Ecommerce with Wordpress & Woocommerce

When I decided I was willing to open an e-commerce website, my very first step was to select the platform I would create it on. I had experience with WordPress from a blogging viewpoint, but both searches and chatting with net smart pals led me to think WordPress was not perfect for my endeaver. Things I heard most was:.

"WordPress was not developed for e-commerce. People become knowledgeable about it and try to hack it to compel it to do something it should not rather than learn ways to do it correctly, in a platform suggested for it. Those do a much better task.".

The general essence was that people were attempting to fit a square peg into a round entire simply to remain with exactly what was familiar. That appeared to make some sense to me so I began looking into other alternatives.

I enjoyed tutorials on making use of Joomla and Drupal with Magento, PrestaShop and Zen Cart. Many of them are open source or allow complimentary trials. So, I had a go with them all. I found them unresponsive, not user-friendly and generally challenging. That stated, I might see the advantage if I was more into coding and introducing a gigantic retail site for which I needed full and absolute control of every detail.

I was stuck. These were the "finest" options and they had all frustrated me. Hours of work yielded little and unsatisfactory outcomes.

I chose to throw the well-intentioned suggestions and see exactly what I can do with WordPress.

I was thrilled! Making use of a free and basic theme and a basic plug-in, I had a working store in an under an hour. I could not believe I had squandered a lot energy and time elsewhere.

Now, this was simply a trial run to see if it was a sensible alternative. It did take me longer to discover a theme I really liked and customize the website as a whole, as well as adding the products and other information. However, I was able to relatively quickly determine that it would definitely satisfy my requirements in a a lot more straight forward means.

My Trials and Decisions.

The rest of this post will information the theme and plug-ins I wound up making use of, and how I reached those decisions.

Discovering a Theme.

Firstly, I did not wish to pay for a theme at this point. I had to first make 100 % sure I was undoubtedly willing to utilize WordPress and specifically what features I needed prior to I was willing to fork out cash for a style.

Finding a free e-commerce style to play with that I suched as actually took me an excellent quantity of time, trial and mistake. I finally discovered Mio by Splashing Pixels. It consists of a highlighted item slider and many of the personalization I was trying to find. I do prepare on upgrading to a paid style with even more functionality and modification at some time, but it gave me everything I required to get a site I was happy with working. Likewise, the support at Splashing Pixels for the complimentary style incorporated with the clean code convinced me that, when I prepared, I would acquire a style from them.

Finding a free theme took me way longer than it maybe need to have, but I discovered how some things along the means:.
Know what you're searching for prior to you begin. This can just truly be achieved by getting hold of a couple complimentary themes and trying to set up your site with them. It's only with doing that you realize what you really desire and exactly what is not as important. When doing this, make certain you have one of the e-commerce plug-ins allowed with some products loaded - otherwise you're not going to get a good feel for the theme and how it incorporates with e-commerce.

Things that ended up being most evident to me during this process was how well integrated the theme functions were with the e-commerce plug-ins I suched as. I didn't really want to need to do a bunch of back end coding to make my website look whole and expert. Keep away from styles that, while perhaps appealing, wind up resembling a really nice blog website that you simply threw a shopping cart onto.

Also crucial is if it's simple to set-up the payment alternatives you require. Some things are optional, this one really isn't really. Payment choices are usually covered in the real e-commerce plug-in (I'll discuss them soon), nevertheless, I found it extremely important that my client's checkout experience be seamless. Again, desiring to prevent the less than professional look of an undoubtedly different add-on. Right prior to a sell is the last area you desire your consumer to doubt the security and professionalism of your website.

A couple of other things that could or could not be necessary to you include:.

• Is the header adjustable?
• Can I change the text?
• The number of menus does the theme support and exactly how adjustable are they?
• Is it compatible with the newest version of WordPress?
• Is there a support online forum and, if so, are they active and responsive?
• Can I tailor the layout of pages and, if not, do I like the pre-formatted option?

E-Commerce Plug-Ins.

In the interest of full disclosure, I only attempted two: WP E-Commerce and WooCommerce. They are the 2 I discovered to have the most supportive tertiary add-ons and be most supported and integrated with WordPress.

I can honestly say, they both work very well.

I started with WP E-Commerce and was extremely pleased with exactly how simple it was to enter my product categories and products (total with variations that was extremely complicated in the other open source programs I 'd attempted.) It took a little work to get the checkout exactly how I desired it, however it wasn't really challenging.

I did encounter a problem with thumbnail images not being shown correctly, despite any settings I used. I had problem with this for a long time before I found documents that this was a known issue at the time for the current version. I'm confident this issue has been or will be solved, but I found it too important to introduce with and didn't really want to wait.

This led me to WooCommerce, which was likewise fully supported by the theme I selected. It is really just like WP E-Commerce and shared the ease of use I mentioned, without any image display problems.

Both allowed me the payment, product, category and widget integration I was looking for. In the end, there were some small things I liked with one over the other but absolutely nothing that was a deal breaker.

If you're not an advanced programmer wanting to introduce a gigantic retail website like Amazon or Finest Buy, WordPress can get you working, fully practical, in half the time and a quarter of the disappointment as the other choices I discovered.

However, if like me, you're not a designer, yet you still want your online store to work on all devices including phones, tablets and PCs, then I'd suggest you have a look at some responsive Woocommerce themes.