What is WooCommerce?

What is WooCommerce – this question is asked by many people who search for topics related to creating an online store. In this post, I will explain what WooCommerce is, what it is for and how much it can be useful to you. Read the article and learn more about one of the most popular E-commerce solutions.

WooCommerce is directly related to WordPress and if you are familiar with the theme – that’s very good, but if you are unfamiliar with WordPress – see our article What is WordPress and what is it for.

The WooCommerce solution is a WordPress plugin that will transform your website into an online store. You can run your website and sell products in your own online store at the same time. WooCommerce is one of the most popular and best E-Commerce solutions used by many online stores. It is one of the most-chosen solutions for running an online store, because store administration is very easy and uncomplicated. Selling products thanks to this plugin is very easy, and the possibilities of platform development and modifications – enormous.

What is WooCommerce and what is it for?

WooCommerce is a plugin for the popular CMS – WordPress. It is an e-commerce solution that allows you to easily add online product selling functionality to your basic WordPress installation. This plug is available in Polish, it is very easy to use and can be expanded with new modules.

From the administration panel, we can easily add products, their photos, description, price, parameters and manage the stock. Users can add products to the cart, order products to the indicated address and, after appropriate configuration, pay for online purchases.

Adapting WooCommerce to the needs of the store may involve additional fees. If you want a specific website design, you can buy a ready-made website theme or commission an interactive agency project. In addition, the expansion with new functionalities may require the purchase of a paid plug-in or commissioning software development to specialists.

Why is it worth creating a store using the Woo

The WooCommerce plugin is quite an old e-commerce solution, since it was created in 2011. However, this is an advantage as the plugin has been very developed and refined over the years. A lot of plugins have been created to extend the basic functions of this plugin and the community of this plugin is very active and helpful in plugin forums.

Considering the statistics, WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce solution today and an estimated 25-30% share of this plugin in the global e-commerce solutions market. This proves that both users and administrators of online stores appreciate this solution and willingly use this solution.

Running an online store using the Woo plugin will allow you to easily and quickly expand your business and start selling online. By integrating WordPress with WooCommerce, you will get a lot of functionalities that will allow you to easily manage the store and its users.

Advantages and disadvantages of the WooCommerce solution

Each e-commerce solution has its own strengths and weaknesses. It is no different with WooCommerce. Although it is a free solution, it offers a lot. First of all, it offers great expansion possibilities thanks to additional plugins and themes. There are both paid and free solutions. If you have a limited budget to create an online store and want to operate your store in an easy and user-friendly way – WooCommerce is the solution for you.

Advantages of WooCommerce

• Free solution
• Ease of use
• Continuous development of the plugin and its functionality
• Large, active plugin and WordPress community
• Security
• Possibility to integrate with online shipments
• Online payment system integration
• Possibility to run a website next to an online store on one domain
• Good SEO positioning
• Simple plug-in installation
• Lots of plugin modifications
• Widely used in sales
• Many types of products

Disadvantages of WooCommerce

• Limitations of the free plug-in version
• No technical support from the plug-in developers
• Additional costs resulting from the expansion of the basic version
• Compatibility bugs – Some additional plugins or themes may not work together
• Plugin updates can cause crashes – some plugins after updating WordPress or a given plugin can cause errors on the site

Who is WooCommerce for

There is no clear answer for whom it is worth recommending WooCommerce and for whom not. Everyone will find something in this solution that they will like and use, but we also find some limitations and disadvantages here. When asked whether it is worth creating a store with the help of the plug-in discussed, or choosing a dedicated online store solution, we can make it dependent on a specific business case. If we know what a given store should look like and what tasks and functionalities it should fulfill – then we can analyze what will be more beneficial.