Our company provides website development and hosting solutions for businesses of any size in our region. Since we are primarily build WordPress websites, we use Woo-Commerce whenever we have a customer who wants to have an online store. The sites range from single-page campaign pages, offering one product or such as an event ticket to complex multi-page site offering hundreds of products in the retail space. We have also successfully used WooCommerce to implement e-commerce solutions for the sale of digital goods, such as books and articles. Some customers want a "request a quote" solution as opposed to a full checkout and delivery system on their website and we have successfully implemented both of these types using WooCommerce. While WooCommerce doesn't natively handle every scenario that we come across in the e-commerce space, we are always able to find reliable add-ons to achieve the customers' goals.
Pros
WooCommerce has easy integration with WordPress and a wide variety of plug-ins or add-ons to expand the base functionality
The product management and bulk upload features of WooCommerce make it easy to get customers started quickly with e-commerce on their WordPress sites..
The included order management functionality with WooCommerce is simple for customers to use, even if they are not tech savvy. This allows us to handover the transaction management to customers after quick training sessions to effectively allow them to manage their online stores on their own.
WooCommerce has built-in capabilities for integrating with most of the popular payment gateway options for customers who want to handle the full transaction online.
Cons
While the product management functionality is good, the ability to manage the search functionality on websites that use WooCommerce needs some improvement. Although this is considered basic functionality, you need add-ons to set things like the match type on search queries. Without these add-ons, doing searches on a WooCommerce enabled website can have unexpected results that diminish the user experience.
Although, having plug-ins created by third-party's is a good thing, it also means that there is a higher risk of plug-ins being unsafe or not compatible with other features on the website or even other WooCommerce add-ons. This can and has compromise the integrity of some websites, causing both display and functionality issues.
Unless you just need a very basic website or a very basic e-commerce functionality, your development team is going to have to learn to use new plug-ins every time a customer wants some thing different from a standard e-commerce implementation. This is because features such as, discounts, post shopping surveys, and delivery reminders are not available out of the box with WooCommerce, and you will need to explore and likely purchase plug-ins outside of WooCommerce to achieve the desired functionality. This means that your development of e-commerce websites could slow down unless you restrict your customers to options that are included out of the box with WooCommerce only.
Likelihood to Recommend
WooCommerce is best suited to customers whose website is built on the WordPress platform, and whose development team has a good understanding of plug-in implementation. If your website is not built on WordPress, but on Laravel or React (or any other non WordPress technology), then WooCommerce is not for you. WooCommerce is also great for customers who just need a simple online shopping experience. If your needs involve more complex or immersive features such as timed discounts, pick up locations, delivery reminders, or post shopping feedback surveys, know that you will need to purchase additional add-ons to make to get these features using WooCommerce set up on WordPress.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Professional Services (Publishing company, 51-200 employees)
We use WooCommerce on my client's website. They sell products that are available for local delivery only. They do not have a storefront; their website is the only way for customers to find them and order from them. Therefore it solves the most basic problem: it allows them to have a business. They previously used a third-party site to list their products but that site closed, so now they have complete control over their online presence.
Pros
Easy to add/edit products.
Easy to update stock status.
Integrates nicely with WordPress.
Cons
Reports are VERY basic -- it requires additional plugins.
Search is VERY basic -- it requires additional plugins.
Putting products on sale/offering a discount is VERY basic -- it's better if you have special plugins.
Likelihood to Recommend
WooCommerce is well-suited for businesses that want to get up and running quickly and who do not need/want a lot of customizations to the out-of-the-box software. If you do want customizations, there are loads of plugins to choose from so probably whatever you want to do is possible, but be prepared for you (or a developer) to spend some time trying them out and configuring them. And even with special plugins, you might still need a developer to further customize them and/or adjust the styles so that the plugin functionality matches your site. I think it's probably quite powerful for larger sites with lots of products and lots of special features but I don't have as much experience with that so I can't say for sure (my client has 100-200 active products on their site at any given time).
VU
Verified User
Project Manager in Information Technology (Internet company, 1-10 employees)
WooCommerce is used to allow our readers to subscribe to our magazine (options including print or digital) and also to allow them a good deal of self service to edit their personal details, shipping addresses, billing address, and also to purchase gift subscriptions for loved ones. Through other Wordpress functions we’ve integrated Woocommerce into our entitlement system too, to unlock subscriber only content and even grant access to a subscriber only iPad app.
Pros
Subscriptions
Flexible checkout pages
Content protection
Digital and Physical Products
Customer self service
Cons
Clunky Default Checkout
Likelihood to Recommend
WooCommerce is perfect for everything except when there’s a single product, especially if it’s digital only, that doesn’t require much of a website around it and only checkout options — in which case Woocommerce is overkill and something like Gumroad could probably do the job.
It also requires a Wordpress environment so if that can’t be had for whatever reason then Woo is a non starter.
But for any traditional Ecommerce environment where Shopify or BigCommerce or other platform would be considered, WooCommerce is always preferable because it’s much more customizable and flexible.
I have used WooCommerce on a lot of my clients site. And one of the site is India's top Kids food online portal - MyLittleMoppet Foods. WooCommerce made it possible for naive clients to have their shop online easily with out of the box solutions related to shipping and pricing.
Pros
Ease of setup
Low cost, You can start online shop with almost 0$.
Big community around it for trouble shooting problems
Cons
Does not provide everything out of the box, for certain features you will have to install additional plugins.
Their own addon plugins are costly.
The Order table uses wp posts meta table, For those who have good amount of orders coming in, the table will keep getting larger by time that it might hog the server.
Likelihood to Recommend
Well Suited for:
Low cost quick online shop setup
Very easy to set up
Good support from the community for trouble shooting issues.
Less Appropriate:
You have to manage your own server for performance optimization
Based on PHP, there is always a chance of getting hacked if you use too many third party plugins
Does not cover everything out of the box - for an example hiding other shipping methods if free shipping is applicable. Weight based shipping etc.
WooCommerce is used across our organization to manage our online storefront.
Pros
Ability to be customized
Strong developer network
Strong ongoing support
Cons
Often times requires third party plugins to achieve functionality
Likelihood to Recommend
For folks that are looking to build a standard e-commerce website, and are currently using Wordpress as a CMS I think it is a great solution! If you really truly want deep functionality with your e-commerce website you may be better served creating a custom solution.
VU
Verified User
C-Level Executive in Sales (Computer Software company, 1-10 employees)
I have integrated Woocommerce for a client as part of custom-builds for a few WordPress catalogue and e-commerce sites, mostly for the management of their product catalogues and brands to support requirements on the frontend. In most cases, it’s been used to display high-end products with the e-commerce option disabled, but is in place to prepare for a time when online shopping may be required, to avoid a costly rebuild at that point.
Pros
Product and inventory management.
Extensive plugin ecosystem for various extensions to functionality.
Catalogue or e-commerce sites.
Multi-brand options.
Cons
Improved basic features.
Better SEO by default.
More validation around plugin stability.
Likelihood to Recommend
WooCommerce is useful for situations where you may be testing the waters on a site, even before deciding to sell the products online. Because of the plugins available and extensibility of features you can go from relatively minimal taxonomy per product to quite complex, which you can then reflect in the front-end - in other words, it’s very flexible to your requirements. On the flip side, it may be a little more manual to set up than a fully fledged solution out of the box as it is less prescriptive, so there is an element of needing to know what you want and sometimes searching a little to find it (or outsourcing custom dev).
VU
Verified User
Professional in Engineering (Computer Software company, 1-10 employees)
We use WooCommerce as a sales platform for a few client websites that we have built. It's a great way to implement a shopping cart feature into any WordPress-based website. It makes it really easy to list products, set up shipping, and take credit cards via a slew of different payment gateways.
If you are building an online store in any capacity, WooCommerce plus its slew of plug-ins is a great option.
Pros
Ease of use.
Slew of plugins to get anything achieved.
Great support from the company.
Can easily build products, either real or virtual, or even subscriptions.
Cons
Sometimes it feels like there are too many options - finding a way to remove unused items would be a great feature.
Some of the additional plug-ins are very expensive, but yet necessary.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are building a WordPress-based website and need a shop - you need WooCommerce. Period, end of the statement. If you are trying to just build an e-commerce site and it's not WordPress, no need for it.
Our company utilizes WooCommerce to sell customized products via a WordPress eCommerce website. We needed a way for customers to locate our business online, view our product offerings, and eventually place orders. WooCommerce was an easy option since it integrates directly with our website and is free to start. There are many paid plugins that we take advantage of but everything is based on the WooCommerce platform.
WooCommerce also makes it easy to track our online sales and manage our inventory.
Pros
Inventory Management.
Sales Reporting.
Processing eCommerce Orders.
Integration with WordPress.
Cons
WooCommerce can be dependent on other plugins.
While the base is a good start, you need to purchase lots of additions.
WooCommerce is not very customizable out of the box.
Likelihood to Recommend
WooCommerce is great if you are looking to start an eCommerce store and are not too familiar with web development. It requires no coding experience so is great for beginners who have some website hosting experience. WooCommerce does require you to have a WordPress website that needs to be hosted. Solving hosting problems can be a bit tricky so there are other options if you are looking for a complete one-stop-shop for an eCommerce solution.
We use WooCommerce for our ecommerce website. We use Wordpress to publish information on our company and products and WooCommerce to sell computer hardware an accessories. WooCommerce is easy to use and alllows us to manage our webite without having to hire expensive outside consultants which we had to do with our prior website that used the Manento ecommerce platform.
Pros
Simple product listing
Lots of payment options
Easy to use
Cons
Too many updates - Seems like there is always a pending update
Better image management
I wish it had more native shipment management functionality
Likelihood to Recommend
Really great for small businesses that cannot afford an outside IT professional. We used to use Magento, but it was so complex and difficult to change unless you hired an outside consultant. So glad that we switched.
VU
Verified User
Executive in Corporate (Computer Software company, 11-50 employees)
I have implemented WooCommerce to manage multiple stores on our own WordPress multisite network of more than 1500 member blogs. Through our featured store sites, we sell both physical goods and digital products. I have also installed and helped maintain WooCommerce stores for various other website clients selling a variety of products. WooCommerce is now my preferred e-commerce plugin for any WordPress sites I develop. Using WooCommerce and its various add-ons, I am able to quickly build out an online store and easily manage product inventory and sales.
Pros
Quick and intuitive install and configuration.
Sales tax management.
Cons
Shipping fee management when drop-shipping from multiple manufacturers.
WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce WordPress plugin for a reason. It works great out of the box for simple stores and can be customized in seemingly unlimited ways, thanks to a vast array of add-ons, excellent documentation, and quality technical support. Anyone who is familiar with maintaining a WordPress site can easily integrate a WooCommerce store.
