A professional web shop has many advantages. Would you like to have your own professional WordPress webshop, or would you like to create a WordPress webshop yourself? Then the webshop plugin for WordPress from WooCommerce is a great system for this!
The WooCommerce plugin started as a simple plugin, but with millions of downloads worldwide, it has become the most popular plugin for building a WooCommerce webshop. Thanks to its user-friendliness, many extra plugins, and modular structure, it forms the basis for millions of webshops around the world.
But what exactly is the WooCommerce plugin for WordPress? How to create an online store with WordPress and WooCommerce, and what are useful plugins for WooCommerce to use? You’ll read about it in this blog.
What is WordPress WooCommerce?
To create an online store on WordPress, you can install WooCommerce. Whether you sell digital or physical products: WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin specifically developed to help you sell your physical or digital products in various product categories. You can sell simple products, but also variable products with different colors and sizes. You can easily create your own webshop with the WooCommerce plugin. In fact, it’s just an extension on your WordPress website. Through WordPress itself and the WordPress dashboard, you can easily manage everything within your webshop with WooCommerce. Keep in mind, WooCommerce doesn’t turn your website into a webshop all at once.
The WordPress plugin from WooCommerce is the foundation of your webshop. From this plugin you can add the assortment and manage all the products. For this, you need to use other plugins and possibly a free or premium WordPress theme. Don’t worry, the range of WooCommerce plugins, paid themes, and premium themes is enormous. This provides additional functionalities to WooCommerce. So a professional-looking and well-functioning webshop is easily arranged with WooCommerce.
How do you create an online store with the WordPress plugin WooCommerce?
To get started, you obviously need to install the WordPress plugin WooCommerce. The plugin itself is completely free, and you can download and install it from the backend alongside your WordPress installation. If you don’t have a website yet, installing WordPress is important. So, install WordPress and think about registering your domain name in time, so that your webshop is easily accessible to visitors. In addition, it is useful to have the shipping costs calculated automatically when setting up your webshop, so that your customers immediately have clarity about the total costs. Also, don’t forget to enable automatic updates so that your webshop is always secure and up-to-date. It is also a good idea to determine in advance how many products you want to offer and which categories you want to add to your webshop.
Build your webshop yourself or use a WooCommerce Template
After you have installed WooCommerce, you can choose to build the WooCommerce store yourself or use one of the existing free WooCommerce themes for this. For a starting webshop, choosing an existing WordPress webshop theme is an excellent option. In fact, the template can be customized to the desired corporate identity to create the right look.
If you choose a theme, there are various free and paid options, depending on your plans for your own WordPress webshop. Think carefully about this, though, because there is more to every theme than just a nice design. The template that you choose will form the basis of your webshop for a long time. So keep in mind flexibility, speed and the possibility of expansion. The design of a template should not be leading. After all, this is easier to customize than the built-in features.
Important: Choose a fast and reliable hosting for your WooCommerce webshop!
The WordPress plugin via WooCommerce can be quite demanding on your hosting server. Therefore, keep this in mind and choose fast and reliable WooCommerce hosting. Consider, for example, specialized WordPress hosting that aligns well with your technical requirements. A slow website will otherwise cause visitors to leave the site more quickly. Additionally, it’s important to have the possibility for expansion. After all, a successful webshop can grow faster than expected, and it would be a shame not to be able to keep up with this growth. Managed WooCommerce hosting is an excellent option for this.
Supplement your WordPress webshop with WooCommerce plugins
Indeed, WooCommerce by itself is already a plugin. Yet you also have plugins that make your webshop even better for the visitor. There are many free and paid plugins for WooCommerce that you can install to make your shop more advanced and user-friendly. In the case of paid plugins, this can be a one-time payment or a monthly subscription, depending on the new plugin.
Below we have listed some useful and commonly used plug-ins for WooCommerce.
1. Mollie Payments
With iDeal being the most widely used payment method in the Netherlands, it is important that you also offer this on your webshop. With Mollie Payments’ plugin, you can easily offer all the different payment methods in your shop. In this process, a small percentage of the amount always goes to Mollie Payments Foundation. For an iDeal transaction, for example, this is 0.29 cents.
2. All import pro plugin (paid plugin)
With the WP All Import plugin for WooCommerce, you can easily import datafeeds of your physical products into your webshop. With a csv file or spreadsheet, you can easily add a dataset with a large number of products. In addition, WP All Import allows you to specify very precisely what exactly should happen to the data you transfer. It is also possible to transfer content into multiple languages.
3. WPML link (paid plugin)
With the WPML Plugin you can easily and quickly translate your webshop. So it’s ideal if you also want to reach customers from abroad. With WPML, it is possible to translate pages, blogs and posts, menu items and even texts from your WordPress theme. This plugin is also paid, but in return there is continuous development of the plugin and support from the team if needed.
4. WooCommerce Brands (paid plugin).
With the WooCommerce Brands plugin, you can easily and quickly create brands and brand categories for your webshop. This makes it possible to arrange brands conveniently, add them to a widget and link them to your products. This way, it’s easy for your customers to find and filter brands accordingly. Ideal if you want your WooCommerce shop to come across as sleek and professional.
5. WooCommerce EU VAT Number (paid plugin).
Another plugin from within WooCommerce is the
EU Vat Number
plugin. With this plugin it is possible to charge your customers with a foreign company, if they have a valid VAT number, no VAT. This plugin automatically validates the VAT number so there are no extra charges when they place orders with your webshop.
6. Discount Rules for WooCommerce
With the Discount Rules plugin for WooCommerce, you can easily set up discounts and promotions for your shop. This free plugin has several options which does allow any type of discount promotion. Among other things, you can set bulk discounts, percentage price discounts or discounts from a certain purchase price. The paid Pro version of this plugin also offers additional options such as viewing purchase history and discounts across certain product categories and for different variations within a product.
Your own customized web shop
Would you like a custom-made online store? Brthrs is happy to help you with this! As a WordPress VIP partner, we are happy to help with your personal and professional WordPress web store. Are you curious about what is possible? If so, please feel free to contact us without obligation!
