Last Updated on May 12, 2022

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free eCommerce plugin that allows you to sell anything, beautifully. Built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, WooCommerce is the world’s favorite eCommerce solution that gives both store owners and developers complete control.

WooCommerce does a really good job at documenting their plugin.  Rather than recreating the wheel, the following will help point you in the direction of some of the WooCommerce trainings to start with.  If you want to start at the root of the trainings, please go to docs.woocommerce.com

  • If you are starting from the beginning with no WooCommerce experience and the site currently doesn’t have WooCommerce installed then you will want to start with:
  • Most generally when you get your first hands on experience with WooCommerce you will be working on a website that is already setup.  You will want to check out the following sections:
    • 3. Set Up Products
    • 5. Shipping
      • The easiest shipping options to setup are “Free” and “Flat Rate”.  Other methods are available such as USPS, FedEx, and UPS calculated shipping but they require a lot of configurations such as entering product dimensions and weight as well as define package sizes.
    • Core Payment Options
      • PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net are most common.
        • PayPal doesn’t require an SSL certificate since the transaction takes place off of the website but in 2018 all websites should be protected with HTTPS anyways
        • Stripe puts the processing on the website so it requires HTTPS and is very simple for clients to create an account and get approved and setup.  It can even accept Apple Pay as a form of payment.  This is a great option for clients who don’t have super high volume in sales
        • Authorize.net is very popular but only really seems to make sense for clients who process enough transactions in a month.  So they typically have lower per transaction rates than Stripe and PayPal but they charge monthly and daily batch fees which Stripe doesn’t so I always recommend the client price out what they would pay in fees for the different providers and find out which option is cheapest for them.
    • Settings & Options
      • Setting up Taxes in WooCommerce
        • Now if you use the “WooCommerce Services” plugin and sign in to JetPack you can enable “Automated Tax Calculation”
          • https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-services/
      • Adding Products/Product Categories to main menu
        • For some reason WordPress likes to make things tricky for users on the Menu’s page inside of WordPress.  If you want to add a Product Category to a menu in WordPress you have to click on “Screen Options” in the very top right corner of the menu page which will show you a list of various post types and taxonomies.  Just check on the ones you want to have visible.  There are also other options you may want enabled in here as well…

Here is something that I often send to clients as we begin building them an ecommerce website:

  • Products
    • Names, descriptions, variations (sizes, colors, etc), images, pricing
    • Shipping – how much will we charge?  Flat rate is easiest to setup.  We can also do more complex shipping options but they take more time to setup and may require additional premium plugins
    • Taxes – Are we charging sales tax? If so, what regions and at what rate(s)
    • Checkout – Who are we using for payment processing?  Who you end up choosing is up to you.  We aren’t payment processing experts.  Here are a few options but there are others as well.  You just want to make sure that the one you go with will work with WooCommerce.  What ever you end up choosing, you will need to setup the account and then provide me certain information depending on which processor.
      • PayPal
        • No monthly fees.  Pricing is 30cents + 2.85% per transaction.
        • Transaction takes place on PayPal’s website not on the website.
        • Downside is because the transaction happens offsite sometimes Google Analytics doesn’t track the conversion properly
        • An SSL certificate isn’t required
      • Stripe (stripe.com)
        • No monthly fees.  Pricing is 30cents + 2.85% per transaction.
        • Transaction takes place on the website.  Customers can also have their payment method saved if the website is expected to have a lot of repeat customers.
        • An SSL Certificate will be required (As low as $9.00/year)
        • Apple Pay support
      • Square (squareup.com)
        • Square is an easy way for anyone to have a POS system (all they need is a phone or tablet).
        • No monthly fees.  Swiped cards are 2.75% per transaction.  Keyed or online transactions also have a 30cent per transaction added to the cost.
        • Manage inventory from the register app and it should sync up with WordPress
        • Use one platform for in person transactions and online sales
        • Transaction takes place on the website.
        • An SSL Certificate will be required (As low as $9.00/year)
      • Authorize.net
        • There will likely be monthly and daily batch fees but transaction costs should be lower.  They make sense when you have enough volume or sales.
        • Transaction takes place on the website.
        • An SSL Certificate will be required (As low as $9.00/year)
      • Other payment processors (from your bank or elsewhere)
        • We would need to make sure that they support WooCommerce
        • Transaction takes place on the website.
        • Just be aware of the fees and rates they will charge.