Installing WooCommerce is an exciting moment. Suddenly, you’re turning WordPress into a powerful ecommerce store.

Your immediate focus might be on the new Products area of your WordPress dashboard, but the WooCommerce backend includes quite a few elements you need to be aware of.

From better store management to preparing for the worst, take the time to explore your backend settings to ensure your storefront is perfect for your customers at all times.

1. Setting Up Security

When you’re setting up an ecommerce store, security must be a priority. A single security incident could ruin your site’s reputation permanently and risk the personal identities of your customers. WooCommerce is for creating online stores, not securing them. This is why you have to take steps to secure your WooCommerce backend.

WooCommerce has multiple recommendations for securing your store immediately after installing WooCommerce, including:

• Use a secure host
• Use strong passwords
• Enable two-factor authentication
• Use security plugins, such as Jetpack Protect
• Secure FTP directories
• Keep WooCommerce, WooCommerce plugins and WordPress up to date

2. Checking Your Stats

By default, your WooCommerce backend gives you access to numerous reports to see how your store is performing. The Reports section of WooCommerce gives you insight into order histories, order trends, individual product sales, coupon/discount performance, how many guests versus customers and much more.

If you’re looking for ways to improve your store, give the reports a try. They make it much easier to turn your online store into a success.

3. Clearing Your Caches

WooCommerce caches data for multiple parts of your store, such as shipping rate calculations. Over time, this data builds up and slows down your site. While you might have set up a caching solution for WordPress, you might not have done the same for WooCommerce.

Under the System Status section of WooCommerce, use the Tools tab to clear out individual caches. This boosts speed and performance, which makes customers happier.

4. Maintaining Your System

Just like with anything else on your website, you have to do some general maintenance on WooCommerce from time to time. The WooCommerce backend has built-in maintenance and troubleshooting tools. For instance, the cache clearing feature above gives you the tools you need to regularly clean the cache.

The System Status area of WooCommerce is designed to help you quickly uncover issues and see if everything’s performing correctly. Run a system report to check critical details about your site and to help WooCommerce support staff help you fix any problems as quickly as possible.

If the worst happens, there’s also an option to reset everything back to defaults. This is perfect if you made numerous changes and suddenly nothing works right.

5. Customising Backend Features

The Settings area of WooCommerce is one of the areas you’ll want to change as quickly as possible. You might be more interested in the storefront, but the WooCommerce backend is where you customise all the options that ensure purchases calculate correctly, customers are notified of orders and products ship using the chosen method.

While there are numerous options to customise, you usually don’t change them much after the first time. However, it is vital to go through every option to ensure your store runs smoothly. Some of the areas where you might want to make changes include:

• General settings, such as your store’s home location and base currency
• Setting up the option to allow product reviews
• Calculating taxes and shipping
• Customising the checkout process
• Customising the customer account page
• Choosing which emails to send and when

6. Increasing WooCommerce Functionality

Another area you might frequent, especially at first is the Add-Ons area of the WooCommerce backend. This is where you can quickly find and manage extensions for WooCommerce, such as accepting various payment methods or offering shipping through different companies.

7. Clearing Out Excess

While you already know about caching, that’s not the only excess that slows down your WooCommerce store. Having too many extensions can drastically slow down not only WooCommerce, but WordPress in general. Start by checking your WooCommerce Add-Ons area to see if there are any extensions you don’t need. Remove any old ones to help speed up performance.

You should also remove any WordPress plugins and themes that you no longer use. These can negatively affect your entire site, including WooCommerce functionality.

8. Enabling Backups

WooCommerce doesn’t come with a way to back up your site. While this might not seem related to the WooCommerce backend, you should ensure your WordPress backup solution includes all your WooCommerce directories too. Should the worst happen, you’ll be able to restore your store and get back to your customers quickly.

Interested in using WooCommerce to open your own ecommerce store? Contact me today to find out how I can help.

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Conversions are what helps keep your ecommerce store alive, but what if no one’s buying anything?

The first step is to use WooCommerce, which makes managing an online store easier. The second step is to boost conversions using highly effective WooCommerce tips.

These tips help you take WooCommerce to the next level. If you’re ready to start growing your online store, start implementing these tips today.

Offer Multiple Payment Methods

One of the easiest WooCommerce tips to implement is offering multiple payment methods. You never know what’s more convenient for your customers. Some may only use credit cards while others prefer PayPal. WooCommerce offers numerous payment extensions for free to ensure you always have the perfect way for your customers to pay.

They’re easy to set up and it helps reduce shopping cart abandonment when shoppers find out their preferred payment method isn’t accepted.

Speed Things Up

No matter how many WooCommerce tips you try, a slow loading site still hurts conversions. The problem isn’t your products or checkout process. It’s the fact that shoppers don’t stay on your site long enough to view any products. When pages load too slowly, your shoppers abandon your site for the competition.

A few simple ways to speed things up include:

• Compressing image sizes (high-quality images don’t have to slow your site down)
• Use a WordPress caching plugin
• Run the free Google PageSpeed Insights tool (offers suggestions on ways to improve)

Reduce Cart Abandonment

Shopping cart abandonment is an issue for all ecommerce stores. Boost your conversions by making the checkout process as simple and painless as possible. One of the best places to start is with a WooCommerce cart abandonment plugin, such as:

• Recart
• Abandoned Cart Pro for WooCommerce
• WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart
• Optimonk
• Jilt

Even with the right plugin, your shopping cart might still be too intimidating. Ensure consumers aren’t afraid to go through the process by:

• Limiting how much information you ask for
• Offering checkout without creating an account
• Limiting the number of steps during the process
• Making it easy to enter information on any device

WooCommerce also lists shopping cart extensions designed to boost conversions. For instance, add in upsells, offer free shipping, provide special discounts and more.

Use Enhanced eCommerce Tracking

Google Analytics is ideal for helping you better understand your site’s performance. It’s also perfect for increasing conversions with WooCommerce. Google added Enhanced eCommerce Tracking as a new data point to track. The Enhanced Ecommerce Google Analytics plugin allows you to take advantage of this in your WooCommerce store.

Find out where cart abandonment happens, see how many related products shoppers click on and display shopping behaviour reports.

Showcase Your Products Better

One of the harder WooCommerce tips to implement is showcasing your products in their best light. While it’s technically easy, you have so many customisation options that it may seem overwhelming to start with. For instance, should you list your products in a list format or grid? How large should product images be? How long should your product descriptions be?

WooCommerce also offers extensions to improve product listings, such as offering a quick-view option, and merchandising extensions to give customers more options, such as comparing products side-by-side.

It’s also important to provide detailed product descriptions showcase all features and try to answer all questions. Offering multiple images or even a short video of each product helps show consumers more so they’re more likely to buy.

Implement Reviews

No matter what platform you build your ecommerce site on, reviews are important. In fact, 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a friend’s personal recommendation. If it’s between your site and a site that includes customer reviews, shoppers prefer the site with reviews.

People want to know that others have tried the product they’re considering. It’s peace of mind before making an investment. This is especially true on higher priced items. Even with the best product images and descriptions, reviews make a difference. This is one of the best WooCommerce tips for seeing an increase in conversions faster.

Is your ecommerce store optimised with the right WooCommerce settings and extensions? Contact StuartMedia today to learn more about using WooCommerce and how to improve your site.

Image: LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Running an online store requires you to wear a wide variety of hats. From product creation to marketing genius, sometimes you feel like you have to do it all.

What if there was a tool that made your life easier? WooCommerce helps to simplify the creation and running of ecommerce stores.

It’s one of the top WordPress plugins and among the top ecommerce platforms. It’s packed with powerful features that help you do far more with your store.

1. Professional Style

Looks are important when it comes to online stores. Would you really want to shop on a site that looks more like a poorly designed personal blog? No. You wouldn’t trust it.

One of the reasons 28% of all ecommerce stores use WooCommerce is the plugin helps them to create a professional looking store. Not only does it help a site look more professional, but it provides you with all the features a shopper would expect, such as shopping cart management, an easy to use checkout process and easy to browse product pages.

2. Free To Use

While large businesses might have plenty of money to invest, small businesses and startups aren’t usually that lucky. WooCommerce was created to help everyone create an online store to be proud of. The basic plugin and features, which are ideal for smaller stores, are completely free.

The best part is if you need to upgrade, you don’t have to purchase everything. You only pay for the extra features you need.

3. Secure And Compatible

It’s no secret that WordPress is often a target for cybercriminals. However, WooCommerce has a dedicated team that creates regular security and feature updates. Add this to the regular security updates for the WordPress platform and you have a secure online store.

Along with security, WooCommerce is compatible with numerous themes and plugins. To prevent any annoying theme conflicts during updates, WooCommerce even has their own set of themes to ensure you don’t lose site functionality during updates or upgrades.

4. Built-In Analytics

Analytics are crucial for any business, physical or online. However, far too many businesses complicate analytics or don’t gather data at all. With analytics tools and plugins, you mainly get data about page views, bounce rates and other details about your website.

With WooCommerce, you get data about your products and conversion rates. For instance, if you have five featured products on your page, do you know which one gets the most clicks? Which one converts best? Which leads to further sales of other products? What about how far shoppers go into the checkout process before abandoning their carts?

Analytics help you better understand your conversion rates and execute improved marketing strategies. The best part is all of these is built into WooCommerce. You don’t need yet another plugin to help you gather data about your sales and products.

5. Customise For All Needs

While all of the above is great, WooCommerce shines most when it comes to customisation. The sheer amount of customisation might seem overwhelming at first, but once you’ve explored your options, you’ll love it.

It all starts with customising how your store looks. After all, you want your products to stand out and a unique storefront is a large part of that. Some of the other notable customisation options include:

• Offering a variety of payment methods
• Creating your own checkout process
• Changing product layouts and inventory pages
• Adding random sales at a moment’s notice
• Incorporating numerous extensions to work with other services
• Choosing where to ship
• Offering any type of product, both physical and digital

There’s very little you can’t customise. The idea is to help you create the ideal store for your needs. This is part of why WooCommerce has become so popular. It fits every business in every industry. With a few tweaks, your online store looks just like you want and incorporates the features you need, such as automatically calculating taxes, managing inventory and displaying your products so shoppers want to click to find out more.

Are you building an online store? Contact me today to learn more about WooCommerce and how to use it to create the best possible ecommerce store.

Image: Glenn Carstens-Peters

Many people still think WordPress is just for blogs and standard websites, but it’s for so much more.

With all of the customisation features, many are now using WordPress for ecommerce. With the right plugins and setup, it’s easy to build your business using the WordPress platform.

From selling ebooks to running a membership site, WordPress has the tools you need to get setup so you can focus on running your business.

Ecommerce Features

WordPress is more powerful than many realise. It can handle both small and large ecommerce sites. Plus, it’s compatible with all major browsers. What really makes WordPress stand out is how customisable it is. You’re not forced to choose a single layout or one or two payment methods. You choose the layout, payment options, site access and much more.

Depending on the plugins and themes you choose, you get the benefits of numerous payment options such as PayPal, Stripe and manual payments. You also have integrated tax calculators to make selling digital goods as easy as possible.

One final feature that makes WordPress for ecommerce a good choice is how the platform works with databases. Simply create a new database for user account and transaction data along with the graphical interface and you’re done. WordPress is well known for it’s powerful database functionality and it’s yet another benefit when it comes to ecommerce.

Types Of Sites

WordPress is often used to power digital ecommerce and membership sites. For digital sites, files are stored and accessed as soon as payment is processed. Since you’re able to accept multiple payment options, it’s easy to sell products to nearly any customer.

Membership based sites are just as easy to work with. Once the customer pays for access, they’re able to view specific areas of a site, such as a course or premium posts. All relevant data for what they’re able to access and when they must renew their membership is all stored in a WordPress database.

Recommended Plugins

While the platform on it’s own is powerful, the true ecommerce features come from plugins. These plugins provide features such as payment processing, shopping carts, analytics, secure data entry and more.

The most popular WordPress ecommerce plugin is WooCommerce. It’s currently used on over 78% of all WordPress ecommerce sites. According to the developer’s site, the WooCommerce toolkit powers 29% of all online stores. It’s designed to allow you to sell anything while keeping customer data secure. There are also extensions and even themes created specifically for this plugin.

Gravity Forms helps you create simple and complex contact forms so it’s easy for customers to contact you. Every reputable ecommerce site needs contact forms. Once the plugin is installed, forms are created through a drag and drop approach, so it’s easy to create forms without being a programmer. Plus, it integrates well with major services such as PayPal, AWeber and MailChimp along with many major theme providers such as WooThemes and Organic Themes.

One final plugin you’ll likely want is Easy Digital Downloads. It’s perfect for managing any digital products such as music, videos, ebooks and more. Easily track earnings with graphical statistics and even add in discounted pricing whenever you want. It also supports multiple payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe and WorldPay.

While other plugins are available, these three have made their way to the top due their ease of use and powerful ecommerce features. It’s ideal to hire a developer to set them up for you and ensure they’re properly integrated on your site. Once everything’s set up, all you have to do is add in your products, choose your payment options and start marketing your site.

Conclusion

If you want a platform that scales with your ecommerce business, look no further than WordPress. Get a unique storefront with all the features you need by working with an experienced WordPress developer. The end result is a store you’re proud of and one your customers will love.

Ready to experience how well WordPress works with ecommerce? Contact StuartMedia today to get started on your own site.

Image: Serge Kij