One of the best features of WordPress is being able to install plugins on your site to add extra
functionality. This is especially true for ecommerce websites as you may find the need to add extra
functionality after your site has been up and running for a few months. Here are a few ecommerce
plugins you use to help improve the overall customer experience associated with your ecommerce
website.
Shopper Press
The first step in creating an excellent ecommerce store is to install a theme that will allow you
to sell products easily through your website. Shopper Press makes this task very easy as it turns
a simple WordPress blog into a beautiful ecommerce website. When you install this plugin on
your server, your site will be transformed from a typical WordPress blog into a sleek ecommerce
website. While this plugin does cost $79, there are twenty different themes to choose from, giving
you a lot of value for your money.
WooCommerce
The WooCommerce plugin is similar to the Shopper Press plugin as it helps transform your
Wordpress blog into a money making ecommerce site. WooCommerce is a free plugin that allows
you to monitor the success of your ecommerce website directly from the admin panel. Having these
stats in front of you makes it easy to review your sales figures and determine which products are
selling the best in your store.
My Brand Login
The My Brand Login plugin allows you to customize your site’s login, registration, admin panel
and lost password screens. A huge part of running a successful ecommerce website is branding your
website. By being able to change the layout of these specific pages, you will ensure that your login
pages match the style and layout of all of your other pages.
WangGuard
The WangGuard plugin help stop spammers dead in their tracks. If you have noticed your
ecommerce website has received a lot of spam-style signups, you can install this plugin to stop
those spammers from being able to create an account at your site. This will help keep your site
secure from any malicious attack, which could cause you a huge problem down the road when you
need to remove and malware that was installed on your website.
WP Stripe
This plugin from Stripe.com makes it easy to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and
Discover credit cards at your online store. Installing this plugin on your website will allow you to
accept all of the above credit cards without needing a merchant account. Stripe.com’s fees are 2.9%
+ $.30 for each successful charge. The funds that are collected through your site are transferred
to your bank account within seven days. If you have been looking for an easy to use payment
processor, the WP Stripe plugin is the solution to your problem.
Tips of How to Build an Ecommerce Website Using WordPress
Many novice webmasters turn to WordPress because of its ease of use. This is also true for people
looking to create an ecommerce website. With very limited web design skills, it is possible to create
an ecommerce website using WordPress in less than a day.
However, before you start building your ecommerce site, you will want to do a good amount of
market research to make sure the market you are thinking of entering is not oversaturated with
competition. Having a good idea of how much money you can make before building your website
can help you save time and energy that would have otherwise been wasted entering a market where
there is no chance you would gain any traction.
Once you have found a viable market, you will need to install a good ecommerce theme on your
Wordpress site. Using either WooCommerce or Shopper Press mentioned above are your best
bets when it comes to creating your first ecommerce website. Once you get a feel for the different
features you need and do not need, you can investigate upgrading your ecommerce shopping cart to
something more robust.
When setting up your ecommerce theme, you need to keep your customer’s experience in mind.
Making it easy for someone to find the products they are looking for while visiting your website
will help you increase your sales. Also, making the checkout process as simple as possible will help
increase your conversion rate as well. As long as you keep these two items in mind when tweaking
the design of your website, you should have no problem creating a successful ecommerce website
using WordPress.
Citations:
- Photo taken from Flick with CC license. Author: el gris
Attached Images:
- License: Creative Commons image source
Ben Sawyer created many successful online marketing campaigns for his clients, improving their online rankings and helping them to gain more visitors. Here Ben shared some tips for wordpress plugins which helped him a lot through campaign for www.vandkocandles.com , one of his clients.