Ecommerce has become increasingly popular over the years, and with good reason. By setting up your ecommerce with WordPress, you can make a great deal of money selling online, but you can also take advantage of the wide range of available services to help you take your business to the next level.
In this article, we'll be looking at how to set up an ecommerce website with WordPress, one of the most popular web-based content management systems (CMS) in use today.
WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) used to create blogs, websites, and ecommerce stores. WordPress is free and easy to use, making it a great choice for small businesses that don’t have time or resources to invest in a more complex platform.
First, you need to install WordPress on your website. There are many ways to do this, but the easiest way is to use a WordPress host. A WordPress host will provide you with everything you need to set up your site – from a domain name and hosting account to a set of installation instructions.
Once you have installed WordPress, activated all the plugins and configured your settings, you will be able to bring your website live to start selling!
Here are the 7 steps you need to take to setup your ecommerce with WordPress:
WordPress is a popular platform for ecommerce, and there are many hosting and domain options for businesses using WordPress. But first you must secure a domain for your Ecommerce site.
Domain:
The first step in setting up your ecommerce business with WordPress is choosing a domain. There are plenty of domain options available, and it's important to find one that meets your needs.
Some factors you may want to consider include the domain's price, availability, and location. You may also want to consider registering a domain name that's similar to your business name to increase brand awareness.
I recommend you start your search with a Domain provider like Google Domains to get the best value for your buck.
Hosting:
Once you have chosen a domain, the next step is choosing a hosting provider. There are many hosting options available, and it's important to find one that meets your needs.
Some factors you may want to consider include the price, features offered, scalability, reliability, customer service, and speed of response.
I am a huge proponent of Hostinger (our website also runs on this provider), as it has great deals and gives you a lot of flexibility. But you can choose from a huge list, such as covered in this article of 11 Best WordPress Hosts.
WordPress:
Once you have chosen a domain and host, the last step is installing WordPress, which we will cover in the next paragraph.
WordPress is free to install and use, and there are two main ways you can install it on your website. You can choose to:
The first option is your simplest solution, which is the one I recommend. When choosing a hosting provider, be sure to consider those offering the perk of a "single click" install, such as the aforementioned Hostinger.
To start an ecommerce with WordPress, WooCommerce is the perfect platform. It is used to power your online store and has an astonishingly high rating of 4.6/5 from over 3,000 users. It is by far the most popular solution to launch an Ecommerce with WordPress and it easy to see why that is the case.
The most important thing about WooCommerce is the fact that it is incredibly similar to WordPress itself and that it is an open-source platform that has a strong community supporting it.
In most cases, it is a free solution that covers all of the necessary ecommerce marketing tools. If you are unsure about what kinds of tools you will need for your business, check out this article to get set up with the necessities.
You can easily setup:
To finalize your WooComnerce setup make sure you walk through the last five steps.
1. From your WordPress Dashboard navigate to "Plugins" and look for WooCommerce before hitting Install.
2. In the second step you will need to add all of your business details. Put all of the information that is requested.
Pro-tip: select that you plan to sell both digital and physical products. This will allow you to also sell products like courses, ebooks and other digital products.
3. Setup your Payment Options - check out our article on Payment Processors for Ecommerce.
4. Configure your shipping options to cover your ground.
You will be asked to configure your shipping rates, WooCommerce should automatically recognize the area you are in and set this as default. If you want other zones to apply, those are available too.
5. Pick any complimentary Plugins you want.
Some plugins and themes may be recommended for your ecommerce site, but you don't need to select them if you aren't sure. We have prepared an article on the best WooCommerce Plugins just for that purpose.
Now comes the exciting part, picking your ecommerce theme!
When choosing an ecommerce theme for your website, you'll want to ensure that it is responsive, looks professional, and is easy to use. Responsive ecommerce themes make your website look good on any device, regardless of its size.
Professional ecommerce themes will make your site look more like a storefront and can include features like product reviews and shopping carts. Easy-to-use ecommerce themes make it easy for your customers to buy products from your website.
There are many responsive ecommerce themes available to choose from, but I recommend you start your search by going to ThemeForest.
It has by far the largest selection of themes out there, many of which are great, responsive, and well free. If you want to stick with something basic you can always opt for the standard WooCommerce Theme as it is the most popular ecommerce plugin on WordPress.com and has over 2 million active installations.
After you have configured your Ecommerce with WordPress and selected your theme, you can start adding products to your store. There is an excellent guide prepared by WooCommerce to help you add and manage your products. To be able to add your products to WooCommerce you will need to prepare the following information:
If you want to create the most optimized product listing, I highly recommend you check out our resources section. Similarly, if you are having issues finding the right products to sell, you should check out our article on the 25 hottest ecommerce products of the year.
While WordPress is free and easy to use, it can be enhanced with plugins to add specific features or functionality. WordPress actually has around 60K plugins that you can choose from, so it's guaranteed that there is something to solve any issue you come across along your way.
To get started, I recommend you install the Jetpack plugin. Jetpack is a collection of essential WordPress plugins that includes features such as site stats, security, and performance enhancements.
Once Jetpack is installed, go to the Plugins page and click on the Add New button. In the search bar at the top of the window, type "Ecommerce" and select Ecommerce from the results list. Click on the Ecommerce plugin link to download and install it.
Once Ecommerce is installed, you'll need to configure it. To do this, open the Ecommerce plugin's Settings page in your browser and click on the General tab. Under Website URL, enter your website's full address (including http://).
Under Server Address, enter your website's hostname or IP address. Under Database Name, enter your website's database name (usually wp_).
For more powerful Ecommerce Plugins for WooCommerce, you can check out our article on Plugins or this one for ecommerce marketing tools.
After you have completed all of the above steps, the time has come to bring your ecommerce store live. I recommend that you preview your website before you decide to bring it live. To do this you can simply check out the "Preview" to make sure you are happy with what you have got.
If you are satisfied you can then easily navigate to Settings > Privacy and if you have already uploaded your Privacy Policy (a useful tool for this) you will be able to turn your site online by changing it to "Public".
Congratulations, you have just learned how to build an Ecommerce with WordPress in seven simple steps. These were:
I hope you found this article useful to get you started on Ecommerce with WordPress. At HK Digital we work with a large variety of ecommerce brands daily. This is why we have prepared our exclusive Ecommerce Optimization Package so that you can build a fully optimized Ecommerce store, and start entering the big leagues from the start.
