What Is WooCommerce? What to Know About the WooCommerce Platform

E-commerce sites today compete fiercely to sell onlineTo improve the customer experience and support online transactions, site owners look for plugins that optimize them. WooCommerce is one of the most highly rated. It is completely free to install, easy to use, and gives customers more flexibility when buying. If you want to build an e-commerce site, you can learn about What is WooCommerce? the benefits of WooCommerce and how to install and use it in more detail below.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a free plugin used with WordPress themes. This plugin open-source platforms is used for online stores on websites. WooCommerce features include a shopping cart, product quantities and payment gatewaypromotion display, and more, making selling easier for individuals and businesses.

Benefits of WooCommerce

WooCommerce is currently used by 13 million people worldwide. By one estimate, about 37% of online shops use this plugin. WooCommerce is a leading open-source option for online stores. Here are the reasons to use WooCommerce.

• The WooCommerce app is completely free.
• Simple to install, with a wide range of features for the cart, payment, order status and more. With just a few steps, you've installed WooCommerce.
• WooCommerce has a wide library of WordPress templates.
• The WooCommerce plugin regularly adds new features to WordPress.
• Strong security, so it suits websites that need online transactions and sales.
• WooCommerce Extensions also let you reconfigure some features of your WordPress site.

What are the functions of the WooCommerce plugin?

Besides its best-known feature, global payment support such as PayPal, credit card, COD and cash, WooCommerce has many other useful features. For example:

• WooCommerce lets customers look up products, place orders and calculate the order total.
• You can add VAT calculation for products accurately.
• It supports VAT or corporate tax calculation.
• WooCommerce Extensions and sample templates can help build a different look for each business.
• The order process is announced stage by stage through WooCommerce Extensions, so buyers can easily confirm the status of their order.

How to install WooCommerce

It is easy to add WooCommerce Extensions to a WordPress site. Install them quickly with these steps:

1. Go to your WordPress admin dashboard.
2. Choose Plugins in the menu on the left, then Add new.
3. In the search bar, type the keyword WooCommerce.
4. When the WooCommerce plugin appears, click Install Now. When installation finishes, click Activate.
5. Welcome to WooCommerce! Then choose Let's Go to integrate WooCommerce into your WordPress site.
6. You will need to set up the basics: Page setup, covering pages such as shop, cart, checkout and my account. If you already use WordPress in Vietnamese, just click Continue. Store location: fill in the details on the form, then click Continue. Shipping & Tax: shipping methods and taxes are listed here. Complete the details and click Continue. Choose a payment method, then select "Done".
7. Click "Create your first product". After this step you can start using WooCommerce Extensions.

How to use WooCommerce Products

Your job now is to add products to WooCommerce. Add them like this:

1. In your admin site, go to WooCommerce, then WooCommerce -> Products -> Add new.
2. Enter the product information into the system. This includes: Product name: the name of the product. A description with the product's detailed and standout information. Product data: there are several types, such as Simple product, Grouped, Virtual, Downloadable, Variable and External. If you are just starting out, choose Simple product. Product short description: a short description that highlights the product. Product Categories: choose the category for your product. Product image: photograph the product and set the cover image in WooCommerce Products
3. Click the Publish button to put the product live.

If you want to edit the price, description or product details, choose All Products. Your products will appear there, and you can quickly edit any content or delete any product.

Tracking and managing orders in WooCommerce is very simple. When you run promotions or discounts, you can go to WooCommerce Coupons to enter discount codes. WooCommerce Extensions also has extension packs that add many features optimize a website to build your e-commerce site better.

Tips for optimizing WooCommerce to grow sales

WooCommerce Extensions offer many ways to optimize selling features and product display. Here are tips for optimizing WooCommerce that help you increase sales as well as possible.

1. Use email and newsletters

Email and newsletters are a great channel for promoting products. You already have customer data, so send them discount codes by email and newsletter. These vouchers and promotions make a stronger impression of your product. Customers feel the benefit and the chance to shop at a low price from your email. Conversion from email and newsletters to purchases of your online products tends to be higher.

2. Use video advertising

Video ads are one of the standout features. Websites, YouTube and other social networks all embed video to advertise. Prepare videos that are 30 to 40 minutes long, distinctive and engaging, to advertise your products.

3. Use WooCommerce Multilingual

The WooCommerce Multilingual plugin is the next feature to use. It makes it easier to expand into overseas markets. Foreigners living in Vietnam and Vietnamese customers abroad can shop easily. With this feature, switching languages is more flexible too. The translation helps foreign buyers shop on your website with ease. WooCommerce Multilingual also lets you email customers in English, which makes your emails more effective.

4. The effect of YITH WooCommerce Wishlist

YITH WooCommerce Wishlist saves the favorite products of customers who visit. You can use these plugins for free. Users are reminded of the items they want to buy, and they can easily share these lists on their social networks. This gives them momentum to buy sooner.

5. Use the Beeketing plugin

Beeketing is an automation plugin. It can create coupons for new customers. For example, many businesses now offer a promotion for a customer's first purchase. You can set up automatic promotions easily.

There are also features such as Zwoom, which makes images display larger so customers can see products comfortably and clearly. Or PickPlugins Product Slider For WooCommerce, which lets online shop owners create product sliders easily, and more.

WooCommerce compared with Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce

1. Shopify and WooCommerce

WooCommerce and Shopify are two of the highest-rated platforms. To decide which to use, see the detailed comparison of Shopify and WooCommerce below:

• Cost: WooCommerce is completely free, while Shopify starts at 29 USD/month. Shopify has more extended features but costs more.
• Ease of use: Shopify is simpler and easier to use, and easier to set up than WooCommerce. WooCommerce takes more time to set up. Still, with our guide above it is not too hard, and this open-source platform is also very flexible for customizing many features.
• On payment methods, Shopify offers more options. If you choose the Shopify plan at 299 USD/month, payment and withdrawal fees are lower. WooCommerce works best with PayPal and Stripe, and many other popular payment gateways are supported too. For payments, WooCommerce comes out ahead because it charges no fee on transactions. An e-commerce website that put payment methods first will choose WooCommerce.
• Both Shopify and WooCommerce scale and grow flexibly, with a range of plans.

2. WooCommerce vs Magento

Comparing WooCommerce with Magento, WooCommerce stands out. Today its only major competitor is Shopify.

Magento has strengths of its own, but it suits only large markets and large-scale businesses. With Magento you can also ask developers to build custom features. Compared with Magento, WooCommerce is completely free, so it has more users.

3. WooCommerce vs BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a standalone platform. It offers strong security and many features, but it is hard to use with tools outside BigCommerce. Its upfront cost is also higher than WooCommerce.

With this information about What is WooCommerce? We hope this comparison of WooCommerce with other plugins, along with the guide to installing and using WooCommerce, has helped you. We wish your online store every success after installing WooCommerce!