If you’re in the online business, odds are that your website is powered by WordPress. And if you’re on WordPress, chances are you are using their most popular open source
eCommerce plugin called WooCommerce. If you’re not, then what are you doing?
Stop stalling and get that plugin!
This ever-so-popular eCommerce plugin started out back in 2008 and it was developed by three people who were also WordPress enthusiasts. Addi Pienaar, Magnus Jepson and Mark Forrester were looking to create a plugin that would both be easy to use and versatile. They released it back in 2011 and its popularity skyrocketed.
It’s very simple to install and customize to fit the style of your website or online store, and it’s the perfect choice for your online business. So far, out of all the online stores, around 380,000 of them are using the WooCommerce plugin, and that totals of around 28% of all the eCommerce websites. And if this doesn’t sound like enough, over 24% of all the eCommerce sales in the last year went through WooCommerce.
If you install it on your website, you can be sure that all the products presented are going to look pleasing, and you won’t have any trouble setting anything up or making it look just like you visualized it because it’s very user-friendly and customizable.
Using the WooCommerce WordPress plugin means that you can sell anything you’d like on your website. From physical products to eBooks, subscriptions, downloads and you can even arrange things like appointments and other content.
You are in complete control after you finish the easy installation and setup process. And it won’t be limiting like other plugins and options can be. You are free to add any number of both users and products to your website, and you can also take an unlimited amount of orders. Just make sure that things are not out of stock. And if they are, WooCommerce will notify you immediately!
Another great WooCommerce feature is that the plugin itself has an analytics system that can help you predict trends and target your audience. This means less clutter in the plugins tab of your WordPress page because you don’t need to download and install any other plugins. That means you will always be aware of any traffic on the website, and it also tracks the types of sales that are trending.
You may find people, mostly ones that have never used eCommerce, to believe that putting things up for sale online is easy. But they are not aware of the process behind online selling i.e 10 Essentials of building Ecommerce sites, all the different aspects you need to take care of, making the initial setup and consecutive management very time-consuming and tantalizing.
However, if you decide to use WooCommerce, you’ll see that people who believe eCommerce easy are actually right! That’s because this plugin is perfect for the business newbies that greatly depend on online sales.
You can offer your customers things like free shipping if you’re selling products, instant downloads for digital products and even subscriptions. You’re also able to add promotional codes that allow you to turn your rare visitors into regular customers.
The entire plugin is a great creative outlet as well, and it offers different things to different types of businesses. You can also connect with your potential customers while attracting them on an emotional level, which will increase your conversion rate.
WooCommerce is also both desktop and mobile-friendly. That means anyone can make a purchase, whether they’ve been eagerly doing their last-minute Christmas shopping from their bed, or they forgot to get something important for next week’s party on their way home.
Other features include the option to show comments from your verified buyers. It also has its own recommendation engine which will suggest other products to your visitors and customers based on their search history. It has a large database where it keeps track of the number of times each customer has bought something or searched for something. And by using WooCommerce, you can process payments via PayPal and Stripe. Or perhaps, you’d prefer accepting credit cards, direct bank transfers, checks or even cash on delivery. Whichever you prefer, it’s all right there, in the plugin.
As an added benefit, you also have multiple shipping options for your customers, from shipping and local delivery, all the way to pick up.
With WooCommerce, your visitors can also shop using their personal customer accounts or be using a guest checkout. And having the second option is a great bonus because it will greatly increase your website’s conversion rate.
With the various extensions that have been developed, you can also track your inventory, send email templates to your customers, give them discount codes, show related items and even analyze all the store data.
If you’d like to start using WooCommerce, the plugin website contains all the documentation and video tutorials you might need to install and keep everything up-to-date yourself. There are even experts that you can talk to, who can offer some in-depth consultations and even their custom designs just for you.
Some of the most popular brands that use this plugin include Duracell Lighting, Ripley’s and Men’s Health Box. If you’d like to learn more about WooCommerce, take a look at the infographic below.
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