Are you planning to set up an eCommerce store online but are confused about the platform you should use? Finding the right product for your store is not everything to gain maximum profit from your business. You are required to choose a platform that can easily sell your products and bring you customers who are willing to return again and again. Few examples of incredible online stores can be Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, and many more.
Luckily, there are a ton of e-commerce platforms out there that give you full freedom to create an eCommerce site of your dreams.
One such exceptional platform that is currently powering 35% of the web is WordPress. From small business websites to most popular websites like TED, Fortune.com, Spotify, Techcrunch, Sony Music and Forbes blog, WordPress has proved its unparalleled versatility in letting you create almost any niche website with utmost ease, especially eCommerce website.
In today’s article, we will let you know why you should consider using WordPress for your e-commerce store?
A Little History Behind WordPress
Ecommerce currently covers more than 40% of the entire web thus giving brands an opportunity to grow. If you are also running a store or have a product line of your own, WordPress can be a viable and trusted platform to let you build an eCommerce store.
Started primarily as a blogging platform in the year 2003, WordPress has now become the most popular platform to build flexible websites which are easily customizable as per your needs.
With an open-source code and a highly-skilled community of developers, this platform offers a variety of themes and plugins that work with almost any type of WordPress based website and give your site the desired design and functionality without having to involve yourself in any coding.
Reasons You Should Choose WordPress For Your E-Commerce Site
Though there are many ways and platforms available to set up an online store, WordPress is one of the best and easiest platforms to do so. Whether you are planning to create a dedicated website for selling products or want to add more features like a multi-vendor marketplace, WordPress has all the characteristics of a perfect solution. Below, we will discuss a few of the main reasons as to why it’s an intelligent pick.
WordPress Is Infinitely Variable
WordPress is a huge open-source platform where any developer can contribute with their solutions. This platform comes packed with most of what you need to build an incredible website. However, many websites require some extended functionality that are not available in the core platform. To make this easier for you, WordPress offers hundreds (even thousands) of plugins that can be uploaded to your website to expand its functionality. Most of these are free of charge and can be easily downloaded from WordPress repo.
One of the most popular WordPress plugin, that allows you to create an e-commerce store is WooCommerce. This plugin has been developed by Automattic, the folks behind WordPress. It allows you to create a fully functional eCommerce store of your own with WordPress.
Some of the features of WooCommerce include:
- WooCommerce is free
- Allows you to add unlimited products and product attributes
- Unrestricted customization
- Add countless themes
- Product ratings and reviews
- Built-in payment processing from leading providers
- Shipping options
- Manage orders and customers
- Store optimization features
- Supported by a huge community of developers
There are also other eCommerce platforms that you can use to create an e-commerce store such as Shopify, Magento, PrestaShop and more. Out of these Magento powers 18% websites, Shopify powers 8% websites, while WooCommerce stands on the top powering 28% of all online stores such as All Blacks, Ripleys, Orange, Weber, Ghostbed and more. Our suggestion would be WooCommerce as it is compatible with most WordPress themes, is stable and is backed by a well-supported community with lots of features. Furthermore, if you want to extend the feature of your WooCommerce based store such as want to sell digital services online, you can go with its dedicated addons to get extended functionality.
Offers The Desired E-commerce Based Design
When it comes to getting the functionality of an eCommerce store, plugins like WooCommerce can offer you exactly what you want. But functionality is not the only decision that you are required to make about your site.
To bring more and more visitors to your site, you need to style your website in such a way that it looks like an engaging online store with proper navigation, menus, sidebars and more. This can be achieved by a useful WordPress theme that will give your store the needed design. It is crucial for your website as it controls how your site appears to your visitors.
WordPress offers hundreds of free and paid themes that are designed especially for e-commerce purposes or offers all the designing features that you will need for a store. For an eCommerce store, you will need a theme that provides a responsive and dedicated design, lots of customization features, a user-friendly interface and integration with eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce.
Few stunning WordPress eCommerce themes that we recommend using include:
- WordPress MarketPlace Theme StoreMate For Dokan
- WooCommerce Storefront
- WordPress Retail Theme RetailMarket WordPress theme
- Flatsome
Here is a complete list of Handpicked WooCommerce Themes for Your WordPress Site.
WordPress Offers Credible Security
Security is indispensable for any WordPress website and when it comes to an online store, security should be your major concern. Security is also essential to protect your buyers at any cost.
Since WordPress offers all your data under one roof, spammers can easily enter your website and can cause a lot of harm. An eCommerce store will include various kinds of information once you begin operating your website. Your database might include your customer info such as their login details, payment details and other sensitive info. Therefore, in order to protect all this information, your site will require a lot of protection.
Fortunately, WordPress is a super-secure platform from its core. It protects your website at its development stage within its core code and it’s also easy to improve your site’s security even more. It also allows you to install security-focussed plugins, which you can install to further increase the security of your website.
Furthermore, the WordPress security team continues to find new ways to enhance WordPress security. The WordPress development team also releases major and minor updates frequently, of which many focus on-site safety and security to every extent possible.
WordPress Is Affordable
When you are starting a new e-commerce store, you would want to start at a low budget of course. Luckily, WordPress is a very cost-effective platform. While running an online store based on WordPress is not completely free, you will still spend a lot less than other competing platforms.
Here are the simple minimum requirements for creating a WordPress website.
- Domain Name: Brand new domains will cost about $10 to $15 for a year.
- Web Hosting: Web hosting can vary based on the package offered, but it would cost around $30/ month. Here is a list of top WordPress Hosting providers of 2020.
- WordPress: The platform WordPress is completely free to install and use.
- WordPress Themes and Plugins: Most WordPress themes and plugins are free of cost. But if you want some extended features, you will be required to purchase dedicated addons which might cost you a bit. If you want a theme that offers more than a simple design, you can invest in a premium WordPress theme dedicated for eCommerce website. Otherwise, plugins like WooCommerce are free of cost.
That’s all you need to get your e-commerce store started. Of course, if you want to boost your site’s security, you can invest in WordPress security plugins that might increase your cost. Rest assured, this platform is very much economical and will offer you great features to increase your revenue.
In a nutshell
WordPress is the ultimate king when it comes to creating an eCommerce store. Although there are lots of eCommerce platforms for letting you sell your products, not many can offer the level of flexibility, security and personalization like WordPress.
With eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce and stellar WordPress themes, your eCommerce store is definitely going to be huge in terms of stability, scalability, and performance.
We hope you must have by now understood why you should use WordPress for your eCommerce store. If you still have any questions, let us know in the comment section below!
Interesting Read:
WooCommerce Product Types For Your Online Store
