Get Your Business Selling Online

There are so many ecommerce options out there, it can be hard to know where to begin. This blog is for businesses who are either already using WordPress on their website and want to get started with ecommerce or for businesses who don’t yet have an ecommerce presence on a website and want to get going.

If you already have an ecommerce solution, skip to the end for 3 tips to promote it online!

If you’re already selling through another platform, then you have options. Some third-party selling platforms can be integrated into WordPress with WooCommerce through extensions.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress maintained as open source, by Automattic, the main company behind WordPress. WooCommerce extends WordPress so that you can use it for selling products online and has gotten much more advanced in the past few years, making it easy to calculate shipping and taxes, and even printing shipping labels through some additional extensions.

WooCommerce has extensions for almost everything you might want your store to do. Some are paid extensions that typically cost a set amount per year, and some, like the payment processor extensions for Stripe and Paypal, are free (it still costs to process payments through the 3^rd party services).

Getting Started with WooCommerce

From the Plugins page in your WordPress Dashboard, click ‘Add New’. Then using the search bar, search for the plugin ‘WooCommerce’ from the author ‘Automattic’. Click ‘Install’ and then ‘Activate’.

WooCommerce has a great walk-through when you first install the plugin. I highly recommend installing it at a time when you can take the time to go through it. It will help customize the setup to your store requirements, whether you’re selling digital or physical goods, payments you will accept, shipping options, etc.

Extending WooCommerce

Are you selling a subscription membership plan? Do you need clients to set appointments through your website? There are some plugins that will do that and much more. You can look through the WooCommerce Marketplace here (I’d recommend starting in this category here, with the extensions released by the WooCommerce support team).

Start Selling!

Hopefully you’re already selling online, and if you aren’t maybe this blog will give you a place to start. Ecommerce, in general, and WooCommerce specifically, are a great way for your business to make sales when fewer people can come to your store in person. And, once your store is setup, there is little work other than shipping orders!

Make sure you check out our services if you want help setting up WooCommerce on your website.

Bonus: 3 Tips for Promoting Your Store Online

Once you have your ecommerce site setup, it’s time to promote it! Here are just a few ideas of ways to promote your store online.

1. Create unique product demos as videos to share online.
2. Share the backstory for your products. For example, if you carry products that are made locally, you could talk about the company that makes them.
3. Offer a sign up for a new products mailing list, giving you a place to promote the best of your new products when they arrive!

References and Further Reading

1. (n.d.). WooCommerce Docs (Official Documentation). Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://docs.woocommerce.com/
2. (n.d). WooCommerce. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://woocommerce.com/
3. (n.d.). WooCommerce Features. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://woocommerce.com/woocommerce-features/
4. On-Site Payment Gateway Extensions for WooCommerce. (n.d.). Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://woocommerce.com/product-category/woocommerce-extensions/payment-gateways/on-site/
5. (n.d.). WooCommerce Usage Tracking. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://woocommerce.com/usage-tracking/
6. (n.d.). Powered by Woo Marketplace. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://woocommerce.com/product-category/woocommerce-extensions/developed-by-woo/
7. (n.d.). WooCommerce Extensions Marketplace. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://woocommerce.com/products/