Every time someone asks me how to create a virtual store with WordPress I wonder how this technology has evolved and I wonder how much more it will surprise us.
A while ago if someone asked me that I would say to stop raving and nowadays it is not only a plausible question but also highly viable for anyone who wants to set up a virtual store without spending a lot of money in the beginning.
To learn how to create a virtual store with WordPress, first of all you need to size your e-commerce project to find out if the WordPress e-commerce platform supports your needs.
Although an online store with WordPress is a very advanced e-commerce solution today, there are technical restrictions for some very special functions.
Economy is an attraction to create a store with WordPress
Discussions about operating costs aside, the truth is that due to the booming market and demand far exceeding service capacity, even rented virtual stores, in the SAAS model, are priced very steeply, especially for those with little capital.
This movement ends up enabling options such as setting up a virtual store with WordPress, for example.
The system is free and the vast majority of plugins are too. The templates, layouts for the virtual store, can be purchased on specialized sites like Engine Themes , or Theme Forest at a very affordable price.
WordPress itself is already quite easy to work with, bringing together all the functions needed to manage a website on a single platform and without the need to know anything about programming .
When this ease of work is combined with an e-commerce solution that facilitates the administration of a virtual store, the result is a low cost store, easy to operate and great resources.
WordPress plugins for e-commerce
Those responsible for transforming WordPress into a virtual store are the plugins, accessories that are easily incorporated into the WordPress platform, adding new functions to the system.
The best-known e-commerce plugins for WordPress are WooCommerce , Jigoshop and WP E-commerce, both free and with the possibility of installation on any WordPress platform hosted on its own domain.
As with any open source e-commerce solution, you need basic knowledge of how WordPress works to configure the plugins and their functions.
I confess that when I set up my virtual store with WordPress for study purposes, I was impressed with the amount of resources I could implement in it. I learned the settings of each available plugin and explored its potential.
Features of a virtual store made with WordPress
In the beginning, when the first steps were taken towards the creation of virtual stores with WordPress , one of the main criticisms of this solution was the system’s lack of common functionalities in e-commerce.
At that time, creating an online store with WordPress was cheap but not technically feasible. Things have changed a lot since then.
Thanks to the evolution of the systems that allow creating virtual stores using WordPress, and to a hundred plugins that have been launched in this area, we can assemble a complete and technically perfect e-commerce system for professional e-commerce, using WordPress .
Here are some e-commerce functions available for an online store with WordPress:
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- A virtual store with WordPress can be easily integrated with the main facilitators and payment gateways in the country.
- Product image zoom features and other special features on the product detail page are now available in leading professional templates;
- Cross Selling and Ups Selling tools, in addition to other sophisticated conversion resources are already available both in the templates and can also be incorporated into the WordPress e-commerce platform through specific plugins;
- All sales, inventory and payment management resources are already incorporated into the platform, making the entire system manageable from a single panel.
- E-commerce SEO features as found, and sometimes even better than those found on other open source or rented platforms available on the market.
- Routines dedicated to digital marketing and conversion monitoring through Google Analytics are also already incorporated into the various e-commerce plugins for WordPress.
Online store with WordPress is not a free store
Having a virtual store made with WordPress is much cheaper than adopting other e-commerce solutions available on the market, but that does not mean that it is free.
To create a good quality virtual store with WordPress, some items such as professional templates, ready-made layouts for the virtual store have a cost like any other platform used by anyone who wants to create a sales site on the Internet.
In the case of templates, something around U$ 60 in most cases. The Theme Forest, as previously mentioned, is one of the most complete sites in terms of templates for virtual stores in WordPress.
There is also the issue of installing the system. If you know how WordPress works, there will be no cost to install and configure the system, but if you simply don’t know anything about the platform, you will need to hire someone to install the store and then teach you how to work with it.