Ecommerce stores are launched every day. Every time a new store is planned, the store owner has a tough decision to make whether to choose WooCommerce or any other hosted eCommerce platform for launching his/her store.
Since new store owners are unaware of the features and drawbacks of WooCommerce, we decided to create this post.
In this post, you will learn about:
- When to use WooCommerce to launch your ecommerce business
- Features of WooCommerce Store that Improve Store Profitability
- What other hosted eCommerce Solutions are perfect for online selling
- When to avoid the WooCommerce platform
So let’s discuss these in detail and see if WooCommerce is actually for you or not.
Is WooCommerce Perfect for You? 5 Signs!
WooCommerce is being used by over 3.2 million eCommerce stores around the world. One reason it is used so widely is because of its ease of use and customizations that are available completely free.
While talking about free eCommerce platforms, it is important to understand why WooCommerce is free.
WooCommerce Platform Free Forever (See Why)
WooCommerce is completely free because it is an extension of WordPress. WordPress is an open-source or OpenGL Licensed platform that was made to help developers use a structured framework for creating websites. WooCommerce was produced under the same license and that’s why it is completely free. In fact, being free means that developers can customize WooCommerce in any way they deem possible.
However, WooCommerce is not completely free. It offers in-platform purchases, add-ons, and plugins that most stores often purchase such as the payment gateway by WooCommerce. All these cost money and they are the bread and butter of WooCommerce.
WooCommerce is Modular & Fully Customisable
The best part about WooCommerce is that it is modular. It means that you can easily customise each module of WooCommerce in your own way. You can hire a developer to edit widgets, pages, posts, and header and footer designs. Or, you can get a page builder that will do exactly the same through module-based GUI editing if you have time to learn and do it yourself.
All these customisations allow WooCommerce store owners to easily improve the way they look, enhance user journey, and hence improve the profit bottom lines.
You Don’t Need a Developer to Maintain WooCommerce
As we were discussing in the previous paragraph, WooCommerce can be customised without hiring a developer. You can learn and try out page builders like Beaver Builder, Elementor, Divi, to build it yourself. So, this is one option that can help you save a lot of money in the long run if you are tech-savvy and have time to do it.
WooCommerce has Plenty of Plugins & Themes
WooCommerce comes as a complete eCommerce platform out-of-the-box. However, you can easily add plugins that you think would benefit your eCommerce store. Easy digital downloads are one plugin that can help you add multiple new features to your store. Similarly, if you are looking to add dropshipping functionality to your WooCommerce store, then you can add the AliDropship plugin to your store and easily add products directly from AliExpress.
WooCommerce has Multiple Payment Options
WooCommerce offers PayPal and Credit/Debit card options by default with 2.5% charges. However, you can add multiple other payment options such as Google Pay, Facebook Pay, or Apple Pay. You can also add custom plugins like Stripe payment plugin, Braintree payment plugin, PayPal express checkout, and other such plugins that you can use on your WooCommerce store.
WooCommerce offers built-in Analytics
By default, WooCommerce provides an analysis of cart orders, abandoned cart rates, total products sold, and total profit earned from those products. It can also measure website traffic in the WooCommerce analytics dashboard. However, if you plan to use Google Analytics, you can directly integrate it to your Woocommerce store using the header option available inside the theme.
Moreover, WooCommerce also allows integration with Analytics platforms like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Adobe Analytics, and many other analytics platforms available in the market.
Grow Your WooCommerce Store with Right Customisations. Get In Touch Today
You Should Avoid WooCommerce If…
We have already praised WooCommerce’s solution a lot, but is it a perfect hosting solution? There is no single answer to this. WooCommerce is a decent eCommerce platform. But the usefulness of WooCommerce varies for each store owner that uses it.
You Want a proprietary eCommerce Solution like BigCommerce & Shopify
Many people prefer hosted eCommerce solutions instead because they don’t want to get into the maintenance of the eCommerce store. Also, they don’t want a customised store. They just want a basic eCommerce store that can get their job done for a large sum of fees.
Let’s say you have the option to choose WooCommerce, which is completely flexible and open source. On the other hand, you have the option to choose a hosted solution where you won’t need to get a hosting solution and create your store.
Which one will you choose? It depends on what you want to achieve. If you don’t need any flexibility and customisation on your store to represent your brand and looking for a basic one, you can opt-in for any online stores. Otherwise, WooCommerce is best for its ease of use and flexibility!
You Want to set and forget
If you are looking to build an online store once and forget it, the best option would be Shopify or other self-hosted platforms. Woocommerce is an open-source and being updated now and then to match with the latest trends and user experience. And it will require ongoing maintenance and improvements to support your business and needs.
You Don’t Want to Scale Your Ecommerce Store
WooCommerce solutions are not for those who are looking for limited scaling of their stores. Because limited scaling can be easily achieved when they have a store on a hosted solution. However, if they want to grow and scale their store, these store owners would have to move back to WooCommerce.
Bottom-line: WooCommerce is Great!
WooCommerce is a great platform for store owners but it is not the right platform for all store owners. If you are someone who is looking for a SCALABLE, FAST, and CUSTOMISABLE eCommerce platform, then WooCommerce is the right platform for you.
Growing your business? Want to customize your WooCommerce store to boost sales? Get in touch with our experts today!
Nirmal 
