A comprehensive guide for WordPress ecommerce development

WordPress is a popular platform and the reason behind its popularity is quite evident; it has enough features and functionalities to build and manage an efficient ecommerce store. Also, WordPress offers ease of use.

The number of ecommerce websites developed on WordPress is increasing significantly. Think once, why are organizations using this platform more and more? The obvious answer is its trustworthiness and proven track record. Ecommerce is full of challenges and WordPress is capable enough to handle those challenges. It understands your business needs and helps you to get an appropriate solution, which can withstand market pressure and competition & offer an unmatched level of customer satisfaction.

Steps for WordPress ecommerce development

Pick a perfect domain name

Choose a unique domain name for your ecommerce website. A name that is easy to remember and suitable for your business and industry.

Look for a reliable B2B web hosting provider

A web hosting provider is responsible for making your ecommerce website online available for your users. Hosting decides the loading speed of the website, which impacts the conversion rate. Also, it ensures uptime and downtime of your ecommerce store. Thus, it is crucial to find a good hosting provider.

Install and configure WooCommerce

To set up an ecommerce store with WordPress, you need to install the WooCommerce plugin. It is an open-source plugin but some of its extensions are paid. WooCommerce helps you with product pages, shopping cart and checkout process, secure payment, shipping options and label printing, integration with Google Analytics 4, Mailchimp, etc.

From product pages to checkout page, payment and shipping, everything is critical in ecommerce and WooCommerce has in-built feature to add these options easily to start an ecommerce store.

Once you’ve installed the WooCommerce plugin, add your business details (some basic details which are easy to enter). Then add all the possible payment methods. Ecommerce cannot go further without digital payment options. As the demand for ecommerce stores is increasing, digital and mobile wallets are also capturing the hold on market. Additionally, an ecommerce store can’t execute with only one or two payment options. Therefore, integrate with as many payment options as you can. Options like wallets – Gpay and Apple Pay, cards – debit and credit, pay cash on delivery, pay via card on delivery, PayPal, etc.

After payment gateway integration, you need to fill in the shipping charges and other shipping details. You can set the shipping charges as per different areas or can fix one default charge for every location or can set it as shipping free. Moreover, integrate with logistic vendors for orders’ shipping. Make sure you provide absolute clear shipping and return/refund policies. Don’t surprise customers with unexpected charges or confusion. It can cause higher bounce rates.
Finally, there is the Jetpack option, which enables payment setup and automates tax calculation. You must activate Jetpack and you are all sorted, WooCommerce web development will take care of everything.

Choose an attractive theme

The theme for ecommerce store must be relevant and trending. You can choose the theme from the WordPress library or purchase any one theme from some third-party vendor. Though WordPress is an efficient CMS, and it has competent themes but if your business requires a theme that you cannot find in the WordPress library then buying a third-party theme can be an option. Choose the theme carefully that is best suited to your business and new market trends. Take your time to peruse the theme library and then pick one. Moreover, try to select one lightweight theme because heavyweight themes are a problem with the website’s performance.

Create all the required pages

Do not make a complex ecommerce website structure yet create all the important pages for the website so that users can navigate through it easily. Pages like – Home page, landing page, about us, FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), terms and conditions, privacy policy, contact, products, Wishlist, cart, and checkout pages are must to have in an ecommerce website.

Add products to product pages

Now it’s time to add the products to your WordPress ecommerce store. Product category, name, price, description, and product image, start adding as many products as you have. Once you add the products with their key information, you ought to fill in some other details. For example, add the taxes per product, affix SKUs to maintain the inventory, and product attributes (if the products have variables like size, color, options, etc.). And you are done with product augmentation. There are multiple ways to optimize your ecommerce store product pages as well.

Install plugins that are essential for your ecommerce website

After all these steps, choose essential and crucial plugins that help your website to flourish and soar higher. For example: If you wish to improve your digital marketing strategies via email marketing, WordPress has the Mailchimp plugin. Similarly, for push notifications, social media, etc. there are different plugins. WordPress is good with digital marketing campaigns; you just need to use the right plugins. Additionally, you can try plugins for search engine optimization, marketing analytics, security, site reviews, and for every critical facet of your ecommerce website.

Start content creation

Content is the backbone of every website including an ecommerce store. After ecommerce store setup and product enlisting is done, it’s time to create engaging content for users. It includes micro copy (UX copy), product description, privacy policy, terms and conditions, FAQs, disclaimer, etc.

Moreover, adding appealing CTAs which can force customers to take further actions. You must include error messages and navigational copy; write every detail carefully.

Personalized content will be needed for the shopping cart and other pages as well. WordPress has the option to select the privacy policy page before you make your ecommerce site live. Implementing ecommerce store personalization will enhance the user experience.

Launch the ecommerce website

After all these efforts, if you are convinced with the design, content, and other stuff of the website, you are good to launch it for customers. When you add a privacy policy, after that there is an option to make your ecommerce website ‘Public’.

Run A/B testing

The A/B testing or split testing must run in a loop to measure the performance of each element on the WordPress website. The testing helps you to analyse the performance of the website based on an array of metrics. Test and discover how well all the pages and elements are performing and if not, then act accordingly to uplift the performance of that element or page. A/B testing is helpful in improving the visitors time on website and hence the conversion rate.

Wrapping up

Albeit WordPress is easy to use and create, however, you should have a little technical knowledge to build your WordPress ecommerce website because it makes ecommerce creation easier and more effective. You can also hire a WordPress developer for an efficacious and productive ecommerce development.

Create a WordPress ecommerce website that leaves its impression deep into customers’ minds. Thus, if at times, the website faces downtime, your business will never witness any downtime or disruption.

As a leading WordPress Development Company, we offer custom WordPress web development, WordPress development, WooCommerce store development and other related web development services. We also offer WooCommerce store maintenance, WooCommerce support services, WooCommerce store customization, or any other WooCommerce solution-related services for any size of business. We also provide one-stop e-commerce solutions from consulting, planning, consulting, design, development, migration, revamp, e-commerce website maintenance, and more to achieve your goals! We look forward to discussing your ecommerce projects and helping you to achieve your target. Our ecommerce team of experts is available to take up any challenges for the next generation ecommerce store you want!