Introduction

WooCommerce is a flexible, open-source E-commerce solution built on WordPress. Whether you’re launching a business, taking an existing brick and mortar store online, or designing sites for clients you can get started quickly and build exactly the store you want.

Activate the free WooCommerce plugin on a new or existing WordPress site, follow the optional guided tour, and set up a new store in minutes with:

  • Product, Cart, and Checkout pages
  • Secure payments by credit card and alternatives
  • Configurable shipping options, including flat rates and label printing
  • Integrate content and commerce across your site via modular blocks
  • Automated tax calculations
  • Google Analytics, MailChimp, and Facebook integration
  • Central store dashboard with key metrics, and more.

Beyond the basics, WooCommerce is fully customisable and extendable:

  • Choose a design to suit your brand and industry.
  • Enhance your store with free and paid extensions: add features and integrate with local and global e-commerce web services.
  • Inspect and modify any aspect of the core plugin code.
  • Leverage hooks and filters to modify functions.
  • Build on top of the REST API and webhooks.

Open-source freedoms mean full ownership of content and data forever – plus the expertise of a friendly global community.

WooCommerce is built to allow store managers to run an e-commerce site themselves, no web developer needed. There is also a free WooCommerce mobile app (Android and iOS) for store management on the go.

WooCommerce is developed and supported by Automattic, the creators of Jetpack and WordPress.com, along with independent contributors. The official extension marketplace is on woocommerce.com.

From Subscriptions to Gym Classes to Luxury Cars

With WooCommerce, you can sell both physical and digital goods in all shapes and sizes, offer product variations, complex configurations, and instant downloads to shoppers; and even sell affiliate goods from online marketplaces.

And those are just the out-of-the-box options. With paid extensions, you can extend your WooCommerce store to take bookings, offer memberships, set up recurring payments by subscription, create dynamic pricing rules, and much more.

Start a monthly wine subscription box, offer a discount on yoga mats to members who’ve attended 10+ classes, offer configurable hampers or personalised jewellery – it’s all possible with WooCommerce.

Comprehensive Payment Options

WooCommerce comes bundled with the ability to accept major credit cards, alternative payment methods, BACS (bank transfers), and cash on delivery.

For additional options, WooCommerce also integrates with more than 140 region-specific gateways including popular choices like Stripe, PayPal, Square and Amazon Pay. Apple Pay and Google Pay are also supported.

Search for your payment service provider of choice on the official marketplace.

Ship Locally and Globally

Shipping with WooCommerce is highly configurable. Adjust the built-in settings to offer free shipping or flat rate shipping, limit your shipments to specific countries by setting up shipping zones, or open your store up to the world.

Official extensions connect you with hundreds of local and international carriers – including Royal Mail, FedEx, and Australia Post – and let you integrate with inventory management and fulfilment providers.

There are also extensions available to add delivery and shipping options and support strategies like buy-one-get-one free, free gifts, and add-ons. WooCommerce Shipping supports real-time calculations and printing labels at home.

Design Your Store With Themes and Blocks

WooCommerce store design starts with a theme of your choice. There are hundreds of free and paid themes available, including Storefront by Automattic — it’s free to all stores and you can choose to have it installed for you during the guided setup.

Storefront offers deep WooCommerce integration and prioritises speed and uptime. You can add your brand and define your style by customising Storefront yourself or adding one of several industry-themed Storefront child themes.

Personalise your store’s design even more with WooCommerce Blocks — use them to add selections of or single products to any page, for a seamless blending of commerce into the content.

Customise Your Store With Extensions

The easiest way to add features and functionality to a WooCommerce store is with an extension:

  • Sell anything – Subscriptions, Memberships, Bookings, Product Bundles, and more.
  • Make your store, your way – Product Add-Ons, Checkout Field Editor, Additional Variation Images, and more.
  • Customise your shipping options – Table Rate Shipping, Shipment Tracking, live rates from top carriers, and more.
  • Find your audience, market to them your way – Google Product Feed, LiveChat, Amazon/eBay marketplace integration, and more.
  • Drive sales – Dynamic Pricing, Smart Coupons, Google Ads, and more.

There are hundreds of official extensions reviewed by WooCommerce developers available on the WooCommerce.com marketplace, and many in the WordPress.org repository and on the wider web.

Control Your Data Forever

WooCommerce gives you complete control – from taxes to stock levels to customer accounts. Add and remove extensions, change your store’s design, and switch themes or hosts or payment service providers, all as you please.

In a world increasingly aware of the importance of data protection, WooCommerce gives you full ownership over what is tracked and stored. If you opt to share usage data with us, your data is anonymised and kept secure. At any stage, you can opt-out of all forms of tracking while still enjoying all of WooCommerce’s capabilities.

With WooCommerce, your data belongs to you. One of the risks of using a hosted e-commerce platform the risk of losing your store if the provider closes. WooCommerce store data is future-proof — you’re are free to export all your content and take your site wherever you choose.

Why Developers Like WooCommerce

WooCommerce was originally created with developers in mind. Built with a REST API, it integrates with virtually any service. Store data can be accessed anywhere, anytime, 100% securely.

WooCommerce allows developers to easily create, modify, and scale a store that meets the client’s specifications, and to make enhancements either with extensions or with a custom solution.

No matter the size of the store you want to build, WooCommerce has a robust framework that supports stores from basic to enterprise – with content and commerce in a single, central location.

WooCommerce is audited by a dedicated team of developers who work across time zones to identify and patch any and all discovered bugs. There is comprehensive, easily-accessible documentation that is updated with each release. With our docs, you’ll learn how to create the site your client needs.