WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is super-flexible, cost-effective, and easy to manage even for beginners. However, many beginners feel a bit intimidated by the idea of setting up WooCommerce themselves. Most users struggle to find out how to get started with WooCommerce and what’s the proper way to setup WooCommerce. In this ultimate WooCommerce tutorial, we will guide you through how to set up WooCommerce with step by step instructions. We will also share WooCommerce resources like best WooCommerce themes, WooCommerce SEO tips, and other useful resources to help you grow your store.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a free eCommerce software that makes it easy for selling products and services online. Over the years, it has become the most popular eCommerce platform in the world used by millions of small and large businesses (online stores). WooCommerce is developed as an extension of WordPress which is the most popular website builder on the market. This allows users to build an eCommerce website from scratch or add shopping cart functionality to an existing website. As an open-source software, WooCommerce is free to download and use. However, while the WooCommerce software is free, you still need a domain name and web hosting service to setup a website, which costs money. We will talk more about WooCommerce pricing later in this article.
What Do You Need to Make a WooCommerce Store?
You will need the following three items to make a WooCommerce website from scratch.
- A WordPress hosting account. This is where all your website files will be stored.
- A domain name. This is your website’s address on the internet e.g. wpbeginner.com
- A SSL Certificate to securely accept online payments
The above items are not free and cost money. Often beginners ask, if WooCommerce is free, then why do I need to pay for these things. Well, you need to pay for these three things to build any type of website (not just WooCommerce). The overall cost of your online store (WooCommerce pricing) will depend on which services you choose to purchase for your website. You can easily control the costs by only purchasing what you actually need. Remember, you can add other things later as your business starts making money. Normally, web hosting would cost you $7.99 / month for a starter site, domain name $14.99 per year, and an SSL certificate around $69.99 per year. Now, this is a significant investment and every penny counts when you are starting a new business.
Luckily, TechoMarket, an official WooCommerce and WordPress recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer WPBeginner readers an exclusive discount on web hosting with free domain name and SSL. Basically, you’ll be able to start for $2.75 per month.