Development of an online store on WordPress
If the enormous popularity of online shopping was hard to grasp 10 years ago, the absence of a brand on the Internet now seems impossible. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly accelerated the migration of businesses online and taught even the most conservative customers to actively shop online. The Ukrainian e-commerce business continues to gain momentum, and it most often chooses WordPress CMS. In this article we will tell you the reasons for the popularity of this platform and who should consider developing an online store on WordPress.
- What is WordPress?
- Who is an online store on WordPress / WooCommerce suitable for?
- WooCommerce and its main functions
- Real advantages of creating an online store on WordPress
- Disadvantages of developing an online store on WordPress
- Summarizing the advantages and disadvantages of WooCommerce
- Budget for an online store on WordPress / WooCommerce
- Stages of developing an online store on WordPress
- Alternative solutions
What is WordPress?
CMS WordPress is a popular platform for creating websites and managing content. While WordPress was originally designed for blogs, it has evolved over time into a full-fledged content management system (CMS) with many features and capabilities. No wonder it powers 43% of the world’s websites, from simple landing pages to serious online stores. For example, the official websites of the automotive giant Mercedes Benz, the respected Reuters, the entertainment industry leader The Walt Disney Company, and the second largest record company Sony Music are all built on WordPress.
A convenient builder with a built-in system of themes and plugins allows you to launch a full-fledged website in a matter of hours. However, despite its flexibility, simplicity, and scalability, WordPress is still better suited for resources with a small amount of content: business cards, corporate websites, portfolios, and online stores with a catalog of up to 2,000 products.
However, the implementation of multi-page and heavily loaded websites on a ready-made CMS is undesirable, especially for online stores with thousands of products, because the more products and functions a store has, the more time it will take to process data and display pages. The e-commerce industry is very competitive, so every extra second of waiting results in a loss of customers.
So, as you can see, developing an online store with WordPress has both pros and cons. Let’s talk about it in more detail.
Need help creating an online store?
We specialize in the development and promotion of unique commercial websites: creation and content of online stores on various commerce platforms, SEO optimization, SMM and contextual advertising.
Who is an online store on WordPress / WooCommerce suitable for?
Entrepreneurs testing an online business
An entrepreneur may have a large offline business, but at the same time he/she does not understand anything about online trading. For such cases there is WooCommerce — a plugin that turns a regular WordPress site into a full-fledged online store. Testing a commercial WordPress site is justified for two reasons: quick start — one, and budget — two. Choose a ready-made design template, configure the basic functionality, get your first customers and feel the atmosphere of online commerce with WooCommerce.
People who are just starting their way in online commerce
A WordPress store is an ideal option for new business owners. If you are just getting started and your business has not yet gained much momentum, a WooCommerce website is a great solution. A free theme and a set of plugins necessary for secure and convenient online shopping are more than enough. Once your online business meets your expectations and is on a steady growth path, rest assured that WooCommerce will grow with you. Connect marketing tools, enhance commerce solutions, and scale your online store as your brand grows in popularity.
For shop owners with a small product range
A WooCommerce website is especially relevant for small and medium online stores. Otherwise, due to the heavy load on the server, the work of the WordPress CMS slows down, which inevitably leads to an increase in the price of hosting. If the catalog contains up to 1-2 thousand products, it is an ideal option to develop an online store on WordPress/WooCommerce.
For business owners who need to develop a website quickly
WordPress combined with WooCommerce allows you to set up an online store in a matter of hours and start selling online as soon as possible. And with the help of a developer, you are guaranteed not only fast, but also high-quality results. Customize a template, create a catalog, integrate with CRM, connect to payment and shipping systems — all these features are available right out of the box, and you just need to configure them correctly. WooCommerce is a great solution for those who cannot and do not want to wait.
T. Schneider / Shutterstock.com
So, we can conclude that the development of an online store on WordPress / WooCommerce is worth considering for start-ups or companies with a limited budget who want to get a modern and attractive website that can quickly attract new customers.
WooCommerce and its main features
WooCommerce is a powerful and free e-commerce tool for WordPress websites that covers the basic issues related to online commerce. Like most software solutions, the plugin has paid extensions that allow you to set up the most convenient, efficient and profitable online store.
Free Woocommerce features are enough to get your website ready for launch:
- Product Management. WooCommerce makes it easy to create and manage a catalog: add an unlimited number of products, set prices, create categories, edit descriptions and images, compare and filter products by features, price, etc.
- A shopping cart with the ability to not only add products but also calculate the total amount, apply promotional codes, etc.
- Shipping. With the tools built into the WooCommerce Panel, you can automate the shipping process: set up shipping methods and determine the exact delivery location, calculate costs, print shipping invoices, and integrate your site with popular logistics services.
- Process post-order payments using bank cards and free payment services such as WooPayments, PayPal, Stripe, and Square.
- Automatically calculate taxes during the checkout process based on the location of the store (if there are multiple stores, you will need to connect an additional plugin to choose from).
- Order tracking and management. View and update order status, issue refunds, and communicate with customers via live chat.
- Inventory Management. The WooCommerce plugin has a built-in inventory feature that allows you to conveniently and efficiently track and manage your stock, including setting thresholds, receiving notifications when the product is out of stock, and showing customers the availability of a particular item.
- Reporting and Analytics. WooCommerce offers several features to monitor the performance of your online store. You can track sales, revenue, page views, most popular products, abandoned shopping carts, and much more. Analyzing key metrics will help you build a successful online business and increase your profits.
Real advantages of creating an online store on WordPress
Before you decide whether you need an online storefront on WP or not, it will be appropriate to familiarize yourself with its advantages and disadvantages. We will share our own experience so that your verdict will be informed and without possible complications for your business. Among the positive aspects of developing an online store on WordPress, we highlight the following.
The popularity of CMS
Almost every second website on the internet is built on WordPress. Compared to other content management systems, this popularity is an advantage in itself. Among the hundreds of billions of online stores, yours will appear soon, and most likely it will happen thanks to the WordPress CMS.
But it’s not just the massive use of the program, it’s what’s behind it – an opportunity to create a truly modern and high-quality product. According to the analytical complex SimilarTech, out of more than 1 million top sites, almost a third of them are developed on WP:
A lot of information is freely available
A huge amount of information is already online and available to everyone. It is enough to search for almost any question about WordPress and find the answer in a matter of seconds. Such online help is useful not only for developers, but also for administrators who decide to maintain an online store on their own.
Speed and ease of development
Building an online store on WordPress from scratch can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. In addition: WordPress allows you to develop an online store with a simple design, basic functionality and a small assortment in just a few hours. This speed of implementation is possible thanks to ready-made tools in the form of themes and plugins that greatly facilitate the work. At the same time, the development of an online store with a unique design, complex functions, system integration and a large number of products can take more than a month. As you can see, it all depends on the complexity of the project and, accordingly, on the experience of the developers.
WordPress Affordability
The ease of development saves time and money. In addition, the WordPress engine, like most themes and plugins, is completely free. The only thing you have to pay for is hosting (renting server space) and a domain name (website address). So if you decide to create a simple online store, the first thing you need to do is download the distribution kit, install it on your hosting, register a domain, and start setting it up. If you don’t have the time or experience to do this, you’ll need to budget for the services of at least one full-stack WordPress developer.
We will discuss the cost of paid tools and services a little later.
Affordable Website Design
Website design is the most important component that determines the fate of any online project, especially a commercial one. Therefore, the availability of many inexpensive design templates is an undeniable advantage of WordPress.
The most attractive and functional website themes are paid. A ready-made premium template will save you time and budget for creating a unique design and will partially differentiate your site from competitors who are not willing to pay for a theme. If you want, you can customize any WordPress theme by adding individual blocks or pages.
However, a commercial website built from the ground up with the services of a designer and layout designer with pre-designed and drawn functionality has undoubted advantages over a builder like Elementor.
| Development of a unique design |
| 10-$20 per hour, depending on the skill level and experience of the designer |
Design has a significant impact on programming, because we get a website with clean markup and clean code, without unnecessary scripts, links, and other unnecessary elements. Thanks to this, WooCommerce projects are not only distinctive, but also efficient and fast, even on mobile devices. For example, here is a design we developed for a jewelry online store on WordPress:
Read more about this case:
Online store of personalized jewelryWe managed to implement an equally interesting and expressive case based on WooCommerce for a local online tea/coffee store:
Read about this case:
Online Coffee and Tea Shop with DeliveryFree/cheap plugins for any task
Plugins are additional WordPress tools that solve specific tasks and make the site easier to use for administrators and users. Plugins help you customize your online store: protect it from hackers and spam, import and filter products, view and improve sales statistics, etc.
In the WordPress catalog you can find more than 60 thousand free plugins that can cover the basic needs of a full-fledged online store. However, each free plugin may have a premium version with advanced functionality. For example, the LiqPay plugin allows you to securely accept payments, but the free version lacks a callback function that automatically notifies the online store about the status of the payment (successful, declined or refunded). Without it, you will have to check the payment results manually.
- Security plugins provide protection against unauthorized access: limit the number of failed login attempts, encrypt the login address to the admin panel, etc.
- Plugins for working with products. One of the most popular is the WP All Import plugin, which allows you to easily upload products to your site using a file created in any spreadsheet program (Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers). All the information contained in the XML or CSV file (titles, descriptions, photos, and prices) will appear instantly in the online store. The Product Bulk Editor plugin is also worth mentioning, as it allows you to edit products on the site in bulk, for example, to automatically schedule prices for the sale period.
- Plugins for website multilingualism. Here we should highlight G-translate, a leading tool for translating websites in WordPress. Its special feature is that, unlike other plugins, it uses a cloud-based approach that does not slow down the site.
- Plugins for integration with third-party services: payment services (Liqpay for Woocommerce, Paypal Payments), delivery services, and CRM systems.
- Search engine optimization plugins. The best free plugin that automates 80% of the work of an On-Page SEO specialist is Yoast SEO. WP SEO Filter, a tool that allows you to get a branched site structure optimized for medium and low frequency queries, will help you generate additional optimized pages based on the selected product category. The Custom Permalinks plugin will come in handy to create convenient and short URLs for product pages that search engines love so much. It allows you to create links unencumbered by subdirectory names by setting a short character code. After changing the site structure, moving a subcategory to another category, and even after uninstalling the plugin, all URLs will be saved, will not generate 404 errors, and will not require setting up a 301 redirect (redirecting users from the old address to the new one).
SEO promotion on WordPress
Websites built on WordPress can be attractive to search engines. A lot of ready-made SEO optimization tools allow you to ensure effective promotion of your online store, including improving your position in Google search results and increasing traffic to your website.
When it comes to professional promotion, WordPress clearly “listens” to non-standard strategies of SEO optimizers. We have been able to verify this from our own experience and have collected the results of many years of SEO promotion of online stores on WordPress in a variety of niches in our portfolio.
Despite the prevailing stereotypes, online stores on WP are easily promoted in search engines. Skilled developers implement the latest SEO tools necessary for modern technical and internal optimization.
A CMS like WordPress is ideal for running a small business and covers all the needs thanks to its functionality. You can learn about great examples of successful growth of WP projects in our SEO cases:
Portfolio:
SEO website promotionIf an online store is developed on WordPress from scratch without using various constructors like Elementor, the speed of the resource will remain high. Expert development allows you to take into account many important factors for Google and Mobile Speed:
- avoid cumulative layout shifting (CLS);
- improve the loading speed of the First contentful paint (FCP) and the Largest contentful paint (LCP);
- improve the DOM structure by reducing the amount of JS code on the site pages;
- set up server-side caching, etc.
Unique design layout allows you to achieve high performance even in the mobile version, which significantly affects the ranking of your online store in search engines.
A large number of specialists and low-cost development
The world’s most popular WordPress platform has attracted a large community of developers. This is understandable, as the high demand for an easy-to-manage CMS generates a large number of WordPress programmers, so the choice of qualified full-stack developers on the job market is simply enormous!
In turn, a large community of WordPress developers that has formed around a simple and convenient platform affects the cost of an online store. Compared to the development of a commercial website on Laravel, an online store on CMS WordPress will cost several times cheaper.
| Full-stack developer services |
| $10-$25 per hour depending on the developer's skill level and experience |
Many working websites are described in detail in the cases of our web studio from the point of view of development. This serves as a guide for clients who are just planning to create an online store. We often use our own portfolio when communicating with clients:
Our WordPress case studies:
Best WordPress PortfolioEasy to maintain online store
A ready-made e-commerce website on WordPress is quite unpretentious in terms of maintenance. Thanks to the user-friendly administration panel, it is easy to monitor sales statistics and visitor behavior, process orders, and manage the assortment, including updating prices, stock levels, and product availability:
To do this, it is advisable to have minimal experience with CMS or at least basic knowledge that can be quickly mastered if desired. As for our company, after the release of each site, we provide our clients with a detailed overview of the WP admin panel and explain how to use all the available tools for effective online store management.
In general, the WordPress website engine is intuitive, so you don’t need to hire programmers to provide technical support for a small online store. It is enough to entrust its management to a separate employee or hire an experienced administrator, and when technical problems arise, seek professional help. However, the ideal formula for large online stores is “WordPress + at least one part-time programmer” so that the slightest problem can be solved quickly without significantly affecting sales.
The possibility of developing a store on your own
The availability of a large amount of information in the public domain allows you to develop an online store on WordPress on your own. Find a suitable guide in a video or text format, repeat a certain set of actions, and get a working website created by yourself.
Setting up an online store on your own does not guarantee a high-quality and unique result, but it can significantly save development costs. But not the time. If a professional can launch a simple commercial website on WP in a few hours, then beginners without experience will have to spend more than a day or even a week on it through numerous trials and errors.
Although you can launch a simple WordPress online store on your own, a full-fledged development with many important details can only be done by an experienced development team. That’s why many customers come to us with home-made websites and a task to finalize and improve the product. For example, to remove unnecessary functions from the CMS to make it faster, or, on the contrary, to add non-standard solutions, customize the admin panel, or create your own unique design, as in our case:
Disadvantages of developing an online store on WordPress
There are no perfect products, so now we will honestly tell you about the weaknesses of the CMS that you may encounter when setting up an online store.
Low level of security
The great popularity and openness of the software attracts not only entrepreneurs but also hackers looking for vulnerabilities in website security. There are many useful plugins to protect against hacking, database leaks, and cyberattacks:
However, installing plug-ins is an extra layer of protection and does not guarantee complete website security. In addition, even plugins can have security vulnerabilities that cybercriminals have been so successful in exploiting. You should take the security of your WordPress site seriously at the development stage.
To make your online store as secure as possible:
- make a backup copy of the site and database so that you can easily restore it in case of problems;
- change the default “admin” login and create a strong password to access the admin panel;
- download themes and plugins only from the official WordPress repository;
- carefully study each tool before installing it on the site: the latest update, rating, reviews, source code for suspicious fragments (if you have technical knowledge);
- continually monitor and update the site, as the latest version of WordPress is less vulnerable to cyber attacks;
- pay attention to hosting with additional protection.
Or trust the security of your WordPress online store to the professionals. The Webnauts team will fine-tune your theme, choose the right tools, and check your site for vulnerabilities on a regular basis, according to your needs and budget. Or they will quickly restore the normal operation of an online store that has suffered a hacking attack.
Slow speed
A large number of products and plugins, unoptimized template and content can lead to slow website loading speed. This can cause not only the loss of potential customers who are not used to waiting, but also the loss of your site’s position in Google search results.
We would like to remind you that WordPress will be an ideal technical solution if you have a small assortment, where each product item is a separate site page. The optimal number of products for an effective online store on WordPress is up to 2,000, and the larger the assortment, the longer the pages will take to load. The user will not wait more than 2 seconds and will visit a faster competitor’s site.
You can increase the page loading speed by caching the site, removing unnecessary plugins, and optimizing “heavy” images. You will be able to achieve maximum performance of your online store only with the help of a professional developer who will improve the code, set up preloading, reduce the number of requests to the server, and use other methods of “acceleration”. And you can easily check and control the result on Google’s PageSpeed Insights service:
Limited flexibility
WordPress is a full-featured platform with many e-commerce capabilities. However, for certain projects, the standard out-of-the-box features may not be enough. While additional plugins extend the functionality of the store, they can slow down the site and sometimes cause conflicts due to incompatibility.
If plugins do not fully meet your needs, you will need the help of a programmer who knows HTML, CSS and PHP. With the help of code, you can change the template’s theme and customize your online store’s admin panel to suit your audience.
If a WordPress website requires significant code revision, it is more expedient to invest in the development of an online store in Laravel — powerful, fast and ruthless to any compromise. We know this from our own experience:
A large number of low-quality developers
The oversaturation of the labor market inevitably brings with it the likelihood of coming across a novice or amateur developer who will not be up to the task and will only disappoint. Such programmers discredit the development of e-commerce on WP as a promising direction that really deserves attention.
Need a high quality online store?
Undoubtedly, the WooCommerce plugin is one of the best commercial solutions of our time. However, like any other technology, it has its advantages and disadvantages, which can affect the choice of CMS for implementing an online store.
Let's summarize the pros and cons of WooCommerce
Undoubtedly, the WooCommerce plugin is one of the best commercial solutions of our time. However, like any other technology, it has its advantages and disadvantages, which can affect the choice of CMS for implementing an online store.
| Advantages | Reliable content storage, the ability to roll back changes. | An experienced community of developers. | Thousands of paid and free add-ons. | Constant development and updating of the platform. | Automation of tax calculations. | The ability to add an unlimited number of product items. | The ability to purchase a standard program for Android and iOS. | Integration with Google Analytics, Facebook, and MailChimp. | Distribution of user rights. |
| Disadvantages | The need to create a website on CMS WordPress. | High requirements for hosting, which requires payment and customization. | Difficult integration with external accounting programs. | Most themes and plugins are available by subscription. | The site is overloaded with modules of the WordPress core. | Focus on Western e-commerce services. |
Budget for an online store on WordPress / WooCommerce
Creating an online store includes general expenses that depend on the labor costs of developers and designers.
The cost of setting up an online store on WordPress / WooCommerce
We have already mentioned that using the WordPress platform is absolutely free. Actually, so is the WooCommerce plugin. You can choose one of three free themes for your project, use the basic built-in functions, and, if necessary, use additional plugins, fifty of which are WooCommerce-compatible and available for free download.
Depending on your desires, needs, and budget, you may consider purchasing a theme and additional plugins. However, if the additional cost of premium WooCommerce products is everyone's business, then registering a domain, buying hosting and an SSL certificate are a must for any online store to exist.
Domain and hosting
The domain name of an online store can cost from $6 (in.ua) to unprecedented tens of millions of dollars (hotels.com). But let’s leave premium domains to the rich and look at hosting prices.
The price for a website’s space on a server can range from $50 (standard shared hosting) to $145 and up (VPS hosting, or virtual private server). The main difference is that standard shared hosting and its resources (disk space, RAM, etc.) are shared by many websites, which affects the performance of an online store. VPS hosting provides a separate, isolated server, which means you have more options for configuring, controlling, and optimizing the server.
There is also a business hosting starting at $260, which is a dedicated server with an exclusive set of advantages. Unlike VPS, it does not require independent administration or hiring a specialist. Business hosting works just like a regular shared hosting.
A virtual dedicated server is suitable for medium and large online stores. For the simplest online store with a small assortment, a basic tariff plan of standard shared hosting is quite enough. Moreover, quite often providers offer domain + hosting promotional offers, and sometimes they also add an SSL certificate to the tariff plan.
SSL Certificate
To ensure that your online store can offer customers a secure connection (read: personal data protection), you should consider purchasing an SSL certificate. Although it can be installed absolutely free of charge, we hasten to warn you that this solution is not suitable for websites that plan to accept online payments. First of all, not only will customers not trust you, but search engines will report that your site is insecure and unsafe. Second, nonprofit certification centers use SNI technology, which is not supported by most payment systems. And third, such centers are not responsible in case of certificate hacking and data leakage.
By purchasing an SSL certificate, you confirm the rights to own a domain, conduct business, and process personal data. The cost of an SSL certificate ranges from $18 to $173 per year and higher depending on the type of website verification: basic domain verification via e-mail, organization verification through the government registry, or advanced legal entity verification.
After purchase, the certificate must be activated and installed on the website. You can do this yourself in the hosting control panel or contact your hosting provider.
So, setting up the cheapest online store on WordPress with a free theme and basic WooCommerce features can cost from $74 per year:
| Domain | ||
| Ukrainian zone: from $6 per month (com.ua, net.ua) | International zone: from $11 per month (.com, .net) | Thematic zone: from $14 per month (.company, .art) |
| Hosting | ||
| from $50 per year (regular shared hosting) | from $145 per year (VPS hosting, or virtual dedicated server) | from $260 per year (business hosting) |
| SSL certificate | ||
| from $18 per year (with domain verification) | from $68 per year (with organization verification) | from $173 per year (with extended verification) |
If the choice of 3 free WooCommerce themes does not suit your taste, corporate identity, and brand objectives, you will have to increase your budget and purchase a premium theme. As expected, in the paid segment, WooCommerce provides a wider choice and offers more than 70 official premium templates. They have a bright responsive design and contain sets of advanced options in the form of plugins, the cost of which is already included in the theme.
Therefore, when choosing a template, pay attention to the effectiveness of the design and functionality, because it will not be easy to change the theme of your online store later. Premium themes are presented for online stores of various niches and cost from $39 to $129 (monthly payment is possible from $3.25 to $10.75 per month, respectively):
| Themes | |||||||
| Free | $39 per year or $3.25 per month | $59 per year or $4.92 per month | $69 per year or $5.75 per month | $79 per year or $6.59 per month | $89 per year or $7.42 per month | $99 per year or $8.25 per month | $129 per year or $10.75 per month |
As a rule, premium WooCommerce themes already include a set of advanced plugins. But if they are not enough, you can always install additional ones: multicurrency, new payment methods, shipping calculation according to the tariff grid, shipment tracking, payment by installments, wholesale, etc. The main thing is that they should be compatible with the WooCommerce theme and the existing set of options. The cost of premium plugins can range from a few dollars to 3 hundred dollars per year:
| Plugins | |||
| from $0 to $49 | from $50 to $99 | from $100 to $199 | from $200 to $299 |
Additional payment for e-commerce website development and design services
The popularity of WooCommerce creates a flexible market that offers fairly budget-friendly prices for the services of developers and designers. The more you want to get out of your future online store, the higher the price will be:
- Design. A ready-made WordPress theme may be the quickest and most budget-friendly solution. If the design of the template does not match the tasks and style of the brand, you should budget for the services of a designer. In this case, the developer will create the page layouts of the online store with pixel-by-pixel accuracy.
- Functionality. It is not a given that your online store will require specific solutions, but if the standard WooCommerce features do not meet the needs of your business, you can customize the theme of your online store with the help of code: change the design, create new pages, and add new features.
- The size of the assortment range. It is one thing when an online store has several hundred products, and another when it has several thousand. The developer automates the process of adding products and, if necessary, improves and details the product card. For some, a mediocre photo, product name, and price are enough, while others need a detailed description, characteristics, a comparison function with other products, a video review, etc.
- Technical support. After the launch of your online store, it is advisable to entrust technical support to the developer. They will take care of the site’s security, respond immediately to any technical failures, modernize the store as your business develops, and adapt it to your current needs.
Wirestock Creators / Shutterstock.com
The cost of an online store will also depend on the level of WordPress developer (junior, middle, or senior), but you will know for sure after the release of the finished product.
| Development of a unique design |
| $10-$20 per hour depending on the level of qualification and experience of the designer |
| Full-stack developer |
| $10-$25 per hour depending on the developer's skill level and experience |
| Project manager |
| $10-$25 per hour depending on the manager's qualifications and experience |
If you are not ready to take any risks, we recommend that you get more and contact a web studio with its own staff of designers, developers, content creators and SEO specialists. The composition of the team tells you what your future online store could look like:
- branded, adaptive and unique,
- fast, convenient and customized,
- filled with quality content,
- attractive to search engines.
When ordering a turnkey online store, you won’t be able to save money: the cost of a product that will be developed by a professional team starts at $1,000. In any case, cooperation with a web studio will be as efficient, highly organized, and legally protected as possible.
Before ordering the development of an online store, evaluate the level of the company. The cobbler must have boots, so pay attention to the quality of the web studio’s corporate website and its main section — the portfolio of completed works.
Our portfolio contains many interesting cases of WordPress/WooCommerce e-commerce development in various business niches: from optics and entertainment to pumping and security equipment.
Read about:
Online Optical Store WordPress WebsiteStages of developing an online store on WordPress
The order may vary from developer to developer and from company to company, so we suggest that you consider our own algorithm, which has been tested over the years in cooperation with clients of online stores on WordPress.
- Discussing the strategy with the client. Getting to know the customer, discussing the terms of cooperation, tasks, and budget. At this stage, the general strategy is determined, which will shape the further direction and development of the online store on WooCommerce from WordPress.
- Preparation stage. This includes discussing the budget, drafting contracts, approving the final strategy and tasks, and preparing the team for further website development.
- Design and layout development. A website with a unique design requires additional time and money. However, such an online store will look more solid and stand out from the crowd. UI/UX design development includes competitor research, visual analysis, and preparation of the basic structure of the site with possible branching in the future. If necessary, graphic designers will develop a unique brand identity: logo, branded fonts, colors, banners, etc. Next, they prototype pages and create a design concept. Once the design is approved, the programmer brings the layouts to life with code.
- Adaptation and customization of the theme. With a limited budget, programmers can customize a ready-made WooCommerce theme and install all the necessary plugins, services and programs to systematize accounting. If necessary, a website with out-of-the-box tools can be customized according to the specifics of the business, i.e. new features can be added that are not provided by the WordPress system. For example, when developing a website for Trinix, a manufacturer of security devices, our team implemented such non-standard WordPress/WooCommerce features as comparing products from different categories and a custom item search filter.
- Filling the site with products and content. Automated catalog import and filling of pages with commercial text optimized for search engines.
- Test launch. This includes checking that layouts display correctly on all devices and browsers, page loading speed, payment and delivery services. The test store is available only to a limited number of people — developers and the client. Only after the software bugs are fixed is the online store published to the Internet.
- Technical support. This is an optional stage for clients who are determined to maintain their website on their own. However, if you do not have enough time or experience to do so, you can order technical support, which includes administration, constant updating, website optimization, and prompt response to possible software failures or cyberattacks.
- Promotion of an online store. Additional services such as SEO promotion in search engines and social networks, contextual advertising, etc. will help to increase sales.
Alternative solutions
Since WooCommerce on WordPress is not suitable for everyone, we will briefly talk about possible alternatives in the form of CMS or frameworks:
- Laravel is a free and open-source PHP framework that is perfect for stores with a large number of products and high traffic. It can be easily customized for specific business tasks, but requires a larger budget.
- OpenCart is a popular content management system for online stores that supports PHP and MySQL and can be easily installed on any hosting. The customized CMS has many different ready-made solutions, but requires more careful work when setting up the website.
- Magento is an open source e-commerce platform from Adobe that provides powerful functionality for creating large-scale online storefronts. Magento is particularly popular abroad.
Ecwid is an AJAX application that allows you to add an online store to an existing website or social media page. Ecwid works on the SaaS model: users manage products and categories on a web server and place the code of a widget with a responsive design on their page. - Shopify is the most popular e-commerce platform in the Western market. While WordPress is primarily about blogs, Shopify is designed for online stores.
- BigCommerce is a technology platform that provides all the tools for creating online stores: hosting, database, ready-made designs, inventory management services, marketing campaigns, payments, delivery, and more.
Among these technologies, we successfully work with Laravel and OpenCart. Each technology should have an appropriate developer who knows the CMS, so there is no need to hire all the different specialists at once. That is why our focus is on WordPress for small sites, for more serious solutions we offer OpenCart, and for powerful and large-scale projects — only Laravel.
