Why create an online store with WooCommerce

WordPress is one of the most widely used content management systems. With it, you get access to a variety of plugins for building almost any type of website, such as blogs, corporate sites, and online stores.

Speaking of building online stores, if that’s what you’re after, WooCommerce is the perfect plugin. It’s integrated into WordPress as the host content management system, and its current market share is 30.10%, at least in Spain.

The most widely used alternative and main competitor is PrestaShop. But WooCommerce has started to gain more ground, basically because of its focus on simplicity. You get your store selling, and it’s easy both for the administrator and for 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 features, the following can be highlighted:

1. The process of creating an online store with WooCommerce is very simple.
2. It’s the most popular plugin among all those available for WordPress.
3. It offers a variety of additional plugins that let you enhance the shopping cart’s functionality.
4. It’s completely free and also open source, meaning no license is required to use it.
5. It’s possible to create scalable online stores, from ones that offer just a few products to larger ones with more than 100K products, and the hosting will never lose performance.
6. You won’t need to deal with technicalities or be a programming expert — it’s easy to use.
7. Installing it doesn’t put any other function you have on your website at risk.
8. Almost all payment methods or payment gateways are compatible with this plugin.
9. The user community is very diverse, which means that in the face of problems or even questions, you’ll have all kinds of information available, such as tutorials where you’ll learn to fix errors or make better use of all its features.

Can all types of sales be done with WooCommerce?

Yes, almost every type of sale you can find on the web can be carried out through an online store built using just WooCommerce.

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

Steps to complete and launch an online store with WooCommerce

If you’re thinking about launching an online store using WooCommerce for WordPress, it’s important that you carry out a detailed planning process — this way the process will be successful.

The steps you should follow to launch your online store are as follows:

1. Start by registering a domain for the store and a hosting service to host it as well as its parallel services.
2. After that, install WordPress and, of course, the essential plugins.
3. Don’t forget to block the site from indexing robots while you’re carrying out the creation and customization process of the store.
4. Choose a theme that fits your needs and proceed to install it, making sure it’s compatible with the plugin you’ll be using — that is, WooCommerce.
5. Install the SSL Certificate; this is extremely important in any web project you undertake.
6. Now proceed to install WooCommerce, apply the settings, and install the plugins you need to increase functionality — for example, payment gateways.
7. Customize the store, adding the details, image, location, and any other details.
8. Create the pages and legal texts, such as the cookie policy, for example.
9. Now it’s time to create the page that will handle returns management.
10. Next, you’ll need to create the shop, checkout, and cart pages, and more.
11. Add the domain to Google Analytics; this will help you keep control from the moment the store launches.
12. Then you’ll need to create providers, shipping and payment methods, and of course the products.
13. Create and customize the notification emails.
14. Carry out the rest of the configurations and customizations specific to your online store.
15. Don’t forget to make a test purchase to test the platform and confirm that everything works perfectly.

Once you’ve completed these steps, all that’s left is to handle product management in the online store, since it will already be up and running.

What requirements are needed to run WooCommerce?

If you want WooCommerce to work precisely, you need to make sure you meet the following requirements:

• Have the most stable version of WordPress and WooCommerce.
• MySQL 5.6 or MariaDB 1.0, or higher versions.
• PHP 7.2 or higher.
• Apache’s mod_rewrite module enabled.
• Apache or Nginx.
• HTTPS.
• CURL or fsockopen support; this is used in WooCommerce to integrate PayPal IPN, for example.
• SOAP support.
• If running a store that isn’t in English, multibyte string compatibility is required.
• Minimum timeout of 60 seconds; 300 seconds is recommended.
• cURL enabled on the server.
• PHP Safe Mode disabled.
• 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.