I've been using WooCommerce on a couple of projects recently. In particular, the new site for Golf Swing Systems uses WooCommerce. It's a nice piece of software that is ideal for many small and medium-sized businesses that want to sell online.
Firstly, what is WooCommerce? In a nutshell, it's a free add-on or plugin for WordPress (a very popular website system). WooCommerce adds ecommerce functionality to a WordPress site. And, it has a simple installation process.
WooCommerce works pretty much out-of-the-box. After adding product information and tackling some set-up tasks, you can be selling online quickly. In practice though, WooCommerce needs customisation so that it works the way you want. A website owner can do some of the set-up work if they read through WooCommerce's documentation but in most cases a web developer is needed.
Reasons for using WooCommerce
- It's free
- It has a lot of features
- There are many other WooCommerce plugins (not free) that add to its functionality
- It's easy to use (with a bit of familiarisation)
- The software is under constant development
- It taps into the WordPress ecosystem
So, it's all good then?
Well, I like WooCommerce and it's ideal for many of the projects I am involved in.
But, you will need to buy other plugins as part of the customisation process. For example, payment provider integration and extra shipping methods are commonly needed. They aren't particularly expensive (from £50 in most cases) but are normally purchased for a year's worth of updates. The cost of these can add up and you need to budget for that and for updates every year.
Even so, WooCommerce is great software and it's well-suited for many businesses that want to start selling online.
Note: Of course, you need to assess your requirements and create a website specification to help decide what is best for you. There are many online shops using different systems. But, WooCommerce is one of the best in my opinion.