Three years ago, WordPress introduced the WooCommerce, an ecommerce plugin, that has gained immense popularity in just a couple of years. In 3 years, it already has 2.3 million downloads.
WooCommerce could be a great choice for your ecommerce website, but you should know the risks before you install it.
WooCommerce Risks
1. Not every WordPress platform is compatible.
WooCommerce is built by WooThemes. Even though the code is open source, themes not designed with WooCommerce in mind won’t work. When your theme doesn’t declare support for the plug-in, there are missing page templates and other bits of important programming. Product pages and the shopping cart look broken.
Fortunately, there are hundreds of themes that work great with WooCommerce. And not all of them are by WooThemes. ThemeForest has an entire WooCommerce Themes category to browse.
2. Doesn’t keep track of tax changes.
Some states still don’t tax online purchases. Others charge additional tax applied to your shipping fees. Just remember you’ll carry the burden of staying compliant with state, federal tax law changes.
3. WooCommerce is very basic.
Most features that would come standard with premium, established ecommerce solutions like Volusion, Magento, or Shopify are available for purchase as extensions.
However, WooCommerce isn’t all bad! The plugin is free and is available to download immediately. As far as pricing goes, the WooCommerce plugin itself is completely free to download. It is extremely user-friendly and set-up requires no programming knowledge.
It also offers a one page check out process, built in coupons and cross promotion functionality.
If you’re a small retailer, this ecommerce plugin could be a great choice. Just make sure you know all of the risks associated with WooCommerce before you commit.
How do you think this shopping cart stacks up against the rest? Doe you need help choosing the right ecommerce plugin? Contact us here and we can get you on the right track!