An e-commerce store is a website where you can sell products or services online to build and launch your e-commerce store.
WordPress WooCommerce is the best, cheapest, and most preferred plugin. It is a free and open-source eCommerce solution with many free and affordable plugins that other developers develop to integrate seamlessly with WooCommerce and add whatever eCommerce functionality and features you can think of.
This guide will walk you through the steps of creating a professional eCommerce website using WordPress and WooCommerce.
Prerequisites of Building an eCommerce Store
Before building an e-commerce store, review some of the basic things you need. With these prerequisites, you can create a professional e-commerce store successfully.
Domain and Hosting
Domain is the web address of your eCommerce store, while hosting is where the WordPress and Woocommerce files, database, and all other content of your eCommerce store are stored online. With either item, you can have a live eCommerce store.
You must use a domain name that is easy to remember and best suits your customer’s brand. Since your WordPress hosting partner determines your WordPress store’s loading speed, uptime, and other functionality, many considerations need to be made to choose a partner that will ensure high performance, maximum uptime, and zero issues so you can provide shoppers with a fantastic user experience.
InstaWP Live is a top choice for eCommerce store hosting, finely tuned for WordPress and WooCommerce platforms.
WordPress
You can’t build a WordPress eCommerce store solely with the WordPress software. However, choosing the right hosting partner enables you to install WordPress with just one click, getting you started on creating your store immediately.
WooCommerce
After installing WordPress, you will have a fresh, primary WordPress site. To convert it to an eCommerce website, you need to install and activate the popular eCommerce WordPress plugin WooCommerce. You can install WooCommerce from your WordPress plugin repository via the WP Admin panel. The combination of WordPress and WooCommerce is the foundation for building your eCommerce store.
Theme
Your eCommerce store needs an appealing look. That is where selecting a WordPress theme comes in. There are many WordPress themes on the internet, and you need to compare them to choose the one that best represents your eCommerce website design and feel.
Step-by-step Guide to Build your eCommerce Store
Step 1: Buy Domain and Hosting
To start your eCommerce store, buy a domain name and hosting. Check domain availability on your registrar’s site. Select and enter your domain name in the domain search field. If it’s available, you can proceed to pay for it. Otherwise, you have to come up with another available domain name.
Then, open a new tab in your browser, enter the website address of the hosting partner you have chosen, and select the most suitable hosting plan for your eCommerce site.
Enter your new domain address and complete the payment for the hosting. After that, copy the provided nameservers and return them to your domain registrar’s website. Enter the nameservers there to ensure your domain name points to your hosting space.
Step 2: Install WordPress
Most managed WordPress hosting partners have a one-click WordPress package installer. This installer installs WordPress with your domain name and sets up a primary live WordPress site on completion.
Log into your hosting control panel and use the one-click WordPress installation option. After installation, you will receive the login details and a means to log in to your WordPress Admin panel automatically.
Step 3: Install and Setup WooCommerce
From your WordPress site Admin panel, navigate to Plugins > Add New.
Search for WooCommerce and install the WooCommerce plugin.
Then activate the WooCommerce plugin, click on the Set up My Store button, and follow the setup wizard directions to set up your WordPress WooCommerce store. This setup wizard will guide you through configuring your store details, preferred currency, shipping options, and payment methods.
Upon activation in WordPress, WooCommerce adds some basic eCommerce features, such as product pages, Cart and checkout, shipping options and different payment options, automated tax calculations, etc., for free to your newly created eCommerce store.
Step 4: Choose a Theme
Now, let’s give your WordPress site the eCommerce appeal it deserves.
From your WordPress site Admin panel, navigate to Themes > Add New.
Search for WooCommerce.
There are already tons of free and premium WooCommerce-supported WordPress themes. Take your time to test and compare the WooCommerce themes until you find the one that resonates the most with your eCommerce store’s brand and niche. Also, ensure the plugin is lightweight, mobile responsive, and SEO friendly.
Install and activate the theme you choose, upload your logo and favicon, and adjust the customization and configuration such as font, color palette, site title and description, etc, where necessary.
Step 5: Add your Products
You have a functional eCommerce website with the right appeal, feel, and branding. You can now start adding your products.
From your dashboard, click on Products > Add Product.
Enter your product name, upload the product images, and add short and long product descriptions, prices, inventory details, and product categories and tags.
Preview the product, make changes, and publish the product.
Repeat the same process to add more products until you have added all your items.
Step 6: Install Additional Plugins
You may need additional WordPress WooCommerce complementary plugins to make your eCommerce store more professional and add more features.
Examples include a WordPress page builder, variation swatches, a payment gateway, product add-ons, email marketing, an auction, product reviews, wish lists, advanced shipping, affiliate programs, and more.
Step 7: Design eCommerce Pages
You can divide the page into sections, starting with the landing or home pages. The first is the Hero section, comprising a sizeable full-screen slider, video, or a static background image with large headings and clear CTAs. Then, you can follow it with sub-sections with the best deals, products based on special categories, etc., usually in carousels or grid images.
Your home page can also have sub-sections of billboards with CTAs for product categories or special offers. After designing your home page, you can create and design other necessary pages such as About, Contact, Privacy Policy, Return Policy, etc.
Step 8: Set up Payment and Shipping
If you are unsatisfied with WooCommerce’s default payment options, you can install and set up plugins that support your preferred payment type in your WordPress WooCommerce. You should also test them to ensure that they work.
Based on your business model, If you intend to handle shipping yourself and have different shipping methods and rates, you can use this opportunity to set your eCommerce store’s available shipping methods, rates, and zones.
Congratulations! At this point, you now have a fully functional eCommerce store ready to be launched.
How do you launch your eCommerce store with InstaWP Live?
InstaWP Live is a show-stopper-managed WordPress hosting with jaw-dropping features and excellent performance. InstaWP Live possesses all the must-have traits of the best hosting partners for e-commerce store development.
Here’s how to launch your eCommerce store with InstaWP Live.
Step 1: Create a Free Staging WordPress
When using InstaWP Live, you can start building your eCommerce store without first buying a domain and hosting. You begin by creating a staging WordPress site for free. Then, you build and launch it with a hosting plan and domain name.
To create a free WordPress staging site, you must create an account with InstaWP. Then, log into your dashboard, click Staging from the top navigation, and click the Add New + button.
On the popup, you can either select From Scratch to build the eCommerce store from scratch or choose Store to use a predesigned template from the store.
If you are building from scratch, select eCommerce from the popup and then tick WooCommerce from the side.
Before proceeding, select the additional plugins you intend to use to customize and build your eCommerce store. For example, the Abandoned Cart Lite plugin can help recover customers who left the site without completing their purchase.
Once you choose your plugins, click the Create Site button. Your eCommerce store will be ready within seconds.
Step 2: Build Your eCommerce Store
After creating your WordPress site, you can log in to the WordPress Admin panel and build and customize the eCommerce site.
Step 3: Launch the eCommerce Store with InstaWP Live
Launch the eCommerce store with InstaWP Live by clicking on the rocket icon in the action menu that says “Go Live” on the right side of the staging site.
Select the InstaWP Live option from the popup and click the Next Step button.
In summary, you will be prompted to select the InstaWP Live plan you want for your site and make the payment to set up hosting.
After going live with InstaWP Live hosting, you can easily connect your custom domain name with just one click—and you’re done!
Expert Tips for Building a WooCommerce Store
Taking it further, here are some tips to help you build an even better WooCommerce store that stands out, builds trust, and impresses your customers.
Maximize Security
Implement strong security measures when constructing eCommerce stores to ensure shopper trust and security. Customers willingly provide personal and payment information during checkout.
To achieve maximum security, ensure that the eCommerce store uses an SSL certificate to encrypt data and secure online transactions, a reliable security plugin to secure the site against malware and brute force attacks, and a backup plugin to automate and manage backups.
Recommended Plugins
Building a successful WooCommerce store requires the right tools to extend its capabilities. Here is a list of WordPress/WooCommerce plugins that can enhance your eCommerce store’s visual appeal and functionality and boost user engagement and conversions.
- WP Rocket: This is the top caching plugin for WordPress, designed to improve site speed significantly.
- Abandoned Cart Lite: This plugin sends automated emails to remind customers about products they added to their cart but abandoned without purchasing, encouraging them to return and complete the transaction.
- WordFence: Build an impenetrable fence around your eCommerce store to stop malware and hackers from gaining unsolicited access to your site.
- UpdraftPlus: This plugin enables you to automate and manage backups so you can restore the eCommerce store if any issues arise.
- Yoast SEO: This plugin enhances your eCommerce store SEO and appears on search results.
- Google Site Kit: This is a Google plugin that allows you to link your eCommerce store to Google Analytics and the search console and measure site metrics to see how your store is performing.
- Variation Swatches for WooCommerce: This plugin transforms product variations and selects options from basic dropdowns to visually appealing color, image, and label swatches.
- TI WooCommerce WishList: This plugin increases customer loyalty by letting customers save their favorite products for future purchases. It also helps boost sales by enabling customers to easily revisit and buy their saved items.
- InstaWP Connect: This plugin helps you create a staging replica of your live site, allowing you to test changes without impacting the live.
Testing in Staging
Adopt staging environments like InstaWP to safely test new features, updates, codes, plugins, and the checkout process before applying changes to your live eCommerce site. Testing in staging serves as a safety net to prevent unexpected outcomes that could harm your eCommerce store when making significant changes.
Enable 2-Way Sync
After testing changes in a staging environment, you need a way to apply them on the live site. The InstaWP Connect plugin has a two-way sync feature that you can use to sync data from your staging to the live site while eliminating the risk of overwriting real-time orders or data, making merging changes faster and more effortless.
Are you an eCommerce Developer?
Are you an eCommerce developer? Do you have your own WordPress products that extend or complement WooCommerce functionality? I recommend you to use InstaWP. You’d be surprised by how InstaWP can relieve developers from considerable burdens.
InstaWP provides a secure staging environment for making changes to your WordPress product. This allows you to thoroughly test any modifications before they go live, ensuring that your customers’ sites remain safe when they use or upgrade your product on their live sites.
You can also allow potential users to create product demos to take your product for a test drive in a safe environment outside their live eCommerce site. They can then purchase and use your product on their live eCommerce store.
Furthermore, this technology enables seamless remote collaboration among team members, emphasizing the significance of working together effectively regardless of physical location.
That’s why intelligent developers are using InstaWP as their development tool, and you should be using it, too.
Conclusion
WordPress and WooCommerce can help you build and launch flexible and powerful eCommerce stores. With a versatile range of recommended plugins, your store’s functionality can be extended, improving user experience and conversion.
As you can see, InstaWP can be used to build eCommerce sites faster and quickly push them to live with any InstaWP Live hosting plans.
FAQs
1. Is WordPress suitable for eCommerce?
Many developers and agencies use WordPress to build and launch eCommerce stores. This is because WordPress is a very flexible and popular CMS. You can use it to create all types of sites, from essential blogs to powerful eCommerce stores. Many eCommerce plugins, such as WooCommerce and various complementary plugins, make achieving most tweaks and eCommerce functionality easy. So yes, WordPress is very suitable for eCommerce.
2. How much does it cost to build a WordPress eCommerce website?
There is no exact cost. Cost may vary based on hosting needs, domain name type, and the cost of premium plugins you intend to use on the eCommerce website.
3. Is WooCommerce better than Shopify?
WooCommerce is open-source and very flexible. This means you can tweak and customize WooCommerce and its core files, but you don’t have that liberty using Shopify. Also, you can run a full-fledged eCommerce store with free plugins, but Shopify is subscription-based.
4. What do you need to build an eCommerce store?
You need a domain name and hosting, WordPress, WooCommerce, an eCommerce Theme, and any additional plugins that extend the functionality of eCommerce stores.
5. What are the things needed in the WooCommerce website?
You need a domain name, managed WordPress hosting, WooCommerce, an eCommerce theme, and any additional plugins that extend the functionality of the WooCommerce plugin.