WooCommerce is by far the biggest eCommerce platform on the market. With over 6.6 million stores powered, the free WordPress plugin controls over 37% of the market.
As an open-source platform, WooCommerce is especially valuable for small to medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs. It offers a wide range of free plugins and a ton of flexibility – lowering the costs while keeping the same quality.
Do you want to find out more about what WooCommerce is, why is it so popular and what makes it better than other platforms?
In today’s article, we’ll give you the information you need to understand why so many people are choosing WooCommerce over other available platforms. Enjoy!
Table of Contents
What is WooCommerce?
Launched in 2011, WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin specifically designed to work with WordPress – the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world.
The plugin was originally developed by WooThemes who created WooCommerce from a fork of Jigoshop.
In 2015, both WooCommerce and WooThemes were bought by Automattic – the core contributor to WordPress software.
But, what made WooCommerce so special?
In short, its integration with WordPress. The plugin was, from the start, designed to work perfectly with WordPress. For those who don’t know it, WP powers 43.2% of all websites, with an even higher market share of 62.8% when we focus on CMS on sites with an identifiable CMS.
WooCommerce, just like WordPress, is open-source software. This means you have full ownership of your data and content FOREVER. When combined, they probably offer you the best customer experience on the market.
On top of that, WordPress offers thousands of free and paid themes, offering an infinite customization resource you can tap into. Blocksy, for example, gives control over almost any aspect of the website, from layout settings to headers and more.
Paired with some of the best WooCommerce functionalities on the market, Blocksy’s starter sites becomes a super-powerful tool any e-store can use to its advantage.
Advantages of Using WooCommerce
WooCommerce has carved out its place as a top-tier eCommerce platform on WordPress, and for good reason.
It’s a powerful tool that combines flexibility, scalability, and affordability, making it ideal for businesses of any size. Here’s why WooCommerce consistently stands out:
Flexibility and Customization
When it comes to customization and flexibility, WooCommerce has no real opponent.
The plugin offers full control over the design and functionality of your website. On top of that, WooCommerce gives you access to thousands of themes users can use to craft unique online stores.
Take Blocksy for example.
The theme offers a wide range of features and possibilities to shape your website the way you like it. With tens of hyper-intuitive options to customize a website in real-time, Blocksy makes the creation of a WooCommerce store even easier.
Another super important aspect that WooCommerce mastered is product management. With WooCommerce, you can sell almost anything, from physical items to subscription services and digital downloads.
Moreover, the plugin will offer you customizable shipping options, tax settings and different payment getaways.
Cost-Effective Solution
What makes WooCommerce a truly unique product is the fact that, with enough knowledge and experience, you can use the plugin to build a fully functional store FOR FREE. The plugin is free to install so, if you don’t use any paid plugins, you only have to pay for hosting and the domain.
We should also take a look at the WordPress ecosystem. Since WooCommerce operates on WordPress, you have access to thousands of free plugins and themes you can use to make your store even better.
Now, once you get your sales up-to-speed and have a big enough budget, you can start looking at the plugins’ paid versions to increase functionality.
But until then, you can make the store work with just a couple of bucks for hosting and some free but useful themes like Blocksy.
Wide Range of Features
WooCommerce’s extensive feature set is one of its strongest assets. The plugin offers a wide range of essential eCommerce tools for you to build your store fast and effectively.
These tools include built-in product management, inventory tracking and more. With them, adding, managing and organizing products is a piece of cake.
Payment flexibility is another important feature of WooCommerce.
The WooCommerce plugin supports PayPal, Stripe, WooPayments and more. The ease of setup, coupled with versatile shipping options and tax calculations, allows even non-technical users to create fully functional stores with minimal friction.
Strong Community and Support
As part of the WordPress family, WooCommerce benefits from an extensive community and a wealth of resources.
With millions of active users, there’s no shortage of forums, tutorials, and guides to help troubleshoot issues or explore new customizations. WooCommerce’s official documentation is thorough, and they offer an in-depth knowledge base and live support, which is invaluable for new users.
For more advanced needs, WooCommerce’s popularity means there are plenty of expert developers and agencies specializing in the platform.
Whether you’re looking to implement complex customizations, improve site speed, or refine UX design, there’s a robust network of WooCommerce professionals to assist with every need, making the platform extremely well-supported.
Scalability
At the moment, WooCommerce is the most scalable plugin you can use to create your store.
Built on WordPress, WooCommerce can handle growing demands as your business expands. Whether you’re starting with a few products or managing thousands, it provides the tools needed to maintain performance and functionality.
Its modular design lets you add features gradually using plugins and extensions, ensuring your store evolves without unnecessary complexity. Hosting flexibility also contributes to scalability—store owners can upgrade their hosting plans to accommodate increased traffic.
Key Features of WooCommerce
Here are some of the most important and relevant features of WooCommerce:
Product Management
Managing the products you sell can be tricky, especially if we’re talking about a store with thousands of different items in different categories.
With WooCommerce, adding, managing and categorizing even the largest number of products is a piece of cake.
You simply go to the Products category on the side menu and see all the information about every item you have in your store. You can also use the filters to select a certain category or stock status.
Shipping Options
WooCommerce offers the possibility for you to choose shipping zones, categories and other details related to fees and shipping costs.
To do that, click on the Shipping tag inside WooCommerce. There, you’ll find the Shipping Zones submenu where you can set up regions, fees and shipping methods.
This process can also be automated through plugins from FedEx, USPS and other shipping companies.
Analytics and Reporting
WooCommerce has done a lot to improve analytics and reporting over the last couple of years.
If you go to the Reports menu, you’ll see all the information regarding sales, orders, value of orders and other important information.
WooCommerce can also be integrated with Google Analytics to get insights into the customer base itself, the performance of the store as a whole and more.
Mobile Optimization
WooCommerce is compatible with a ton of free and mobile-friendly themes. Blocksy, for example, offers a unique experience while they shop from their mobile phone.
The theme makes your store quick, user friendly and very easy to navigate from the smallest screens out there.
Payment Gateway Integration
WooCommerce can integrate with more than 50 payment gateways, including some of the most popular like WooPayment, Paypal, Stripe and Amazon Pay.
One of WooCommerce’s biggest advantages is that it offers region-specific services like Mercando, PayU India and Eway.
Extensions and Plugins
WooCommerce offers an extensive library of extensions to enhance functionality.
These include SEO tools, marketing integrations like Mailchimp, and plugins for memberships or subscriptions.
With these, users can tailor their store to meet specific business needs, creating a unique shopping experience.
Pricing of WooCommerce
| Feature/Platform | WooCommerce | Shopify | BigCommerce |
| Cost | Free plugin; hosting from $5 to $50+ per month; premium themes/plugins may add costs | Starts at $39/month for Basic plan; $105/month for Shopify plan; $399/month for Advanced plan | Starts at $39/month for Standard plan; $105/month for Plus plan; $399/month for Pro plan; custom pricing for Enterprise |
| Payment Processing Fees | No transaction fees from WooCommerce; payment gateways charge around 2.9% + $0.30 | Charges transaction fees (2.9% + $0.30) unless using Shopify Payments; lower rates for higher tiers | No transaction fees; allows any payment gateway without additional costs |
| Scalability | Highly scalable; suitable for small to large retailers | Designed for scalability; accommodates growing businesses | Built for growth; supports both small and large enterprises |
| Flexibility | Extensive customization through themes and plugins | More straightforward features; some customization limits | Offers many built-in features with good scalability but some limits on customization |
| Ease of Use | Requires some technical knowledge for setup and maintenance | User-friendly interface; easy to set up and manage | Relatively user-friendly with robust features |
| Support | Strong community support and documentation | 24/7 customer support via chat, email, and phone | 24/7 support via chat, email, and phone |
| Best For | Users familiar with WordPress and looking for flexibility | Small to medium businesses wanting a simple setup | Businesses looking for robust built-in features and scalability |
Check the full comparison between Shopify and WooCommerce here.
FAQ Section
Is WooCommerce free to use?
Yes, WooCommerce is a free plugin designed for WordPress.
Using it comes with no charge until you need some advanced features that can only be found through plugins or themes. Then, you’ll have to pay for those add-ons.
Can I use WooCommerce for physical and digital products?
Yes, WooCommerce can be used for both physical and digital products. The plugin was optimized to allow stores to sell all types of products, from eBooks to bikes and more.
What payment gateways does WooCommerce support?
WooCommerce supports over 50 payment getaways. Among them, you can find PayPal, Stripe, Woo Payments and Amazon Pay.
How customizable is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is highly customizable with flexible themes, plugins and code-level tweaks to tailor functionality, design and user experience.
Is WooCommerce suitable for beginners?
Yes, WooCommerce can be used by beginners. It offers comprehensive documentation and a lot of themes that can simplify the process of creating and managing a store.
Conclusion
So here you have it, a complete WooCommerce review. Knowing the information displayed here will help you understand if WooCommerce is the right tool for your store or not.
To sum everything up, WooCommerce is a powerful store builder that can handle LOTS of traffic with relatively small investments.
Paired with a theme like Blocksy to increase user experience and speed, WooCommerce can become an important advantage for your business.
