What is WooCommerce? The WordPress Plugin Reshaping Commerce

If you’re new to the world of WordPress and e-commerce, and have been doing some research, then you’ve probably come across WooCommerce. But what is it? Is it some kind of software? Is it a monthly service? How does it work with WordPress?

WooCommerce is an extremely powerful plugin that can turn any WordPress-powered site into an e-commerce platform. Whether you are a single-person operation trying to sell a digital download, or a mega supplier looking to sell 10,000 SKUs online, this plugin is powerful enough to handle it all!

Overview

There are millions of WordPress-powered websites, blogs, and online stores on the Internet. Of all of those WordPress operations that sell something through their site, 99% of them are using WooCommerce to facilitate the process.

The plugin was purchased by the company that owns and operates WordPress.com in 2015 and since then it has exploded in popularity. To date, there have been nearly 28,000,000 downloads of WooCommerce.

What Can You Do With WooCommerce?

When you install and activate the free plugin you will have the basic functions needed to sell something on your website. The basic form of the plugin will do a lot, but there are hundreds of extensions available for even more power and functionality.

There are waver options and features available for you to make it happen, regardless of what it is that you’re trying to sell.

WooCommerce Features

Great Design

Because WooCommerce was made specifically for WordPress, it integrates seamlessly with most WordPress themes. There are also some WooCommerce-specific themes for those who want a little bit more of a shop look.

You Control The Data

Whenever you go with a third-party shopping cart platform, your data is stored on their services. With WooCommerce, you have full control over the data of your store and of your customers and clients.  With upgrades in WordPress Security, you can rest assured your data is safe.

Easily Add Products

Creating different product categories and pages for your products is a painless process. Mix that in with permalinks and you’ve got yourself a nice, SEO-friendly setup.

• Unlimited Products – You can add one product or thousands of products. Your only limitations are from your web hosting provider.
• Digital and Physical Products – Selling a digital download? What about an affiliate product? Or maybe you make custom hand-made T-Shirts. There are options to sell products of all types.
• Inventory – For those of you shipping out physical items, your inventory is easily tracked and managed using the in-house WooCommerce inventory control.

WooCommerce Shopping Cart

A bulk of the WooCommerce functionality comes from the shopping cart. It’s where users place items to purchase, check out and pay. The shopping cart is the backbone of the WooCommerce plugin.

• Customizable Checkout – You have complete control over the checkout process from beginning to end. You fully control the look and feel of everything and you can control variables like country-specific checkout, or checkout for guests vs. registered users.
• Payment Gateways – WooCommerce lets you accept checks, COD (cash on delivery), bank transfer, or PayPal, which can be used to accept credit cards. There are a lot of other payment gateways that let you accept payments using more popular services like Stripe, Square, Authorize.net, 2CO, and even Bitcoin.

• Automatic Taxes – With the geolocation features, you can abide by all rules and regulations for your city or state taxes based on where the customer is making their purchase from.

So Many Features!

WooCommerce has so manu features that we can’t list them all. Our list paints a good picture of what it is all about, but here’s some of our favorite WooCommerce features:

• Currency Defaults and Conversions
• Product Variations (ex: clothing sizes or colors)
• Coupons & Discount Codes
• Product Reviews
• Sales Reports & Analytics