How To Start An Online Store With Wordpress In 2021

If you need an online store and want to create one, then you are at the right place. This quick and helpful guide will help you make your online store with wordpress and WooCommerce, which is an excellent choice to create online stores. More than 70% of websites are using wordpress and WooCommerce to manage online stores. Wordpress and WooCommerce can help you to create your imaginary store.  

Creating an online store for business boosts the business and increases product selling, value, reputation, and word of mouth. Let's get some initial info about wordpress and WooCommerce before we proceed to create an online store.

What Is Wordpress?

Wordpress is a free and open-source content management system that uses PHP language. It uses MySQL and MariaDB databases and supports Windows and Linux operating systems. 

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is also a free and open-source plugin for wordpress used to create and manage online stores where you can sell products/services of any type. 

What Can You Sell/Offer With Wordpress + WooCommerce?

You can sell an infinite number of products and services with wordpress and WooCommerce online stores. 

• Digital products like software, downloads, eBooks, and more

• Services

• Subscriptions

• Physical products

• Bookings (all type of bookings)

• Sell other company/people products as an affiliate

• Custom products of your original products

Step By Step Procedure To Build Online Store With WordPress and WooCommerce

Step 1: Create Domain Name And Acquire Web Hosting

You will need two things for any online store: Web hosting and Domain name to host and create your URL. 

• Web hosting: You will need a web hosting service to store your website and services to users/customers. You can get web hosting providers according to your needs.

• Domain name: It is the URL of your website. It is necessary to buy a domain name to name your URL. For example, MYSTORE.COM. Be sure that you get a catchy domain name. It will easily attract customers. 

There are lots of domain and web hosting providers. You can get domain names at a cheap rate and web hosting at a low rate. Web hosting providers are also offering good service at affordable rates. You can select a suitable web hosting provider according to the website's needs and type.  The price starts from $2.70 per month.

For example, we are using bluehost.com as our web hosting provider.

Step 1: Creating A Domain Name

• You can see that Bluehost has three plans for wordpress: Basic, Plus and Choice plus. You can select any plan according to your needs. Plans start from $2.75 of the basic plan. We are using the basic plan to get web hosting on bluehost.com.

• We have selected a basic plan; in the next step, it will ask you to create a new domain name or use your own created one earlier. 

• In the next step, if you made a domain name from there, you will have to pay the fee of hosting.

Step 2: Installing Wordpress

Installing wordpress is a straightforward process. Now, you are installing your wordpress on your hosting account, which we have created earlier. We have used Bluehosting as web hosting to provide a user panel where you can easily install wordpress. In the hosting menu, under the website section, you can see a button "install wordpress." Just click on it and follow the instructions on the screen. 

• Now the wordpress is installed. You can see it by logging in to your website mystore.com. You will visit a blank webpage. 

• To access the admin panel, you can log in to mystore.com/wp-admin.

Now, the website is ready and published, but it's empty. Let's create an online store in it. 

Step 3: Installing a WooCommerce Plugin

As we discussed earlier, WooCommerce is a plugin for wordpress which helps create an online store of any type.  

• Go to "WordPress Dashboard / Plugins / Add New" you can search by typing "WooCommerce."

• Now, you can see the first result of the WooCommerce plugin. Click on the "install now" button.

• After completing the installation, click on "Activate." 

• Now, you will see a setup wizard of WooCommerce.

• Click on "let's go."

Creating Important Store Pages

The online store has particular pages for particular products and services to work correctly.  Like, My account, Cart, Shop, and Checkout. These all pages are necessary for all kinds of online stores. So, the installation wizard will create it for your online store. 

 Setting Up Locale

It is an essential part of creating the creation of the online store. This step will define your online store and business location, type of currency, and other product details. You can add every detail of the products here to show it on the webpage.

 Adding Sales Tax Details

WooCommerce will help you to add details about tax information.  It will ask you if you are going to ship physical goods to customers or not.  If you are shipping, then tick the button.  

• In the next step, it will ask you about sales tax. If you charge sales tax, check the button so the new box will appear.

• For double-check, you can ask locals for tax settings according to your state/nation taxes. 

• Now, adding tax details, click "continue", 

Choose A Payment Method

Your online store should accept payments from customers so that WooCommerce will set it up for you. WooCommerce offers reasonable payment solutions. You can check all possible payment options like cash on delivery, BACS payments, Check payments, stripe for credit card payments, and Standard PayPal payment. 

There two most used payment options PayPal and stripe. You can integrate both payment systems into your store/site; just tick mark it and press continue to apply these two.  The next page will ask you to confirm the details. 

Step 4: Adding Products And Services

Now, in this part, we are adding products/services to the online store. 

• Go to Dashboard / Products / Add product.

• You will see a wordpress editing screen. You can enter product name, product description, short description, product data like price, tax details, inventory details, shipping details, attributes, tags, and linked products.  You can add some good high-quality images to represent your product/service. 

• After adding all the details, you will see your products listed online. 

• You can add more products like described above.

Step 5: Add Theme To Your Online Store

WooCommerce works with any themes of wordpress, and you can get other themes you like from WooCommerce too. You can stick with wordpress themes or get a new one from WooCommerce. 

• You can get premium themes from wordpress, which is the most extensive theme directory of wordpress. 

Step 6: Making Store Design User Friendly

It is a crucial part of any online/offline store.  Design tells customers about the product trends; it creates a good feeling and attracts them to buy it. 

• The overall design of the store should be good enough for every visitor to get comfortable. The visitor should not get confused.

• The responsiveness of the website should be good; it should be able to load faster on every device. The store should fit from small to large screens easily. 

• Navigation of the store should be easy. It should not be confusing. 

The Main Store Page

It is the main page of your store where all products are listed. You can edit this page by going to the wordpress dashboard / Pages.  You can add sidebars on the page. You can use your templates, or you can get them from WooCommerce. You can display some products in a large section. 

The store page is highly tweakable. You can show product/service and categories or both and add individual product pages with designs too. You can add a customized shopping cart too.

Step 7: Adding Extensions And Plugins To WooCommerce

The official site has lots of add-ons to add to WooCommerce. The adds-on is ranging from tweaking the look of the store to managing inventory. 

Some Of The Famous Websites Created Using WooCommerce

1. Porter & York

2. Cupcake Studio

3. Dineamic

4. Buddhi Baby

5. EcoKitty

6. J. Horing

There are other famous websites also using WooCommerce and WordPress.

Conclusion

Creating an online store for any of your products or services is easy now. If you have gone through all the steps, now you will make your store with ease. You can also create your online store by hiring a wordpress developer. You can reach us at latitude technolabs; we have expert wordpress developers ready to grow your business with the online store.