WooCommerce WordPress – Using WooCommerce To run an Online Store

21st November 2015

woocommerce-1

WooCommerce WordPress – Using WooCommerce To run an Online Store

Looking to start your own online store? One option is to use a fully fledged e-commerce solution to build your web site and setup your shopping cart. But for those with limited resources who want to get their online business up and running as soon as possible, a better option is a shopping cart plugin like WooCommerce WordPress.

A shopping cart plugin lets you create an online store form within an existing web site without all the technical learning curve and costs associated with a dedicated e-commerce solution. The best shopping cart plugin will go beyond providing you with a online store front, it should also offer many of the advanced features found in dedicated e-commerce packages such as payment gateway support, order management, inventory, reporting and more.

Designed specifically for WordPress, the WooCommerce WordPress shopping cart plugin can help you launch a self-hosted, WordPress-based online store in no time. Read on to find out what makes WooCommerce the best shopping cart plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs.

Why WooCommerce WordPress?

using woocommerce

WooCommerce has everything a small business needs to turn their WordPress site into a fully functioning online store. Used by thousands of businesses of all sizes, it offers both basic and advanced features to help you build and grow your own e-commerce solution.

Price

Perhaps the best part of WooCoomerce is it’s price. It’s completely free to download, with no ongoing monthly fees. WooCommerce generates it revenue by creating a series of high quality plugins and themes that help to extend it’s standard feature set. There are however many WooCommerce themes and extensions which are free, but the paid versions tend to offer more advanced features and capabilities.

eCommerce Features

Payment Processing. Handling payments correctly is perhaps the most important aspect of running any online store. If your customers can’t provide payment quickly and easily then they may go elsewhere. Luckily WooCommerce provides support for a wide range of commercial payment gateway services along with PayPal, Cash on Delivery and even encrypted currencies such as Bitcoin.
Order Management. Perform back-office tasks straight from the WooCommerce dashboard. For example, get a handle on order fulfilment using a wide range of shipping carriers, services and add-ons to make logistics work for your business. WooCommerce also offers inventory management tools and the ability to assign specific team members to certain tasks.
Order Management. Day to day management tasks such as order fulfilment and inventory can be managed straight from the WooCommerce dashboard. From within the dashboard you can add stock and manage existing inventory, define local and international shipping rates, generated sales reports and manage all the orders.
Marketing. WooCommerce lets you create many different types of promotions, such as discount options, coupon campaigns and free shipping offers. Advanced options include the ability to limit the number of products that customer can purchase at discounted prices, or restricting promotions to particular types of customers.
Reporting Measure your online store’s success. Generate all types of reports, such as incoming sales, stock levels, product reviews, overall store performance and more.

Extensions & Themes

using woocommerce

WooCommerce works from the same premise as WordPress itself, by allowing you to extend its appearance and functionality through the use of extensions and themes.

Themes control the appearance of your store, allowing you to add your own logo, headers and other branding. Whilst you can look to having a web designer to create a custom theme for you it may be cheaper and more convenient to select something from WooCommerce’s library of free and commercial themes along with the hundreds more offered by WordPress and other third-party developers.

Extensions provide a way to extend the feature set of WooCommerce. This allows developers to provide new enhancements with payment processing options, order management, accounting, reporting and analytics. As with themes, WooCommerce also provides a large library free and paid extensions that let you integrate different business functions into WooCommerce to compliment your work flow.

Things to Consider about WooCommerce WordPress

using woocommerce

WooCommerce WordPress is simply a plugin that powers the e-commerce part of your online business, you will still need to set up WordPress itself and build out the other sections of your site as well.

There may also be a learning curve for some business owners. For instance, the platform doesn’t have a drag-and-drop website builder, so you’ll have to learn and rely on whatever options your theme and extensions offer to change your store’s look and feel.

If you’re already familiar with the WordPress platform, however, WooCommerce will be very easy for you to use, as it works the same exact way as WordPress does.

Unlike solutions such as BigCommerce or Shopify, WooCommerce doesn’t provide you with the hosting infrastructure required for your online store. You’ll still need to find your own web hosting plan, purchase a domain name and set up your WordPress site.

FASTDOT have a range of e-commerce web hosting packages to fit a variety of needs, with each plan providing an additional amount of storage, email accounts and bandwidth as required.

You can order any of our e-commerce web hosting plans online or if you have an existing WordPress web site that you would like to migrate then our sales team would be happy to discuss your specific requirements on 1300 735 272.

Get Started with WooCommerce Hosting Today

Compare Your Options!

WordPress Hosting FAQ

How do I get started with WordPress?

All you need to do is sign up with a hosting account with us. Once you've completed signing up for your hosting account, you will receive an email telling you where to log into your Web Hosting Control-Panel (cPanel). Simply login and install WordPress using our free 1-click script installer. From there, you can begin writing and publishing your content. You will also have the ability to install many other applications on your hosting account with no coding or development knowledge necessary.

Why should I choose FASTDOT?

Our WordPress Hosting solutions are designed to be user-friendly, yet they are loaded with a number of features that developers are looking for. That means both WordPress experts and users who have never hosted a site before will both love our solutions. Additional, all our server are hosted on a VMware Cloud Infrastructure in a Sydney Data Center, which directly cater to the speedy access fro your local customers!

Which WordPress hosting should I get?

For newer WordPress sites, we definitely recommend our high speed Shared Hosting solutions. These solutions are high speed and easy-to-use. They are the perfect springboard to get your site up and running. If you have outgrown the Shared Hosting Environment then you can always move to our Enterprise Cloud VPS solutions as well.

How do I customise my WordPress site and install a new theme?

The first step in customizing your WordPress site is to log into your WordPress install. From there, you'll actually find an "Appearance" section within your WordPress dashboard dedicated to helping you customize your site. The easiest and most likely the method you'll find most effective is by using a pre-made WordPress theme. Just click the "Add New Theme" button to browse through a number of theme options. You can search for themes as well as use the Feature Filter. The Feature Filter is an excellent way to discover a theme that you like the most. This is where you can narrow down themes based on features, the type of layout you want and the subject of your site. Once you find a theme you like, you will want to click on the selected theme and click the Install button. Once installed, navigate back to the Appearance menu, select the newly installed theme and select Activate.

What are the extra costs involved with WordPress?

The WordPress application itself is free. There are free themes and plugins to get started. Many startup businesses set up their websites with no expenses aside from their hosting and domain costs. Premium WordPress add-ons incur fees, some for a few dollars or a donation. Others cost hundreds of dollars annually but are mostly for advanced users. A WordPress website, like any other, consumes bandwidth and may grow over time. The more content, media, and plugins the site has, the more likely resource needs will increase. You should plan and budget accordingly for new expenses as your account grows. At first, shared hosting works well for most WordPress sites, but most users upgrade their plans when they outgrow their shared hosting accounts, especially ecommerce or business sites. FASTDOT is where you can get high quality, affordable hosting for WordPress!

Why is WordPress website security important?

WordPress website core PHP software plus any additional third-party plugins, need to be updated to protect from external attacks. Just like your phone or computer, these updates are essential to patch vulnerabilities that can allow attackers in. WordPress websites are vulnerable by design, because they’re public facing and accessible by everyone.

How to Host a WordPress Website?

To get started with your own WordPress website simply follow these simple steps. Here’s how:
1. Find and register your Domain Name and order your WordPress hosting plan via the link below: https://my.fastdot.com/cart.php?gid=1
2. Log into your cPanel account and use the one-click installer to install WordPress site.
3. Install one of the awesome WordPress theme in your WP admin area and set up some plugins.
4. Create and publish your website pages.
That's it, its a simple as that and your new website is live now.

https://fastdot.com.au/wordpress-hosting/

WordPress Security: Top WordPress Security Tips and Tricks

Named.conf – How to fix a corrupted named.conf in cpanel