The importance of WooCommerce for online shopping can’t be overestimated. After the explosion of the eCommerce industry in 2020, WooCommerce became one of the most important platforms in the world to empower online retail websites.

It is an open-source, customizable, and easy-to-use plugin that turns already existing or new WordPress websites into online shops. Thanks to website builders like Elementor, you can create a WooCommerce website without having to write a single line of code, as well. There are only three steps you need to perform to do that, and here they are.

1. Download and install plugin

The WooCommerce plugin is available at the WordPress repository or it can be accessed through your WordPress control panel. In the control panel, you can find it under the “Plugins” tab and click “Install Now”.

Once the installation process is over, clicking on “Activate” will launch the Setup Wizard. 

It will ask you for some basic details: 

• your home country, 
• physical address, 
• preferred currency, and 
• what type of products you’re selling (digital or physical)

And that’s it. Once you enter this information, you’re good to go to the next phase.

2. Enter payment processors and shipping options

Next, you will have to define how people are going to pay for your products/services. Usually, eCommerce owners choose cash, PayPal, Square, and Stripe options. However, it is up to you and you can choose whichever you prefer. 

An interesting payment feature you can add to WooCommerce is direct checkout. This means that your customers will have the opportunity to click on the “Buy Now” button. People love this option when they want to buy something right away, so they don’t have to go through the entire checkout procedure. This option doesn’t have to be available for every purchase or every product. Customization is possible, according to your needs. For example, you can enable this option only for purchases through social media, to promote that way of buying from your website.

After that, the Wizard will ask you to set up shipment options. Here, you will define the fees, according to the delivery location. Free shipping is an option as well.

Once you’re done with shipping details, WooCommerce plugin will ask you about some optional plugins and features (Jetpack, Storefront theme, Automated taxes, MailChimp, Facebook). You can select those you’re interested in.

3. Add products

Activation is the last phase of WooCommerce installation. After that, you are ready to start adding products. That is also easy: all you need to do is click on “Add New” in the “Products” section. The box will open and ask you for the product’s name, description, category, and status. In the status section, you can either publish it immediately or keep it as a draft.

Conclusion

As you are setting up your WooCommerce plugin, don’t worry about making wrong choices as all settings can be edited later.

Once your website launches as an online store, your products are available for your customers. Remember that eCommerce is more than selling. If you want to do it sustainably, it is a good idea to build a meaningful relationship with your users. Branding will create loyal customers that will keep coming back and be happy to recommend you to their friends.