You don’t have to be a tech giant like Amazon or BestBuy to setup an online store of your own. Using a simple WordPress website and the WooCommerce plugin, you can easily build your own online store to sell your crafts and products to your loyal audience.
Whether it’s branded T-Shirts, home-brew beers, cookies, cupcakes, or even eBooks and online courses, you can sell anything you want using a WordPress site. And you won’t be the first to do it either.
Adoboloco is one of the many brands that use WordPress-powered websites to sell their products. Just look at how pretty their hot sauce shop looks with the WordPress setup.
Setting up an online store with WordPress and WooCommerce is easy. You don’t need any experts or any experience in web design. You can do it in just a few simple steps. In this article, I’ll show you how.
What Is WooCommerce And Why Use It?
First, let’s learn a little about what WooCommerce is and what you can do with it.
WooCommerce is a simple yet powerful WordPress plugin that can be installed on any WordPress website in order to sell any kind of products.
“With 24,282,025 downloads, WooCommerce powers over 28% of all online stores.”
When using WooCommerce, you won’t have to worry about designing shop layouts, creating checkout systems, or even manually processing payments. This plugin makes all that work a walk in the park. WooCommerce will allow you to set up a shop with just a few clicks and start selling right away.
Did I tell you that WooCommerce is also free to use? That’s right! The plugin is completely free to use with optional add-ons you can purchase from its marketplace to add more features to your shop.
How To Build A WooCommerce Shop
Even though both WooCommerce and WordPress are free software, it will cost you around $60-$100 to set up your website with a domain name, web hosting, and a WordPress theme.
Here’s how it’s done.
Step 1: Choose A Domain Name
Before we start setting up the website, you’ll need a cool name for your new shop. Do some research and come up with a unique name for your store.
You can use a tool like Name Mesh to come up with a great name and then also check for its domain name availability.
Once you’ve picked a good name, go register the domain name via a site like Name.com.
Bonus tip:
Domain registrars like Name.com will regularly announce a special coupon code at the beginning of every month. This coupon code usually saves you about ~3$ per domain. Instead of paying $12.99 you can register a domain for $9.99.
Step 2: Find The Perfect Web Host
Now, you’ll need a web host to setup your website.
There are many web hosting platforms out there with popular names and cheap plans. But, you should always focus on quality and customer support rather than the popularity and cheap prices.
One of the highest rated and affordable hosting providers available today is SiteGround. This platform offers web hosting services specially optimized for WordPress websites with Super Caching technology, free daily backups, website security, and much more at affordable rates.
InMotion Hosting is another great hosting provider that doesn’t get enough recognition. Their support is really quick and efficient, something that I personally appreciate the most. No more talking to chat robots for hours on end without getting a real solution.
Bonus tip:
Beware of hosting providers that are trying to sell you add-ons like SiteLock. To better understand why you should be aware of SiteLock, read this article: http://www.hermesthemes.com/scam-alert-hostgator-sitelock-malware-extortion/.
Step 3: Buy A WooCommerce WordPress Theme
Now that you have a WordPress website up and running, you need to find a great theme for your online store. This is a crucial part of setting up your shop because you need to pick a theme that not only looks great but also allows you to customize it to fit your branding.
We have a few great WooCommerce themes in our collection, both free and premium.
Step 4: Install WooCommerce Plugin
Once you’ve installed your theme, you can start setting up your shop page. But first, you need to install the WooCommerce plugin.
Go to Plugins > Add New > and search for WooCommerce. Then click Install and Activate the plugin.
Step 5: Set up Your Shop
When you click Activate, WooCommerce will take you through the initial installation process where you can setup your store pages such as shopping carts, choose a payment method, add shipping and tax information.
Don’t worry, you can create it and customize everything later at any time by going over to the WooCommerce tab on your WordPress admin dashboard.
It’s as easy as that! If you need any help with the WooCommerce installation, check out this official guide created by WooCommerce with video footage. Or you can contact WooCommerce team for support.
Now go and start selling!
Setting up the shop is only the first step of building your online empire. Now you have to keep adding new products, promote the site online, attract customers, and do a whole lot more. But, don’t be overwhelmed. Just take one step at a time and you’ll reach your target in no time.
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