As easy as it may sound, building an efficient e-commerce website is a daunting task. With digitalization, many companies are establishing their e-commerce website.
As a user, we surf through the products, select one, and make the purchase. For a short action like that, a lot goes on behind the scenes.
Like Shopify and WordPress, much other software is available to build e-commerce websites.
Updating the website constantly with new themes and technologies is time-consuming. Therefore, many small-scale and large-scale businesses are shifting to built-in software to easily make changes to the website.
One such online platform is WordPress. But is it the one for your e-commerce store?
What is WordPress?
Being very clear from the introduction, it is software to build, modify, and maintain websites.
However, it was not the first choice of the users for building e-commerce websites. It was initiated to serve as a blogging tool.
Eventually, the features kept on adding and now, almost 50% of the e-commerce websites are maintained through WordPress CMS.
This website building software is written in PHP and runs on a MySQL database.
Earlier HTML was used to generate codes and became toilsome. WordPress is the popular choice because it has in-built codes to run the website. In turn, saving a lot of time to build the code from scratch.
What are the components of WordPress?
WordPress is a combined output of four components.
- WordPress core
The core is the base of WordPress. It contains all the files necessary to build the e-commerce website.
The WordPress core allows the user to access the word admin dashboard. Besides, it has the feature to add and edit website pages.
If you delete all the plugins and the themes, what is left is the core of WordPress. WordPress does have some pre-installed themes. However, they are limited.
It has added features to delete content and create different categories to upload files. The website owner can also embed videos on the website.
- The database
The database stores the user’s data. WordPress uses the MySQL database management system. The DBMS maintains user data, blog posts, and the ability to comment.
Do you ever fear losing all the website data you have created passionately?
That is the best part of the WordPress database. It keeps a backup of all the user’s data. WordPress also gives the freedom to download and add more database files.
- Extra files
You can view all WordPress files in the wp-content folder. To protect the data from malware and hacking, WordPress does not support all file formats.
Some of these file formats include .svg, .bmp, .qt, .css, .json, and .pages.
WordPress’s priority is to keep user data safe. However, WordPress also gives the freedom to download extra files for themes and plugins.
You can add these extra files to the WordPress dashboard.
- Admin Screens
The admin screen displays the control features of WordPress installation. The admin screen has a navigation sidebar.
The sidebar contains website functions that include new blog posts, changing website appearance with the themes, and control plugins like comments.
The main admin screen brings it all together. All the main functions of WordPress are on the admin screen.
- Toolbar- It has all the links to information about WordPress and links to new pages and posts.
- Main navigation- All the administrative functions belong in the main navigation.
- Work area- The work area has all the information regarding a particular function like the addition of a new blog post.
- Footer- Footer displays all the links to WordPress and the installed version.
What is Woocommerce?
Woocommerce is a self-hosted software. It was launched in 2011 and in 2015, Automattic, owner of WordPress, purchased Woocommerce.
It is a free e-commerce software that brings forth many functionalities to the existing WordPress.
Woocommerce makes the task of building websites even easier. With just a few clicks, the website is all ready to go live.
Woocommerce has gained importance as the most popular e-commerce platform. About 28% of the e-commerce stores are built on Woocommerce.
Features of Woocommerce
Woocommerce, with its amazing features, creates a unique store and provides the best user experience.
- Countless themes- Woocommerce is compatible with default WordPress themes updated every year.
- Built-in blogging– To ease the process of posting a blog.
- Customization- Imagination is the limit in the Woocommerce platform. You can customize every bit of the website.
- Product ratings- With Woocommerce, you can easily view the customer ratings on the product pages.
- Upload Photos and videos- Woocommerce allows the users to upload any number of photos and videos to share all your products.
- Sell as much you like- At Woocommerce, there is no limit to the number of products you can sell on your website.
Benefits of Woocommerce
Woocommerce has become the popular choice, owing to the simpler shopping experience. Apart from being free and user-friendly, it offers benefits that make it difficult for the user to refuse it.
- Shopping options
Woocommerce makes your website free of charge for every user. It provides many shipping options like local and international delivery and pickup from local stores.
- Inventory management
The website owners on Woocommerce can easily keep track of the number of products available online. They can easily update the product availability and oversee the entire shipment process.
- Various payment options
With Woocommerce, e-commerce websites have payment options on various platforms like bank transfer, Paypal, Credit/debit cards, and COD.
- Customizable
Woocommerce website owners are at ease since they can easily make changes to the existing website without extensive changes in the base code. You can choose from a variety of themes and fonts.
Final Thoughts
WordPress is widely used for developing e-commerce websites. It is a free, highly scalable, open-source, and SEO-friendly platform.
No beginner would like to invest a lot in website development. Thus, making WordPress the perfect choice. With WordPress, you have the freedom to try and experiment with different styles and themes fit for your website.