Is WordPress Good for E-Commerce Websites?

Posted on October 11, 2019June 19, 2020 by Andy under Website Basics

Wondering if WordPress is good for e-commerce websites? Let’s find out by digging deeper into the irrefutable evidence – statistics – and exploring the features of this powerful CMS.

Statistics Prove WordPress is King

WordPress is the world’s most popular Content Management System (CMS). No wonder it is steps ahead of its competitors not only in the world of content management but even in e-commerce. In fact, its e-commerce extension – WooCommerce – leads the e-commerce market, occupying 32% of the market share, while Magento takes the second spot with 18%, followed by OpenCart with 11%, and Shopify with 8%.

Let us take a look at these other impressive statistics:

As of 2019, WordPress powers 34% of all existing websites, a 4% growth from 2018.
More than 500 online stores are built on WordPress every day, while only 60-80 per day are built on other platforms, such as Squarespace and Shopify.
WordPress has more than 55,000 plugins.
WooCommerce powers 22% of the top one million e-commerce sites in the world.

How Does WordPress for E-Commerce Work?

To enable the e-commerce functionality on your WordPress site, you need to install WooCommerce. Owned by WordPress, tt is the most popular e-commerce plugin today. It is available for free and provides a wide range of features necessary for any online store, including a storefront, inventory, payment gateways, auto-generated transactional emails, shipping, and many more. WordPress also has thousands of plugins that you can easily add to your site to extend its e-commerce functionality.

WordPress provides a high level of customisation that both novice and advanced web developers love. And this brings us to the benefits of using this CMS platform for e-commerce.

Why Use WordPress For Your E-Commerce Site?

Unrivalled ease of use. The biggest competitive edge of WordPress over other platforms is its ease of use. Even business owners with the most basic web development skills can learn how to set up their online store in one day. It offers easy navigation so even beginner-level users won’t get lost within the platform. There is also a vast amount of WordPress tutorials available online if you feel stuck in any part of the process.

Integrated solution. WordPress offers an integrated package, from web hosting to a variety of e-commerce plugins. You simply need to find the appropriate plugins for your existing theme and customise your store to your liking. You don’t need to look for another platform with WordPress!

Infinite ways to customise. With over 55,000 plugins, it’s safe to say that WordPress has a plugin for any kind of functionality that you might need for your website.

Cost-effective. Many of the plugins of WordPress are available for free, which makes it even more suitable for businesses with a limited budget.

Search-engine friendly. WordPress is an open-source CMS where some of the world’s best web developers come together to build themes and plugins. These developers are also guided by the best SEO practices so the platform itself and its add-ons have already been optimised for search engine sites.

Even if you have to tweak your site to improve its SEO score, you’ll only have to go through a few steps. First, find a high-quality SEO plugin like Yoast that allows you to optimise your website easily. Once you have installed an SEO plugin, you no longer have to edit your HTML, PHP, or FTP code. You simply have to follow the installation process and add the necessary meta-information (e.g., page URL, title tags, description, meta keywords, and alt tags) to each page of your website.

Caching options. WordPress has several cache plugins that enhance the loading speed of your e-commerce site. These plug-ins help improve your visitors’ user experience, which can have a positive impact on your bottom line. Remember that today’s consumers are quite unforgiving when it comes to slow websites. They will stop engaging with your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, and worse, they’ll never come back again. Thus, caching options can be advantageous to any e-commerce site that contains several product images on every page.

No monthly fees. WordPress does not require you to pay for a monthly subscription-based service before you can use it. The only fees you will incur on WordPress are your web hosting and payment processing fees. You will also need to pay for premium/paid themes and custom plugin development if you decide to avail of them.

The Best Choice for E-Commerce Sites

WordPress is an excellent choice for e-commerce websites. It is a user-friendly open-source CMS with thousands of customisation features including paid and free themes and plugins. With the help of the WordPress community and a professional web developer, you can be well on your way to having that successful e-commerce site you’ve always dreamed of.