You’ve found the right product, now the trick is to set up a fully-functioning e-commerce site so shoppers can start giving you cold hard cash in exchange for your goods. Of course, there are a ton of e-commerce platforms out there. What makes using WordPress for e-commerce sites a good choice?
First, a little bit of background. WordPress has been around since 2003, which makes it a venerable old-timer in internet years. It was first adopted by bloggers as their content management system (CMS), but thanks to its open source code and a community of developers adding new themes and plugins, it’s evolved to work for almost any site.
WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, powering sites like TED, Thought Catalog, USA Today, CNN, Fortune.com, Spotify, TechCrunch, and NBC. As an e-commerce platform, it’s the backbone of sites like Blue Star Coffee Roasters, Picky Bars, Vital, Edible Blossoms, and — of course — WooCommerce.
Are you WordPress-curious?
Here’s why you should consider WordPress for e-commerce.
Infinitely variable
Because WordPress is open source, its far-flung community of developers are constantly coming up with new plugins and themes. WordPress is made infinitely powerful with the hundreds (even thousands) of useful plugins that allow you to do whatever you want. Many of these are even free of charge.
Here are some of our favorites:
- WordPress plugins for content marketing
- WordPress plugins for product pages
- WordPress plugins for SEO
- WordPress plugins for automation
- WordPress plugins for e-commerce stores
Low-cost to implement
WordPress is incredibly versatile, whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or prefer to leave the website design to the experts. In fact, if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty you could get your e-commerce website started for less than $100 — the cost of a domain name and a good theme.
Of course, its popularity means there are also plenty of experts around to help you put a WordPress e-commerce site together.
Works with powerful e-commerce plugins
On its own, the free WordPress platform doesn’t have all the functionality you need to make a great e-commerce site. That’s where e-commerce plugins come in. These powerful plugins take all the best features of WordPress and dial it in to sell, sell, sell.
A great WordPress e-commerce plugin will let you manage all the aspects of your site — and products — from your WordPress dashboard. Whether you sell physical or digital products, you can publish products, manage inventory, and collect payments all on your WordPress site.
WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress e-commerce plugin around, used by about 30% of all WordPress stores. Because of its popularity, a number of fantastic extensions have sprung up to make it even more powerful — appointment making, loyalty programs, product customization, and more.
ExchangeWP is another great e-commerce plugin, allowing users to try it out for free, then expand it through a range of extensions. These extensions include things like product variants, membership site functionality, recurring payments, and email marketing tools.
WP eCommerce is one of the oldest WordPress e-commerce plugins, and is still well-trusted by many an online retailer. It offers all the basic e-commerce functions you need, along with a number of payment, shipping, membership, and affiliate marketing options to customize your site.
Want to learn more about using WordPress for e-commerce?
At IvyCat, we’re the WordPress experts. We’re happy to talk you through your options when it comes to choosing an e-commerce plugin, or even to help you design a website from scratch.
Get in touch! We can’t wait to hear about your project.