WooCommerce is currently one of the most popular eCommerce solutions for businesses that use WordPress to build their websites. But what makes WooCommerce stand out from the crowd, exactly, and why are so many businesses adopting it right now?

It’s a good time to be involved in eCommerce. Since the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns forced people to shift their shopping habits to an online context, the eCommerce industry has experienced enormous growth.

This summer in the UK, the proportion of retail sales online rose to 26.3% in July 2022. While that’s down from a notable peak of almost 40% in February 2021, it’s still well above the pre-pandemic levels of 19.8% in February 2020. And that’s just retail, of course, not even including the many other industries that now use eCommerce as an additional revenue stream.

Of course, to be successful with eCommerce, you need a platform to facilitate your online store, provide a satisfying online experience for customers, and manage your back-end processes efficiently. One such technology solution that can do all that, and much more, is WooCommerce.

WooCommerce is an eCommerce plug-in for WordPress. Essentially, it’s a type of software that allows you to build an online store within your WordPress website. It enhances the WordPress operating system and transforms your website into a fully functioning, fully branded online store.

That makes WooCommerce an easy and cost-effective way to make money through your website. It allows you to sell products and provide digital services online, ensures all payments are secure, helps you manage your inventory, and even handles all your taxes for you.

WooCommerce now powers almost 30% of the top 1,000,000 eCommerce stores online today, and is still growing fast. So, let’s take a closer look at exactly why it’s so popular.

WooCommerce is primarily used to build an online store, allowing you to complete transactions with your customers online. This will usually be to sell physical products, for example if you have a retail business or a brand that sells merchandise, but that’s not all.

• You can use it to build a platform that facilitates user subscriptions and similar activity, for example if you’re running online courses or building an online community made up of registered members.
• You can use it to sell tickets to events, for example if your business is in the sports, events, or hospitality industries.
• You can also use WooCommerce to make bookings, appointments, and reservations, for businesses like hairdressers and barbers, medical clinics, or even a consultancy of some kind.

WooCommerce also provides a wide range of features that can enhance your online store’s user experience, boost sales, and increase customer retention. For example, you can:

• Organise your products with categories, tags, and other attributes
• Collect and publish reviews, and attach them to your products
• Easily integrate with payment providers like PayPal, Stripe, and credit card platforms
• Customise the layout and user interface using themes that match your brand
• Allow your customers to filter their search for products down to a high level of detail
• Measure and optimise the performance of your sales with useful analytics tools
• Push through special offers and other promotional activities based on personalisation.

Those features and capabilities make WooCommerce a valuable platform for both small and large businesses alike. By adopting WooCommerce to power your own eCommerce offering, you’ll be able to take advantage of a number of business benefits as well, such as:

• It’s free to use, unlike many eCommerce platforms
• It’s open-source
• It’s quick and easy to use for beginners
• It’s highly scalable, so it can change as your business grows
• It’s highly customisable, so you can build your store exactly how you want it
• It’s very well supported and tested rigorously
• It has a vast number of plug-ins available
• It’s surrounded by a great user and partner community
• It provides you with security and data protection

Whether or not a specific technology platform is a good fit for your business will be entirely dependent on your unique requirements and objectives, as well as other factors like your budget and existing technology stack.

As mentioned earlier, WooCommerce is an extension of WordPress. That means WooCommerce can deliver the same level of scalability and agility that WordPress is renowned for. So, whether you’re a small or large business, this solution is equally suitable because it can adapt and grow as your business grows.

As it’s open-source, you can also retain full ownership of your own store’s content and data forever. The highly customisable nature of the platform, and the vast range of features and functionalities, make WooCommerce a valuable solution for just about any organisation.

If your existing website is built with WordPress, or you’re considering migrating to WordPress in the near future, then WooCommerce is worth considering for any eCommerce requirements you have.

If you need to build an online store or eCommerce channel on WordPress that’s easy to use, affordable, and highly intuitive, WooCommerce is a very safe bet.

Since it’s powered by WordPress, it comes with proven reliability, unprecedented scalability, and a great deal of support to help you gain maximum value from the technology. As it also comes with built-in tools to help you efficiently manage your business operations, it’s far more than a standard website plug-in.

It’s easy to see why WooCommerce is so popular these days, whether you’re aiming to set up a new eCommerce business or add custom features and capabilities to an existing online store.

We’re proud to announce that we’ve recently become a silver-level partner of WooCommerce, with the company endorsing our ability to deliver world-class eCommerce solutions and access limitless resources.

Being recognised as a ‘WooExpert’ is a huge honour, as it’s the only agency programme vetted by WooCommerce and is limited to a select few.

Whether you’re looking for the right technology to launch an eCommerce business, or need to take your existing online store to the next level, get in touch with our team. We’ll tell you everything you need to know about WooCommerce and help you determine whether it’s the right fit for your project.