WordPress essentially rules the content management system game, powering over 43% of websites. With numbers like that, it must be pretty flexible and easy to use, right? And many entrepreneurs are now leveraging these features to create eCommerce stores on WordPress.
But how well does this open-source platform actually help online sellers? Can it truly provide everything needed to effectively run an eCommerce business? Let’s weigh the pros and cons to get more clarity.
Pros of Using WordPress For eCommerce
Although WordPress is renowned for managing content, it’s increasingly becoming popular for eCommerce. The platform offers businesses amazing control and flexibility at an unbeatable price. Let’s explore the top benefits of using WordPress for eCommerce retailers to build their online stores using this content management system-
1. Budget-Friendly Foundation
The WordPress software itself is entirely free to use, allowing entrepreneurs to minimize upfront costs. This is the key benefit of using WordPress for eCommerce. You still have to manage additional expenses like web hosting, domains, and plugins, but this approach keeps overhead low. Many eCommerce platforms charge monthly fees or take sales commissions, but WordPress gives you full financial control from day one.
2. No Sales Commissions
Unlike traditional eCommerce platforms, WordPress does not take commissions from transactions through your site. With WordPress, you only need to pay payment processing fees to your chosen payment gateway and bank. This approach ensures that 100% of your sales revenue goes directly to your business.
3. Boundless Customization
With thousands of plugins and themes available, online sellers can handpick tools to create customized shops matching their brand and functionality needs. Want to easily integrate a contact form, enhance your product galleries, design a product landing page, or tweak your checkout process? There’s a plugin for that! The WordPress ecosystem equips you with an endless toolbox to tailor and optimize your online store. This shows why choosing WordPress for eCommerce is the perfect option.
4. Limitless Growth Potential
WordPress lets you showcase as many products as you wish while supporting unlimited order volumes. Your business can scale without any restrictions on inventory or sales set by the software. Never worry about outgrowing your platform or paying fees to upgrade.
5. Complete Ownership & Control
You retain full control over your site when building on WordPress. Even if you switch web hosts, you still own your store data, content, and sales revenue. That offers peace of mind for online retailers wanting to control their destiny. With WordPress, your business’ fate lies in your hands alone.
Cons of Using WordPress For eCommerce
1. A Learning Curve Emerges
As you start using WordPress, you might need to spend some time learning how to use it effectively and efficiently by familiarizing yourself with its best practices. However, an abundance of beginner-friendly tutorials allows most new users to quickly get up to speed. Within a short timeframe, store owners typically achieve WordPress mastery.
2. Ownership Requires Responsibility
As the sole proprietor of a WordPress site, the responsibility falls on you for critical management tasks – such as installing software updates for WordPress security and access to new features. Similarly, site backups and data protection also rest in your hands rather than on the platform itself. Thankfully, plugins and managed WordPress hosts help automate and ease much of this maintenance burden.
3. Business Growth Impacts Costs
While WordPress offers extremely affordable initial setup costs, expenses may accumulate more substantially down the road as your store experiences massive spikes in traffic. Upgrading to managed WordPress hosting and increased server resources becomes necessary to accommodate growth at scale. However, the revenue from a successful business helps cover these expenses.
How to Launch Your Online Store with WordPress ?
WordPress.org allows you to fully own and control your site files and data. You’ll need to purchase your own web hosting plan and domain name to use WordPress.org software.
Quality hosting for an eCommerce site starts around $8/month for entry-level plans when paying annually. Domain name registration typically costs about $15-20 per year. Many popular hosts like Bluehost offer new WordPress users domain and hosting bundles to simplify initial setup.
Once you secure hosting and a domain, installing and configuring the WordPress software through your control panel is a straightforward process. Most hosts provide auto-installers that handle the complex part for you. From there, you can begin customizing your online store with eCommerce plugins, themes, and pages.
Check out our blog for a detailed step-by-step guide on how to create your own eCommerce store.
