In this Pandemic situation, everybody is looking to start an online business. If you’re already running a business or looking to start a new one, chances are you’re interested in building an eCommerce site. WordPress for eCommerce can be the best solution for entrepreneurs to ensure their presence on the Internet.

If you find yourself wondering, “Why to use WordPress for eCommerce?” you are at the right place. I ’d like to break down the benefits of using WordPress for you, giving a clear view as to why it’s the most popular content management system (CMS) and website building software in the world. 

Before getting started with any eCommerce business, no matter whether it’s going to be a dropshipping store or any other type of online business, the most important thing that you need is a website.

What are the Best Requirements of any Online Platform for eCommerce Websites

For any scale of a business owner, you need a website that would look professional and appealing for your customers. It would be suitable and convenient to use for commercial activity also. At the same time, its building and maintenance shouldn’t be too expensive. It is important to put your store on a solid and reliable platform that:

• It is free to use or, at least, has great free functionality to upgrade at any time;
• Lets you do both the basic and the more advanced eCommerce business functions;
• Provides you with the full ownership of the website;
• Is flexible enough to allow you to customize your eCommerce website;
• Can securely store and keep the transactional details and all the other types of confidential data;
• Has a proven efficiency and a satisfying history of its successful usage for commercial purposes.

For most of the eCommerce platforms this list of requirements seems to be quite extensive – but, there is one solution that ticks all the options!

Overview of WordPress

WordPress is a dynamic and flexible software that can be customized with plugins and themes to build a perfect eCommerce website. Out of the box, WordPress is fundamentally a blogging platform. But it possesses applications far beyond the blogosphere. You can obtain the eCommerce platform via plugins or addons. For example, WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin.

WordPress has a lot of things on its field including eCommerce. I’ll focus on the WooCommerce omitting the other features and abilities of WordPress. It is an all-in-one eCommerce plugin that allows building any kind of website. You can handle the technical setup, install the plugins, and themes to handle your store operations.

The Most Popular eCommerce Platforms

There are many popular eCommerce platforms available on the internet when it comes to their frequency on the entire web. WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform available covering 28% of the eCommerce market, followed by Shopify (20%), Magento (8%), and OpenCart (4%).

Why WooCommerce is the Leader in the eCommerce market?

It is very clear from the above stats that WooCommerce is holding the leading position in the eCommerce market. There are lots of WordPress users who use WooCommerce for their online store. The services, powerful features, easy to navigation websites makes it more reliable among customers. Moreover, it is free. Let’s see the benefits of the WordPress website.

Why you should use WordPress for eCommerce?

There are lots of reasons to create an eCommerce store with WordPress. A few years back, to create an eCommerce site does require a vast amount of time, technical skills, and money.

Lots of people now prefer to use WordPress as the basis for their online eCommerce stores, and there are many reasons why we should as well. Yes, of course, WordPress is free, it’s very easy to use, but it’s also easy to customize and update, and you do not need a team of developers to get your shop up and running.

It is very easy to install. You just need to sign up for a web host and buy a domain name to use it. Check the following pros of the WordPress website.

• Free
• Great content management features like add unlimited products and product attributes
• Support all devices
• Highly scalable
• Highly Secured
• Lots of themes to choose (both free and paid)
• Easy customization through plugins
• Online support from the WordPress community
• Variety of customization options available
• Easy to install and you don’t need any coding skills to manage it
• Provides an intuitive interface

Top Reasons To Choose WordPress for eCommerce

Let’s see the top reasons for choosing WordPress.

An Affordable Point of Entry for Everything

Apart from the eCommerce plugin, you can find a bunch of other plugins to manage SEO and other social media. You can also get a god interface and theme to make your store unique. It means WordPress is a complete solution for everyone by its features. It gives you all the features like shopping carts, product catalogs, online payments, coupons, and many more in one platform.

You can also customize and extend its functionality with various paid and free extensions. For example, extensions can be used for product landing pages, provides the option for scheduled groups on daily deals or occasional coupons that trigger when a predefined number of people purchase an item.

Cost

When you’re choosing a new eCommerce platform, you’ll definitely look for a minimal budget. Moreover, WordPress provides such a cost-effective solution that you can spend less amount than other platforms. Let’s check the minimum requirements to set up a website:

• Domain Registration: Around $10–12 per year.
• Web hosting: Around $30/month (may vary)

Read: How to choose a perfect domain name for your eCommerce store.

The WordPress platform won’t cost you a single penny, as it’s free to download, install, and use. You can handle everything without any help from others if you have the basic technical skills.

Security

Security is a key factor while choosing an eCommerce platform. It is very important to protect your customers at all costs. To explain the point, let us consider the example. Say, the user’s login credentials, payment information, and other personal details in the database. Any of these data can’t be compromised for your store which needs a lot of protection.

WordPress comes from an inherently secure environment. It enhances the site’s security. For example, you can set up an SSL certificate with your web host immediately. After that, you can install any security-focused plugins.

Scalability

Scalability means how well WordPress adapts to your eCommerce site’s growth over time. As a content management system (CMS), WordPress is very robust to expand whatever size and scale you need depending on your business requirements.

Of course, your site’s scalability depends on the web host you are using for your platform. For example, if you use a shared hosting plan for simply managing a blog platform, then it will run smoothly with moderate traffic. However, if your site receives more traffic, then it is quite difficult to cope up with the web hosting. Thus, you should require a high-quality host with your platform to run your site smoothly.

Support from WordPress Community

By now it is clear that WordPress is an undoubtedly powerful tool that gives access to all the options you need to build an eCommerce site. Setting up a WordPress site is very easy, but running a successful eCommerce store is a challenging task. There might be possibilities of some technical or professional information you’re not familiar with. However, it is not difficult to find a solution with the help of the WordPress community.

As we mentioned earlier, WordPress has a big community that always help newcomers. You can get any support from them:

• Official WordPress community support site
• Online courses available in different websites for easy support
• YouTube channels like WPBeginner
• Support forums for different themes and plugins like WooCommerce forum
• Different Q&A forums
• Community support

Why Choose WordPress for eCommerce? Because It Rocks

WordPress has strong fans all over the world. Some developers would rather use other platforms. As for bloggers, business owners, developers with clients, and eCommerce professionals, WordPress is the best choice. Not only do you maintain complete control over your store, but you receive great advantages like plugins, themes, free extensions, and full community support.

Hopefully, I’ve answered your question, “Why to Use WordPress for eCommerce?” And if someone asks you the same question, just send them over here. If you still have some thoughts or concerns, let me know in the comments below.