Guide On How To Install WooCommerce In Your Local Business Store

WooCommerce is the most popular free e-commerce solution that powers almost 35% of all online stores as of 2018. With over 4+ million active installs, a 4.6 user rating on WordPress and an army of happy, loyal digital store owners behind it, for anyone looking to set up a virtual shop on a WordPress-powered website, WooCommerce is the best decision they could make.

So how do you integrate WooCommerce into your WordPress website?

WooCommerce Installation On A WordPress Website. 

I will be telling you how to install WooCommerce on your WordPress site and get started with it. This post is going to be short and save a lot of time of yours.

Getting Started.

• At first, you have to install the WooCommerce Plugin from WordPress Repository.Otherwise, see the below steps to install WooCommerce from the WordPress dashboard.
• To install it from the WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New, search for “WooCommerce”, and install it.
• You have to activate the Plugin by yourself by going to Installed Plugins section.

• After activating the plugin, a walkthrough section of WooCommerce will appear. Click on Let’s Go!

• After then, on the page setup screen, WooCommerce will automatically create some essential pages for your store. No need to panic, this is an automated process and safe. The process is about creating the shop, cart, checkout, and my account pages. Click on “Continue” to complete it.
• On the store setup screen, you have to choose your WooCommerce preferences including the country and state you are based out of, the currency, and number of products. Then click on “Continue.”
• On the shipping & tax setup screen, you can choose whatever products you are selling. This also allows you to enable  taxes if they apply to the circumstances.
• On the payments screen you can choose which 3rd party payment processor you want your transactions to go through with. Then click on “Continue.”

And that’s it! Your WooCommerce store is now ready. You can click on the link at the bottom to return to your WordPress site and start creating your products.

Adding & Managing New Products

Product Description

The first change you’ll notice is the addition of two new tabs to your dashboard’s side menu, named WooCommerce (your general settings area) and Products (your products settings area). To start setting up your e-store, go to WordPress Admin > Products > Add Product to add your first product.

Scroll down below the post editor to unravel two new widgets on the post editing screen, product data and product short description.

Product Data

WordPress Admin > Products > Add New

In the product data screen widget, you can select whether the product is virtual (the former option removes the Shipping data tab) and if it is downloadable (digital). You can enter in the regular & sale prices (sales can be time-sensitive) in the General tab.

If you’re selling digital products, then you also must upload the file to be purchased, customize the download limit, the download expiry, and the file type. Note that, the product file which you may select, may affect the custom schema markup which is induced in each WordPress websites.

Next, in the Inventory tab, you can customize options to manage your inventory by entering in the quantity of the product, inventory status (in/out of stock), and if you’d like to allow backorders. Additionally, you can mark the product as individually sold, meaning only one product can be bought per order.

Attributes allows you to enter in specific information of the product (e.g. reliable, never breaks down, etc.) that will be displayed under an Additional Information tab on the product page. Finally, you can enter custom purchasing notes, give the product an order in the menu, and enable/disable reviews in the Advanced tab.

Product Short Description

WordPress Admin > Products > Add New

With the product short description screen widget, you can create a short tagline for the image that will be displayed alongside the product.

After customizing with all of that, add tags, place it in a product category, and include product images.

Managing Products

WordPress Admin > Products > [various tabs]

In the other pages under WordPress Admin > Products, you can review your products, categories, tags, shipping classes, attributes, and calendar.Those pages look alike the standard WordPress Admin > Posts > Categories page, except the product view.

Final Notes

And that’s how you set up a virtual shop using WooCommerce on your WordPress website. WooCommerce truly is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the best free e-commerce solution for opening a e-store on your WordPress site. If you have any more questions you can ask us in the comments section below.