommerce.
• MySQL 5.6 or MariaDB 1.0 or, failing that, higher versions.
• PHP 7.2 or higher.
• Apache mod_rewrite module activated.
• Apache or Nginx.
• HTTPS.
• CURL or fsockopen support, this is used in WooCommerce to be able to integrate PayPal IPN, for example.
• Support for SOAP.
• In case a non-English store is running, support for multibyte strings is required.
• Minimum timeout of 60 seconds, the most recommended is 300 seconds.
• cURL enabled on the server.
• PHP Safe Mode not enabled.
• OpenSSL.
• post_max_size = 16 MB or higher.
• allow_url_fopen = On
• upload_max_filesize 16 MB or higher.
• max_input_vars minimum of 4000, but 10000 or more is recommended.
• memory_limit 128 MB or higher.
• max_execution_time 60 or more.
• suhosin.request.max_vars = 6000 or more.
• suhosin.post.max_vars = 6000 or more.
• suhosin.get.max_vars = 6000 or more.