In this comprehensive guide you will know everything you need before creating a store on WordPress or other e-commerce systems. We will try to understand what is the best option for you, recommend plugins and share some important tips that everyone needs to understand before making your online store.
Is it worth having an online store on WordPress?
Unfortunately creating a virtual store is not easy, since nowadays marketing and SEO for stores is very busy and complicated. Nowadays it is a thousand times easier for you to profit by selling products in the marketplace as a free market than to have your own store on a WordPress site or some CMS of your own.
Why is maintaining an online store so difficult? Many people before setting up an online store think that it is just to create, place the stock, wait and sell. Unfortunately websites themselves need to emit a trust and fame, so many prefer to use the free market where they can achieve a reputation.
Unfortunately the marketplace as a free market eats a good amount of your profit, so maybe you are determined to set up your own online store. Perhaps you have heard of WordPress, where you can set up a blog / website together with an online store.
I personally recommend using WordPress to set up an online store when you have:
- Specific niche products;
- Products related to your own company;
- Products to sell on a content site such as blogs;
- Digital products, courses, affiliate products;
- Few products or unique products;
I do not recommend using WordPress if your goal is just to sell varied products without generating content or articles. The main objective of WordPress is to generate articles and posts as if it were a blog, there is no reason to change its initial purpose just to set up a store.
We recommend WordPress if you plan to use articles to attract visitors to your store. If you plan to get customers without investing thousands of dollars in advertising, we recommend using WordPress to create viral texts with a focus on google.
If you don't want to write texts weekly, there are better alternatives for setting up online stores than WordPress. There are own systems for PHP online stores such as PrestaShop, Magento, OpenCart and many others.
The advantages of setting up a WordPress store
As we already mentioned, there are several situations where WordPress is not the best choice for creating an online store. Still, as already mentioned, WordPress can be a great tool for anyone who wants to work with things besides a virtual store.
Remembering that both the store and WordPress, will need your dedication. If you have a physical store, consider also using the Instagram to publicize your products. The results can be much greater than setting up an online store and leaving it abandoned and deserted.
Below I will list some advantages of setting up a store using WordPress:
- Possibility to write articles using categories;
- Possibility to use thousands of WordPress plugins;
- Possibility to use better SEO plugins;
- Easier interface;
- Increased community support;
- Greater variety of themes and customization;
- Ease of doing marketing and generating organic visits;
- Social automation plugins;
- Fully OpenSource system;
- Possibility to mix stock, affiliate and digital products;
- Possibility to manage downloadable products;
- Easier to optimize speed with plugins and cache systems;
- Infinite range of possibilities with WordPress.
- Integration with affiliate system;
I just don't recommend WordPress to set up a Virtual Store when the stock is very large and diverse. Besides, I believe that WordPress is currently one of the best content management platforms on the internet.
The disadvantages of setting up a store on wordpress
Despite the advantages, there are some disadvantages when using WordPress. First, WordPress was not made for Online Stores, but for Blogs and Sites. Fortunately the plugins and customizations do a perfect job. After all:
- WordPress is not 100% secure;
- WordPress uses PHP, there are better options;
- You do not have the same performance as a store's own CMS;
- You need to use workarounds to create user accounts;
The truth is that sometimes, using something specific and focused is better than using an All in One like WordPress. Still, wordpress should be considered a good option. Mainly because SEO and articles are important to target the market today.
As much as store systems offer more options than WordPress, the content of the site defines whether it will really have results or not. So it turns out that WordPress offers more advantages than disadvantages.
Choosing a Plugin to build your WordPress store
Everyone should be aware that the best WordPress plugin to create an e-commerce or online store is called WooCommerce. It is quite complete and turns your website into a true virtual store with thousands of extensions and customizations.
Depending on the way you work, WooCommerce may not be as necessary, it can be heavier than other WordPress plugins and store systems, and it has many things that you may not need to use.
If you sell digital products, searching for plugins within wordpress you will find specific extensions. If you want to sell affiliate products like Amazon, we recommend the plugin content egg.
Below we will leave other plugins and themes that may be interesting for you to take a look. They are being sold within the Envato Market. There are many plugins, but I don't know them all to personally recommend them.
Courses that can help you create your WordPress store
To finish the article, I will leave some Udemy courses below that talk about stores on wordpress. The advantage of Udemy is that the courses are super cheap, some cost up to 20 reais or less. They will give you a basic notion and step by step of what you should do.
I don't like to recommend, I prefer that you decide for yourself, so here is a list:
