Asking yourself how to add a shop to your WordPress website? That’s a fabulous choice!
Opening an online shop for your business is a great way to build out your offer ladder to include digital products or allow people to book and pay for services directly from your site, and eCommerce and WordPress go together like peanut butter and jelly.
The only thing standing in most people’s way is actually creating the shop itself–and one way to do that is with the WooCommerce plugin.
With over 5 million active installs, WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform for WordPress websites–and it’s a great choice for any service-based business owner.
By the end of this post, you’ll have a clear understanding of how WooCommerce and WordPress work together, how you can best use it for your business, and and how to create WooCommerce website in WordPress.
What is WooCommerce?
Let’s start with the basics. WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that makes eCommerce and WordPress work together by transforming your regular WordPress site into a fully functional online shop. If you’re looking for something that can make it possible to list and sell products straight from your WordPress site, this is it!
What you need to get started with eCommerce and WordPress
Before you can set up a WooCommerce store, there are a few things you’ll need. Namely:
- A domain name (aka your website address) Since WooCommerce works with WordPress, you’ll need a WordPress(org) website set up at a custom domain.
- WordPress hosting. We’re not using all-in-one site platforms (like Squarespace or Shopify) to build your store, so you’ll need to have hosting set up for your WordPress website. (Need help finding the best website host? Read our guide!)
- An SSL certificate. This is a must for securely accepting online payments. In most cases, you can get this for free or a small fee through your hosting provider.
- Products to sell. Physical, digital, or both–you’ll need to know what you’re selling in your shop!
- The WooCommerce plugin (we’ll walk you through it!)
Why we love WooCommerce
With so many eCommerce plugin options out there, why do we recommend WooCommerce? Here are just a few of the reasons we think WooCommerce stands out from the crowd:
- Customization is king. With a plethora of extensions and additional plugins, you’re able to tailor your store to your exact needs. Need a specific payment gateway? Want unique shipping options? Looking for powerful marketing tools? You can build a store with everything you need with WooCommerce.
- The best of both worlds. WooCommerce is everything you already know and love about your WordPress website, with the power to sell directly from your site!
- It’s developed specifically to work with WordPress sites, so integration is seamless.
- It’s free to download and use. Of course, you may want to pay for some premium add-ons for additional functionality, but you can get started and build a basic shop for free.
- It’s flexible and scalable. You can build a small digital product shop or a fully-featured online retail space with the same plugin.
- It’s SEO-friendly and mobile-responsive, so your site is more searchable and easily browsable from mobile devices.
WooCommerce vs Shopify
Let’s pause here to talk about the elephant in the room: WooCommerce vs Shopify, and which one is better! Shopify is extremely popular for building online stores because it’s easy to use…but we still prefer WooCommerce.
We love being able to truly customize and control every aspect of online stores, and WooCommerce has the flexibility to create a shop that looks and feels exactly the way you want it to.
And it’s a huge plus that since it’s built on WordPress, you can still lean into all the same SEO practices we love and recommend for WordPress websites to optimize WooCommerce shops.
Additionally, WooCommerce is usually more cost-effective (for what we think is a better end result). That’s especially true if you have a smaller product catalog or you’re just starting out. With WooCommerce, you can skip on monthly fees or transaction costs (beyond payment processing fees, that is.)
And (our favorite part) WooCommerce blends right in with your existing WordPress website without having to manage multiple platforms. Maintaining a consistent look and feel across your entire online presence, from blog to shop, is so important for building trust and upping buyer conversions.
WooCommerce and WordPress: The Perfect Pair
To sum it up, with WooCommerce, potential clients can interact with your brand on every level, all from one central SEO-friendly WordPress website. They can read your blog, check out your services, and then–with just a click–head over to your shop to book a session with you or grab a digital template. No jarring user experience transitions, no sending them to another site to create a login. It’s all right there, seamlessly integrated into the existing look and feel of your website.
How to set up WooCommerce and WordPress
Alright, let’s get down to business! Here’s how to get WooCommerce up and running on your WordPress website:
- Log into your WordPress dashboard and click on Plugins > Add New
- Search for WooCommerce
- Click Install Now, then Activate the plugin once it’s installed
- This will launch the setup wizard, which will walk you through:
- Setting your location (super important for collecting the correct shipping and tax info!)
- Choosing your currency
- Selecting payment platforms (more on this in a bit)
- Specifying your product types (physical, digital, or both)
- Providing some basic business details
Pro tip! When asked if you want to select a new WordPress theme for your WooCommerce store, we recommend sticking with your current theme for a cohesive look and feel that ups credibility and conversions.
Setting up your store
Now that you’ve installed WooCommerce, it’s time to set up your store. Creating shop pages in WooCommerce is not very difficult at all. You just need to create (or find) page templates for the main pages you’ll need: the shop archive, individual product, cart, and checkout pages.
WooCommerce offers pre-made templates to get you started, but there may be custom templates that correspond with your current website design. For example, our Launch Week clients have exclusive access to store templates that match their design (which makes setting up a professional shop so much easier!)
Once you know which templates you’re going to use, there are a few steps to getting your store officially online. Don’t worry; WooCommerce keeps everything organized in a handy checklist for you.
Adding products
You have a few options here:
- Manual entry
- CSV import
- Using a template
- Importing from another service
However you’re going to add products, we love using templates for consistency across product pages. Choose from templates for physical, digital, or variable product types, then use the product editor to add descriptions, set pricing, upload photos, and categorize your products.
Setting up payments
This is where many of our clients hit a snag, but it’s actually pretty simple! We recommend integrating WooCommerce with Stripe or Square for a modern, user-friendly checkout experience.
- From the main WooCommerce page in WordPress, click on Set Up Payments
- Click the Setup button next to your chosen payment processor
- Enter your account information
Configuring taxes
Don’t let this part intimidate you–all you have to do is put in some basic information and WooCommerce will do the rest! There are guided options, but if none of those fit your situation, then you’ll want to set up taxes manually. Here’s how to do it:
- Choose Set Up Manually
- Add your tax information (country, state, zip code, city, tax rate, tax name, priority, and shipping costs)
- Save your changes
Pro tip! WooCommerce’s built-in tax settings are fine for smaller shops, but if you’re a larger shop with complex tax needs, we recommend Avalara, which makes it easier to make sure all your tax compliances boxes are checked.
Heads up: We’re SEO and web design pros, not tax advisors. This info is for general guidance—be sure to check with a tax professional for your specifics.
Setting up shipping
- Back in the main menu, click Set Up Shipping
- Enter shipping costs for your state/country (or leave it as zero for free shipping)
- Decide if you want to use the print-at-home label option
You’re Ready to WooCommerce Your WordPress Website!
You now know how to use WooCommerce and WordPress together to create an online store that your potential clients can browse and buy from with ease.
Excited about adding eCommerce functionality to your site?
We’re here to help! Our Launch Week service is the swift and stylish way to get a semi-custom WordPress website that gets your business found online. And we’ve recently added an add-on shop template for our Launch Collective members, so you can open your online shop with ease.
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