Tuhel

15 Sep 2014

Using WordPress as an E-Commerce Solution?

WordPress Content Management System (CMS) is the world’s number one CMS used by almost 55% of the 1 million most visited websites that are run on a content management system (CMS) are run on WordPress according to W3Techs.

Most people will know and will have used WordPress for blogging, and may not be aware of the fact that it can be used for e-commerce websites. You may get a lot of blank looks if you mention running an online shop based on WordPress. However the beauty of WordPress as a popular CMS with its well developed and fine-tuned system makes it an ideal platform to start your own on-line store. It’s not for those looking to sell on the level of amazon or eBay but ideal for anyone wishing to test the waters with a small store offering 100s of products rather than a full catalogue of products. If you’re considering venturing into e-commerce, it’s essential to be mindful of factors such as PayPal fees in Germany.

The great thing about WordPress is that it works on themes which you can buy or get it custom made to your design.With the added bonus of a range of free and paid plugins, which cover all manner of tools, techniques and features you have never thought of using. This vast pool of themes and plugins is what makes WordPress the King of all the CMS platforms out there. It’s easy of use, simplified installation and management using plugins has allowed it to become the most popular CMS. Technical minded users may differ and suggest Joomla or Drupal which are heavy and complicated beasts, not for the average non-technical small business user, worth reading this “How WordPress Took The CMS Crown From Drupal And Joomla“.

As a new start-up business or an existing small business owner, you want a site that works well, can be managed by any member of the staff, requires little or no maintenance and costs little to develop. You get this by using WordPress as your E-commerce platform.
You have a choice of choosing from a range of themes which are already designed so that you can open the shop straight away, or you can customise the settings of the theme to make it fit your design or branding. You can use anyone of the following plugins to develop something more customised to your requirements. Here is a great WordPress E-Commerce plugin comparison guide that is worth having a look at.

WordPress E-Commerce Plugins – Free and Paid?

WordPress was never designed for e-commerce, but don’t let that fool you. If you want to test the market with a few products and want to host the website yourself, so you can save on the cost of paying someone else for hosting your website, then WordPress may be the solution. With your own WordPress website you only pay once for the design and build, obviously you still have to find your own web hosting provider, but the beauty is that it’s cheap to buy your own web space for hosting your website. Shop around for the best and cheapest web hosting companies in the UK or ask someone you know for recommendations on a good provider.

There are a huge number of developers who know and understand WordPress that you will have no problems finding someone who can fix odd bits of coding, update your site as and when you need to. Have a look at our hosted e-commerce solutions article, for an alternative to WordPress, hassle free and pain-free. Also be sure to check this article about cross-platform analytics, a great help for e-commerce businesses.

We let you choose the option that best suits your business needs. Here to help, feel free to share with us your experience of getting a website designed for e-commerce, we’d love to hear your views.

If you have a wordpress e-commerce store, please share with us your experience.